A pause.
He was listening to Ms. Sterling’s reply.
“Write down the PIN. 3‑8‑0‑6. The card is in her purse. The black Midwest Trust one. Take it all. She’s got over a hundred and twenty thousand in there.”
Kiana closed her eyes.
There it was.
The exact thing she had been waiting for.
Now, in this moment, everything was decided, finally.
There was no more doubt, hesitation, or pity.
Only cold, clear certainty.
“Just tonight, so she doesn’t have time to block it in the morning,” Darius continued. “I’ll tell her tomorrow that the card was stolen on the bus. We’ll split it fifty‑fifty. Deal?”
Another pause.
Then he muttered a short,
“Go get it.”
Click.
The conversation was over.
Kiana lay there staring at the ceiling.
Inside, it was surprisingly quiet.
No pain, no disappointment.
Just a faint, almost ironic curiosity about what they would feel when everything went wrong.
Darius returned a couple of minutes later, lay down carefully, pulled up the blanket, and breathed unevenly, nervously.
He was clearly anxious.
Kiana smiled in the darkness.
Don’t worry, she thought.
You’ll be much more anxious soon.
She turned onto her side, getting comfortable.
She didn’t want to sleep, but she had to pretend.
She closed her eyes, relaxed her shoulders, and slowed her breathing.
Let him think she hadn’t heard anything.
Let him hope.
Time crawled by.
Kiana listened to the dripping faucet behind the wall, the wind whistling in the window frame, and Darius tossing and turning under the blanket.
He clearly couldn’t fall asleep.
He was probably running the plan through his head, imagining his mother withdrawing the money, how they would split the spoils, and how he would pretend to be shocked and outraged tomorrow.
Kiki, the card was stolen. Scammers. We need to call the bank immediately.
A pathetic performance—but they apparently believed it would work.
About thirty or forty minutes passed.
Kiana was starting to drift off for real when Darius’s phone suddenly vibrated fiercely on the nightstand.
He jumped as if he’d been stung, grabbed the phone, and stared at the screen.
Even in the dark, Kiana could see his face turn pale, almost gray.
The screen showed “Mom.”
The message was long.
The text flashed, but Kiana clearly saw the beginning.
Son, she knew everything. Something’s happening to me…
Darius froze.
Then he quickly turned and looked at his wife.
She lay motionless, eyes closed, breathing evenly and deeply.
He stared for ten seconds, then sprang out of bed and rushed out of the bedroom, leaving the door ajar.
Kiana opened her eyes.
The hall light came on.
She heard Darius pacing frantically around the apartment, muttering something under his breath.
Then the click of a lighter, the smell of cigarette smoke.
He was smoking right in the apartment, even though he always went out onto the small balcony for that.
She got up, put on her robe, and went into the hallway.
Darius stood by the window, holding the phone in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other.
His face was chalk‑white.
Drops of sweat glistened on his forehead.
“What happened?” Kiana asked calmly, leaning against the doorframe.
He flinched, turning around sharply.
“Nothing. Everything’s fine.”
“It doesn’t look fine. You’re pale and smoking indoors.”
He swallowed, looking away.
“Mom texted. She’s having trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
A pause.
Darius took a drag and exhaled the smoke out the cracked window.
“I don’t know exactly. Something with the bank. She went to the ATM, tried to withdraw money, and they blocked the card and called security. I don’t understand what’s going on.”
Kiana walked closer, looking at him intently.
“That’s odd. Why did she go to the ATM late at night?”
“How should I know? Maybe she needed cash urgently.”
Darius nervously extinguished the cigarette on the windowsill.
“Kiki, I don’t know. She wrote that it was a misunderstanding, that they accused her of attempted fraud. It’s nonsense.”
Kiana nodded.
“I see. And whose card was she trying to use?”
He froze, looking at her with a long, scrutinizing gaze.
Something flashed in his eyes—fear, suspicion, despair.
“Hers, probably. Whose else?”
“I don’t know. You know best.”
The silence stretched on.
They stood facing each other, and the air between them was so thick it could have been cut with a knife.
“I don’t know anything,” Darius finally choked out. “Absolutely nothing. It’s some kind of mistake.”
Kiana smirked.
“A mistake, of course.”
She turned and headed for the kitchen.
She turned on the light and put the kettle on.
Her hands were calm and steady.
Darius followed her, stopping by the table.
“Kiki,” he began cautiously, “did you, by any chance, change the PIN on your card?”
She turned around, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes. I did. Day before yesterday. Why?”
His face fell.
“Why?”
“For security. You were the one who said we need to be careful. So I decided to protect myself.”
He was silent.
Kiana could almost see him frantically trying to figure out what had gone wrong.
The kettle boiled.
She poured water into a mug and dropped in a tea bag.
“And I left the old PIN on my other card,” she continued calmly, stirring her tea. “The spare one. It only has three dollars on it, but the card is active.”
Darius turned even paler.
“Three dollars?”
“Mhm. But the card is linked to the bank’s security service. You know that thing? If someone tries to withdraw a large sum, the bank immediately blocks the operation and calls security. Convenient, right?”
Silence.
It was so heavy that she wanted to open the window and let in some fresh air.
Darius stood with his mouth agape, looking at her as if she were a ghost.
Then he swallowed and ran a hand over his face.
“Did you… did you do that on purpose?”
Kiana sipped her tea.
“Of course I did it on purpose. Did you think I didn’t hear your conversation with your mother in the kitchen about getting the PIN and withdrawing the money?”
He backed away as if she had struck him.
“I… we… It’s not what you think.”
“It’s not?”
Kiana smiled sadly.
“Darius, I heard every single word. Your brilliant plan to steal my money, split it fifty‑fifty, and blame it on scammers. Clever plan. I’ll give you that.”
He tried to say something, but his voice broke.
“Kiki, Mom came up with it. I was against it, honestly. She just pressured me, saying she had nothing to live on, saying you were greedy—”
“Stop.”
Kiana raised her hand.
“Don’t try to pin everything on your mother. You agreed to it. You just dictated the PIN to her half an hour ago. I heard everything, so don’t lie.”
Darius slumped into a chair, burying his head in his hands.
“God, what’s going to happen now? What’s going to happen now?”
Kiana finished her tea and put the mug in the sink.
“Now your mother is sitting at the bank explaining to the security service why she was trying to withdraw over a hundred thousand dollars from someone else’s card. They might transfer the case to the police if they want to. It depends on whether I file a report.”
He looked up quickly.
“You won’t file one. Please don’t. That’s my mom. They’ll arrest her.”
Kiana looked at him for a long, scrutinizing moment.
There he sat, pathetic and scared, begging for mercy for his mom—the same person who had tried to clean out his wife an hour earlier.
“I don’t know,” she said finally. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Darius jumped up and stepped toward her.
“Kiki, please understand. This was just a stupid mistake. We didn’t want to hurt you. We just needed the money.”
“Money is always needed,” she interrupted. “But normal people earn it. They don’t steal it from their wives.”
He fell silent, standing with his hands hanging uselessly at his sides, his face etched with complete despair.
