She doesn’t answer, just stares at me with those blue eyes that used to look at me with trust instead of fury.
“I decided to hear your side of the story before I make any decisions about what happens next.” She crosses her arms again. “Because despite everything, I deserve to know the truth from you instead of finding out during a government debriefing.”
I sink back into my chest as every speck of air leaves my lungs. The fact that she came to me first, and that she’s giving me the chance to explain before her handlers drag her away and turn her against me is more than I deserve. More than I had any right to hope for.
She could have just disappeared in the night, called her extraction team, and been gone before the arrest happened.
Instead, she’s standing here demanding answers, giving me one last opportunity to tell my side before everything goes to hell and warning me in the process.
It’s either mercy or cruelty; I’m not sure which.
“It wasn’t kidnapping,” I try to lie. “You were injured in an explosion. I took care of you.”
She jabs a finger against the wooden surface and says, “You took advantage of my memory loss to create a fictional identity. You made me believe I loved you when I was actually here to investigate your organization.”
“The feelings between us aren’t fictional.”
“Don’t. I remember now why I was at that gallery. I remember my mission parameters and my handler’s instructions. I remember everything about Operation Nightfall.”
Operation Nightfall. The FSB’s attempt to infiltrate and destroy my organization from the inside. The mission that was supposed to end with my arrest and the dismantling of everything my family built.
“And what do you remember about that operation?”
“That I spent a year getting close to you. That I was supposed to gather intelligence about your financial operations, your personnel structure, and your territory agreements. That I was supposed to seduce you and make you trust me enough to reveal information that would destroy you.”
My stomach drops. She was ordered to seduce me? That doesn’t make any sense. She never acted interested in me. Sure, we had some innocent flirtation, but she never crossed that line.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I’m not a whore. I gather intelligence, I don’t fuck targets for information.”
Her voice carries disgust at the very idea. “I had everything my handlers wanted. A complete picture of your organization that would have brought you down, but the intelligence died with Alexandra Volkova in that hospital, didn’t it?” She tilts her head. “You made sure of that when you picked me up at the hospital.
“All of it. Before the explosion interrupted my mission, and you erased every piece of evidence I’d collected.”
It’s true. I destroyed her equipment. I wiped her digital footprint and eliminated every trace of her identity before I brought her home.
“What do you remember about the explosion, Katya?” I ask, trying to steer the conversation away from that pointed barb.
Her confidence wavers, and she looks around the room like she’s trying to remember. “A car bomb. Someone drove into the building, and then?—”
“The Borisenko family tried to kill you. They approached me three weeks before the gallery opening with information about your real identity. Offered to ‘take care of the problem’ as a gesture of goodwill between our organizations.”
Katya pales. “What?”
“I declined their generous offer. Told them I preferred to handle my problems. Apparently let slip that I had more than a professional interest in my supposed art curator.” I lean back in my chair and add, “So they decided to eliminate the threat themselves.”
Her mouth falls open, and she gasps. “You knew? You knew who I was before the explosion?”
“I’ve known since about two weeks into your little infiltration game. Did you really think you could fool me for long?”
“Then why didn’t you kill me?” she asks.
“Killing you would have been wasteful.”
I stand up and walk around the desk until I’m close enough to see the confusion and anger warring in her eyes.
“Better to make you fall in love with me… then reveal the truth and destroy you the way you planned to destroy me.”
