She stops. Comprehension spreads across her face like poison through a bloodstream.
“Demonstrations. You said demonstrations at the banquet. You were talking about—”
Her breathing gets faster.
“Aerosolized. You need aerosolized compounds for—”
“Chechen negotiations.” I move closer, and she doesn’t back away. Ventilation systems. Body counts high enough to make territorial disputes seem less appealing than cooperation.”
I take another step toward her, close enough now to see the exact moment her entire world restructures around what I just told her.
“You created a mass destruction weapon, solnyshko. Be proud.”
“Don’t.” Her voice cracks, and she’s shaking her head like she can physically reject what I’m telling her. “Don’t you dare call me that while you’re telling me I just—while you’re saying I—”
She presses her hand against her stomach.
“Tonight. You delivered them tonight. I saw you carry the case to Vadim’s car, and you told me they were going to regional hospitals for the antidote trials, and I believed you because I thought—”
She stops, and her hand comes up to her mouth.
“You thought what?”
“I thought you were different.” Barely above a whisper now, and the sound of her voice breaking does something to me I don’t want to examine. “I thought the man who plays Tchaikovsky at three in the morning and washes blood off his hands before he touches me couldn’t possibly—wouldn’t—”
Her voice hardens.
“But you can. Youdid. You looked me in the eyes while I sealed those vials and let me believe I was saving people when really I was just helping you murder them.”
“Your chemistry buys me time to burn Vadim’s trafficking networks.” I don’t soften it because she deserves to hear it straight, even if the words taste like ash in my mouth. “They buy Mishka safety in Belgium. They buy you a laboratory instead of a shallow grave. You think I give a shit about hypothetical casualties when the alternative is you and your brother in actual body bags?”
“Hypothetical?” Her voice goes shrill, and she’s stepping toward me instead of away, getting in my face. Her eyes are blazing with something that makes me want to grab her and shake her and fuck her until she understands. “Forty thousand people, Roman. That’s the deployment estimate for concentration I created. Forty thousand people who are going to die because I believed you when you said—”
“I said what I needed to say to keep you working.”
“You’re aliar.” The words hit harder than any curse would have. “You’re amonster.”
“I protected you.”
“From what?” She shoves my chest, and I have to take a step back. “From the truth? From knowing what kind of monster I married? From understanding that every time you touched me, you were just keeping your little weapon maker happy and compliant?”
“That’s not—”
“You’re exactly what everyone says you are.” She shoves me again, and tears are streaming down her face now, cutting through the mascara. “A butcher. My mother died trying to create antidotes, died believing science could fix what men like you destroy, and you took that—you took her legacy, and you made me into the thing that killed her.”
“Your mother was naive.”
The words come out cold, and I regret them immediately, but I can’t take them back. The look on Anya’s face tells me I just crossed a line I can’t uncross.
She slaps me.
Her palm cracks across my cheek, snapping my head to the side. Everything inside me goes very still and very quiet, and something that’s been caged for a very long time opens its eyes.
I turn my head slowly back to face her, and whatever she sees in my expression makes her take a step backward.
“Roman—”
I move before she can finish, before she can run, crowding her backward until her spine hits the wall and my hands slam against the plaster on either side of her head, caging her in with my body. She’s breathing hard now, her chest heaving against mine.
