Deep cover maintained. Target trust increasing. Will have actionable intelligence soon. Stand by.
I hit send before I can second-guess myself.
Boris returns exactly thirty minutes later.
We spend the next hour going over communication procedures. How often I’ll check in with Dmitri’s team. What securitymeasures I need to follow when contacting Adrian. The specific false intelligence I’ll be feeding him and when.
“You’ll report every communication with Adrian within one hour,” Boris explains. “Every call. Every text. We need to know exactly what you’re telling him so we can track it.”
“Understood.”
“The false intelligence in that folder—memorize it. Adrian’s smart. If you hesitate when he asks questions, he’ll know something’s wrong.”
“I’ve done this before.”
“One more thing. Sasha hasn’t decided if she wants to see you. If she does, you follow her lead. You don’t push. You don’t demand. You let her set the terms. Clear?”
“Clear.”
“Good. Because if you hurt her again, Dmitri’s bullet will be a mercy compared to what I’ll do to you.”
He leaves, and I’m alone again with my thoughts and the view of the compound gardens.
I spend the rest of the afternoon reviewing the plan. I commit every detail to memory until I can recite it without thinking.
Evening comes. Boris brings dinner—actual food on actual plates. Chicken, rice, and vegetables that aren’t grey. I eat mechanically, barely tasting anything.
When I’m done, I walk to the window. The gardens below are empty except for a few guards on patrol. The sun is setting, painting everything in shades of orange and gold.
And then I see her.
Sasha walks into the gardens alone. She’s wearing jeans and a sweater, and around her neck is a scarf I bought her in St. Petersburg. Dark blue silk with delicate silver embroidery. I saw it in a shop window and thought it would match her eyes.
She sits on a stone bench and pulls out a book. From this distance, I can’t tell what she’s reading, but I watch the way she tucks her hair behind her ear when it falls forward. The way she bites her lip when she’s concentrating on the page.
She kept the scarf.
Maybe she forgot where it came from. Maybe she just grabbed whatever was closest when she left her room. Or maybe—and this is the thought that makes it hard to breathe—maybe she kept it because some part of her still wants to believe the man who gave it to her was real.
I don’t know which explanation is true.
But for the first time since my cover shattered, I feel something that isn’t despair or regret.
I feel hope.
It’s a fragile thing that could shatter with one wrong word or look from her, but it’s there, persistent, refusing to die no matter how many times I tell myself I don’t deserve it.
Sasha closes her book and stands. She wraps the scarf more tightly around her neck against the evening chill the way she always does it, starting from one end and tucking it just so.
She walks back toward the main house. Doesn’t look up at my window. Probably doesn’t even know which room they’ve given me.
But she’s wearing the scarf.
And that has to mean something.
21
Sasha
