But my training kicks in before my manners do, and I find myself assessing her body for injuries. For anything that might explain the fear that lives permanently in her eyes.
That’s when I see the bruises. They’re faded to yellow and green but still visible on her upper arms. The unmistakable shape of fingerprints is branded into her soft skin; four on the outside and one thumb-shaped mark on the inside.
Someone grabbed her. Someone hurt her. Someone wrapped their hands around her arms and squeezed hard enough to leave marks that are still visible.
My vision goes red.
“Get out!” Daria’s voice snaps me back to reality. She snatches a towel from the rack and wraps it around herself. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I heard a crash,” I sputter. “I thought someone was?—”
“It was shampoo. I dropped the shampoo.” She clutches the towel against her chest like armor. “Now get out.”
“Those bruises on your arms?—”
“Are none of your business,” she snaps. “Please. Just go.”
I retreat and close the door behind me. I’m shaking, and I don’t know if it’s from adrenaline or rage or something else.
Someone hurt her.
The thought bounces through my skull as I pace the small living room, unable to sit still. Someone put their hands on her. Someone left those marks on her skin. Someone made her afraid, and she’s been covering it up, acting like everything is fine.
Was it her ex-husband? The Bogdan guy she’s never mentioned but whose shadow seems to hang over everything in this apartment? His name appeared in her file—former spouse, no custody arrangement on record, and no contact information listed. Just a name and a marriage that ended three years ago.
I think about the blocked phone calls. The way her face drains of color every time her phone rings. The fear that never quite leaves her eyes, even when she’s smiling at her daughter or lost in a piece of music.
I think about Kira asking if someone hurt me like they hurt her mama.
I clench my fists at my sides. I want to find whoever did this, wrap my hands around their throat, and squeeze until they understand how it feels to be helpless and afraid. I want to make them suffer the way they made her suffer.
But I can’t do any of that. I’m here to investigate her, not protect her. I’m here to determine her guilt, not avenge her pain.
The bathroom door opens, and Daria walks out in sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt that covers everything below her neck. She doesn’t look at me as she walks past, heading straight for the kitchen.
“Daria—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Someone hurt you.”
She stops with her back to me. Her shoulders rise and fall with a breath that seems to take enormous effort before she continues to the kitchen to prepare dinner. She’s holding herself together through willpower, and I recognize the technique because I’ve used it myself. After Syria. After Lana. After every mission that left scars on my soul that no one else could see.
She reminds me of a dove I found as a boy, one that had flown into a window and lay stunned on the ground. It trembled in my hands when I picked it up, its heart beating so fast I thought it might die from fear alone. I held it gently until it recovered enough to fly away. Daria has that same quality—fragile and frightened, but with a quiet strength underneath. Golubka, I think. Little dove. The nickname settles into my mind like it belongs there.
I don’t push, but I file the information away alongside everything else I’ve learned about Daria Kozlov.
Someone is hurting her. Someone is threatening her. Someone has left marks on her body and terror in her eyes.
And I’m starting to think that same someone is connected to the crimes she’s accused of.
That night,I lay in the narrow bed in the spare room and stare at the ceiling. Sleep refuses to come. I see her every time I close my eyes.
Her mouth parting when she saw me. The flush that spread across her chest before she grabbed the towel.
I shouldn’t be thinking about this. She’s my assignment. She’s potentially a traitor to the family I serve. But she’s also a frightened woman with a child who depends on her.
My cock doesn’t care about any of that.
