“You didn’t come to talk about my hair, did you?”
Folding my arms, I leaned against the wall. “Alina, you have to tell me whatever it is you’re hiding. Whatever information Vitya shared with you. Our marriage should be enough proof to you—there’s no escape if you don’t tell me what you know.”
“I already told you. I don’t know anything. Aside from his annoyingly obsessive texts, Vitya and I haven’t been in contact for months. He didn’t tell me anything,” she answered, a hint of anger in her voice.
“The thing is—” I started before the door opened.
“Sir!” Ruslan rushed. “Good evening, sir!”
He looked from me to Alina and then lifted the tray in his hand. “I brought her dinner.”
I gestured towards the stool by the vanity.
“Thank you,” she told him, her tone low.
There was a trace of humor in her expression as he answered, “Yeah. Later.”
When he stood to his full height again, and she wiggled her eyebrow at him, it confirmed my thought.
They were friends. Or were fast becoming that.
How do people become friends in a few days, by the way?
Moving briskly, he left the room.
She looked up at me again, wordlessly prompting me to go on.
“I don’t believe you’re innocent,” I stated, my voice flat. “But I don’t believe you're guilty, either.”
“That’s rather interesting,” she said.
“You're in the middle of a storm you don’t understand,” I declared, walking over to the stool she sat on.
She met my gaze in the mirror as she replied, “Then let me help you end it.”
I was surprised, but looking at the way her pupils dilated a fraction, she was, too. The words definitely came out before she could think better of it.
Recovering from her shock, she explained, “There are not many ways to end a storm. Just hand me over to the Russian authorities, then. Or you could kill me.”
“What—”
“Keeping me hostage won’t make me suddenly tell you what I don’t know. I can’t fabricate things in the name of having something to tell you. The authorities will probably not believe me, either. But it’s that or I’m dead. So, make up your mind.”
“I will do no such thing,” I fired back, my voice coming out a bit louder than intended. “And you’re not a hostage. We’re fucking married.”
“Yeah, the way normal people all over the world get married,” she lashed out, her brown eyes flashing angrily at mine through the mirror.
But anger wasn’t all there was in her eyes. I could see fear, too. It felt like she was pulling me in with some invisible string, forcing me to feel, at least, a bit of what she felt. It happened at the library and, before then, at the chapel adjoining room after the wedding. And that effect was clearly the only explanation for my trying to find a way to calm her down.
I’m thinking of ways to stop upsetting someone I should be getting information from. What could be more insane?
“I'm not sending you to the Feds,” I told her, my voice calmer. “Not killing you, either.”
“As long as I cooperate, right?” she inquired, chuckling.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out.
“Alexei,” I said as I picked up the call. “Back home? Okay, then…you will.”
