He pressed one hand between my breasts and pinned me to the wall. He put the muzzle of the gun against my forehead, the metal shockingly cold. I could see my own terrified eyes reflected in the gun’s chrome. And suddenly, I knew why he was using a gun. He loved me. He couldn’t hurt me with his own hands, couldn’t bear to put them around my neck and squeeze the life out of me. He needed the gun to make it distant and emotionless.
His eyes were wet. “Izmennik.”
I didn’t need to speak Russian. The meaning was there in his expression, in the disappointment in his voice: traitor.
I closed my eyes.
And heard him pull the trigger.
54
Konstantin
A BOOM like the end of the world. Then utter silence. She’s gone.
I’d closed my eyes as I did it, unable to watch. I couldn’t bear to open them again.
It was several seconds before I felt it: a finger tentatively brushed the hand that pinned her to the wall. Then her fingers closed around mine and squeezed tight.
We both opened our eyes at the same time.
We were staring at each other from six inches apart. A few inches to the left of her head, there was a smoking hole in the plaster.
Something inside me had rebelled, as I’d pulled the trigger. I’d jerked the gun aside at the last second.
“Damn you,” I whispered. “Goddamn you for making me weak.”
I dropped the gun and it fell to the floor with a dull thunk. A thousand different ways to kill her flooded my mind, but none of them would work. How can you kill the person you can’t do without?
“I love you,” she said.
“Shut up!” I snapped.
Three little words... they shouldn’t have done anything. I was shaking with rage, wrapped in ice a mile thick and as hard as diamonds. And yet the words breezed straight through, simple and innocent as the butterflies in her goddamn garden and hitting me right in the heart because—
I turned away. I couldn’t look at her. Because the words sounded true and if I looked into her eyes and they were true….
“I do,” she said, and sniffed back tears. “It’s true. I’d decided, I’d changed sides, I wasn’t going to go back to them, I was going to stay here with you!”
“Shut up!” My words were like weapons, trying to tear hers from the air so I didn’t have to hear them. “You lie to me! You tell me nothing but lies, all this time, and you expect me to believe you?!”
“Look at me,” she whispered. Her voice had changed and it was more than just the tears. It was slower. More country. It was the voice I’d heard in my hotel room in Boston. Her real voice.
I shook my head.
“Look at me,” she begged,
I shook my head again. I was trying to stoke my anger higher, so I could do what needed to be done. She was lying. I had to kill her and then call Grigory in here and find a way to dump the body—
“Konstantin,” she sobbed, the tears overwhelming her. “Look at me, please!”
My whole body was screaming at me not to. Its lies, all lies….
I looked. Just for a second. But a second was too long. Once I looked, I couldn’t look away. Her eyes were swimming with tears and I saw—
Innocence.
Goodness.
And not a trace of deception. She loved me. She really did love me.
The feeling rose up inside me, expanding, filling me up. It cracked the ice into a million shining shards.
I pulled her towards me. My palms slid on her tear-wet cheeks and then my lips came down on hers.
55
Hailey
I’D BEEN THROUGH so many emotions in just a few minutes: panic, guilt, fear. And now, as he tilted my head up and kissed me, hope. It was a tiny, fragile flame: if I even breathed too hard, it would go out. But it was there. I opened under him, desperate to show him this was right, this was real.
He was savage, kissing me with the full force of his anger, wanting to hate me. But I didn’t pull away, I stood there and took it, letting all the rage and hurt boil down into me, Yes. Yes, I lied to you. I lied to you and I’m sorry. My hands were on his sides and I could feel his body tighten and tighten as he fought with himself: he was a hair’s breadth from hurling me across the room, picking up the gun again and shooting me. I sobbed and kissed and prayed….
And at last, I felt his body relax. He gave a low growl and settled into it, one hand burying itself in my hair, the other sweeping down my back and clutching my ass, pulling me into him. The kiss changed, turning soft and slow... and deep. He sought me out and explored me. He’d told me all his secrets, but he didn’t know me at all. Who are you?