I'd been loved and cared for.
Until I wasn't.
Until the world taught me a hard lesson too.
"So, she's got substance to balance out all the pretty too, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Shit," she said, taking the bottle from the bartender when he came back, putting it down by my drink. "Put that on my tab," she demanded in what seemed to be flawless Armenian.
"Yeah," I agreed, pouring a couple fingers.
"Tell you what," she said, taking a deep breath. "Let's try this again," she said, extending a hand out to me. "Riva," she said, giving me a hesitant smile.
I exhaled mine through my nose, putting my hand in hers. "Roan."
"Sometimes, it is nice to be able to be real with someone. Or, so I hear," she told me, pulling her hand away, straightening, stiffening up. Like vulnerability was hard for her too. "But if being real costs me anything, I will hunt you down to any hovel - or five-star hotel - you might be hiding in, and I will make you pay. Slowly."
She meant that.
To her very core.
She wouldn't even hesitate.
I respected that.
"Do you always throw Bond villain threats around like that?" I asked, shooting her a small smirk.
"Well, we have to at least try to live up to the public's perception of what we do, don't we?" she asked, reaching into her purse to grab cash, passing it to the bartender. "Tell you what," she said, standing, turning to face me. "If you're in a spot, call the Fifth Street Gym in Evansville, Indiana. Tell them you need to take a pilates class. Then give them your number. They'll pass the message to me."
She moved to walk away, only turning back when I called to her. "Why pilates?"
Her smile was slow and genuine. "It's a boxing gym."
With that, Riva, the fake international arms dealer, and real covert operative, made her way out.
I couldn't have known at the time, but Riva - or, more accurately, Alice The Arms Dealer - would end up saving my life in Russia when my cover nearly got blown, but her name, her word, held some clout.
All I knew at the time was that it felt good to talk to someone. Real talk to someone. Not as Mikhail, or the countless other names I had gone by in my life, but as myself.
I couldn't claim it helped at all.
Nor did the fifth of bourbon I managed to down before dragging my ass upstairs, passing out on the bathroom floor as the world spun around me.
But even then, all I could seem to think about was her.
Her touch, her kiss, the softness of her hair, the way she'd snort a little if she was laughing hard enough.
Had I known that, soon, I would never get to hear, see, feel any of that again - that, to the best of my knowledge, no one ever would - maybe I would have done something.
If ever there was a woman who would make it worth it to purposely sour a job, betray your country, burn yourself, ruin your entire fucking life over, it was her.
It was Mack.
But I hadn't known.
There was no way I could have known.
Soon, she would be gone.
And she would take the most vital part of me with her.SIXMackenzieMaybe that time in Berlin when I told myself I was fine even though I was dizzy for three days straight and couldn't keep any food down had caused some kind of serious brain damage.
Really, because what other explanation could there be?
I should have been on the first plane out of the country, knowing for sure that there wasn't much of a chance of any of The Henchmen coming to look for me outside of the US. Sure, they had a nice business going, but they also had to acknowledge that, in the grand scheme of arms dealing, they were some pretty small fish, and that so much as stepping foot on some foreign soil was akin to signing your own death warrant. Your family would be looking at coffins and telling fond memories about you before your body was even shipped back home. You know, if it was ever found in the first place.
The Henchmen were hard.
But the world was harder.
I knew.
I'd been living in it for a long, long time.
It would be safer for me out there than in the states even if, really, the US was starting to feel more like home than anywhere else I had ever been.
Not England where the mold of expectations always pinched a little too tight for comfort.
Not Armenia where everything came together then was ripped violently apart.
Not in any of the other countless cities all over the world where I had spent time.
The US had been the longest place I'd been stationed in, well, ever.
First New York City, then a short stint in Chicago. Then Florida for a bit before I finally got wind of him again.