The weather had changed. The freezing winds of the night before had dropped away and it was a bright, clear day. I pulled on a green jersey dress and a soft pink cardigan to keep my shoulders warm. I wasn’t going to risk any more sneaking around, not right now. So I figured I’d explore the rest of the mansion. But when I opened the bedroom door to step out, Grigory was there, his hand raised to knock.
Before I could stop him, he’d pushed me inside and kicked the door closed behind him. “Konstantin’s in his study,” he panted, his hands already on my waist and sliding upwards. “We have at least an hour.”
My eyes went wide. This is how they’d done it? Right here in our bedroom, while Konstantin was downstairs?! It was a miracle they’d never been caught!
Grigory walked me backwards towards the bed, our bodies pressed together. His hands pulled my dress up over my ass and I could feel his cock hardening against my thigh. “No,” I said into his shoulder, but he ignored me. “No!” I said, more loudly.
He stopped and I twisted away from him, breathing hard. I staggered away, tugging my dress back into place.
He ran a hand through his hair, angry and hurt. “What’s the matter with you? You normally….”—he shook his head—“you enjoy the risk.”
I swallowed. “Not anymore.”
He shook his head. “Then let’s get out of here. Leave him and let’s go! You keep saying it’ll be soon. When?!”
I stared at him. It was worse than I thought: Christina hadn’t just been having an affair with him, she’d been planning to run away with him. “Things are different, now,” I croaked. “Konstantin—”
“He doesn’t love you! But I do!”
And I could see in his eyes that it was true. I felt awful for him and I could see exactly how it had happened. Of all the guards, he was the one who was closest to Konstantin and Christina. He’d been with them every day, for months. He’d seen his boss’s sexy girlfriend, seen how she was trapped in a loveless relationship, and he’d wanted to rescue her. I actually started to feel a little sorry for Christina. Maybe I’d been too hard on her. Maybe, starved of warmth and affection, she had fallen in love with Grigory, and planned to run off with him as soon as she’d accrued enough money from Konstantin.
I took a deep breath. “I need to think,” I told him. “Just be patient.”
I started to back away, but he grabbed my shoulder and drew me back to him. And then he leaned down and—
I drew in my breath as he kissed me. He was very different to Konstantin: there was no heady rush of pleasure, no dominant, commanding intensity that sent a spike of heat straight down to my groin. But each press of his lips was full of love: it was a slow, sweet, lover’s kiss, light as a butterfly but loaded with the weight of how he felt for me. He buried his hands in my hair and it felt so good, for a second I lost myself in it….
And then I gently pushed him away. “I have to go,” I told him. And ran.
I raced down the stairs, lips still throbbing. As I passed the door to Konstantin’s study, my cheeks exploded into heat and my chest contracted. Guilt? I told myself it made no sense. I was lying to Konstantin, plotting to betray him. What did it matter if I let some other guy kiss me?
But that’s how I felt. I knew I couldn’t let Grigory kiss me again.
I didn’t want to run into him again so I hurried out of the back of the mansion, somewhere I hadn’t been yet. When I saw what was in front of me, my run slowed to a jog and then a walk. And then I just stopped and gazed around in wonder.
Many years ago, someone had planted a garden to match the mansion. There were flower beds full of color, tree-lined paths where lovers could stroll and red-brick walls that divided the garden up and created secret, shady spots where you could sit on a bench with a book.
But while the mansion had been maintained and modernized, the garden hadn’t had any attention in decades. The grass was knee high and wildflowers fought with roses in the flower beds. The trees had grown out of control, some of them twisting together until you couldn’t see where one stopped and another began. Ivy had engulfed one of the oaks, transforming it into a rearing dragon with shining green scales, while three more trees had fallen in storms and lay on their sides, gathering moss. Some of the walls were crumbling and the wooden benches had been bleached almost white by the sun.
It was insanely beautiful. The sun filtered through the trees casting dappled light on the ground and throwing shafts of gold onto old sundials and other abandoned treasures. The leaves had just finished their transition to the red and copper of fall and a gentle wind turned them into a rolling sea of vivid color. I could hear birdsong from high above and brightly-colored butterflies fluttered through the flower beds. And then, just as I started forward, a rabbit hopped out of the undergrowth and onto the path, looked at me, and hopped off into the grass.
I felt something inside me lift...and tears prickled at the corners of my eyes because I was suddenly aware of a deep, crushing ache that had been there ever since I left Wisconsin, a need I’d been pushing out of my mind all these years.
I ran into the garden and started exploring. I felt twigs catch and pull at my dress as I pushed through bushes. A stocking tore, scraped on rough bark as I climbed over logs. The heels of my shoes sank deep into the earth, the shining leather ruined forever. And I didn’t care about any of it. I was drunk on nature: there were birds and rabbits and hedgehogs and field mice...I wished I had my camera. It was the happiest I’d been in a long time.
Hours flew by. Then I heard something huge crashing through the undergrowth behind me. “Christina?”
I was getting used to the name, now. And hearing it in that accent...the silvery hiss of the is like a soft breath against my neck, then the hard t that was almost a kiss. It made me go shaky every single time. I turned to see him clamber over a fallen, mossy tree trunk.
“What are you doing?” He sounded genuinely bemused. “One of the guards said he saw you come out here hours ago.”
I looked around in wonder. “It’s amazing!”
He gazed around, bewildered. What is?
I was so blown away by the place that I forgot to be Christina. “Look around you! It’s wild, it’s like nature’s taken over!”
He shook his head. “It’s a mess.” He rubbed at his stubble. “We should get it all cut back. An assassin could use the undergrowth to sneak close to the house.”
I stared at him. “Do you have to see everything as a threat?”
He frowned at me, astonished. Everything is!
I sighed and moved closer. “Look! Just look at….” I turned a slow circle. There was so much to see, I couldn’t pick just one thing. “Everything!”
He frowned deeper, exasperated, and picked a leaf out of my hair. But he gamely turned his head and looked at the trees, the flowers, the butterflies…and nothing happened. His eyes didn’t light up. He didn’t see. Whatever had happened to him, it had made him narrow his worldview down to his empire: money and allies and enemies and threats.
“Can’t you see the beauty in anything?” I asked, looking up at him in desperation.
He slowly turned his head towards me. Then he looked down into my eyes. And that’s when I saw the gray flicker and soften, that tiny trace of blue slipping through. I swallowed, feeling my chest go light, feeling that helpless flutter. And the longer we held each other’s gaze, the more the battle in his eyes grew.
My breathing hitched. He took a step forward, awkward and halting. I saw his hands twitch. The mood was totally different to the airport, or at the bottom of the stairs. This was soft and romantic, everything he denied he could be. He was going to—
He leaned down. His finger lifted my chin, tilting my head back to meet him. His lips brushed mine….
And then he tore himself away, straightening up and cursing in Russian. For a moment, he wouldn’t look at me and I was left there stunned. I wanted him to. God, I really wanted him to. There was no way I could deny it, now. I was starting to
have feelings for him...and I wanted him to have them for me. Am I falling for him? For someone I know is pure evil? Someone I know I’m going to betray?
I had to get out of there. I turned and stumbled off into the undergrowth, heading for a building I’d seen earlier but hadn’t explored yet.
It was a glasshouse that must have been built at the same time as the mansion. The bricks came only to knee height and then it was all ironwork and panes of glass. The green paint was flaking off the metal and the glass was so old and cloudy, it distorted the outside world like a funhouse mirror. Inside, I paced up and down past tables laden with ancient, crumbling flowerpots. Remember who he is! He’d kill you if he found out who you really are!
And then I saw him coming after me. The cloudy glass made him just a huge, dark shape, a monster approaching.
He opened the door and for a second he just stared at me. He was breathing fast with anger but it didn’t feel directed at me. He was mad at himself. Because he nearly let himself feel something?
“You must come out of there,” he told me. “It’s not safe.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “It’s very old. The glass could fall from the frames.”
I looked around. The metal had baked and frozen through so many New York summers and winters that it had deformed, and most of the putty that held the glass in place had crumbled away. Probably everything was pretty precarious. I looked up at him and there was a sudden swell of warmth in my chest. He’d followed me in here because he was worried about me.
I nodded and he held the door for me as I walked out. He followed me back to the mansion, but his heavy footsteps never came closer than ten feet. I could feel his eyes on my back the whole way and it wasn’t just lust, anymore, it was something deeper. A longing that was so dangerous, he had to hang back so it didn’t overwhelm him completely. Oh God, what am I going to do? I could feel myself rushing towards a precipice I wouldn’t come back from.
Back inside the mansion, I headed upstairs and heard Konstantin break off behind me and enter his study. Just as I reached our bedroom, the pocket of my cardigan started to buzz. I pulled out Christina’s phone, confused. I hadn’t set any alarms.
But she had. A reminder was on the screen. Meet Mom to give her birthday gift.
My eyes widened. Shit! I’d been so focused on Christina’s relationship with Konstantin, I hadn’t thought about her having family or friends. I’d fooled Konstantin and Grigory...but how the hell was I going to fool Christina’s mother?
29
Hailey
THE REMINDER came with a time: noon, which was in forty minutes, and a place: the food court of a fancy shopping mall in Manhattan. The problem was, I couldn’t leave without the gift, and I had no idea where Christina had left it. I filled Calahan in as I searched. First I went through the walk-in closet. Then the drawers. Then it occurred to me that the gift might be something small, and Christina might be carrying it around in her purse. But all I found in there was money, make-up and a parking permit for an apartment complex called Barlow Heights.
“The shopping mall’s a half hour drive away,” said Calahan in my ear. “You need to be leaving now.”
“Not helping!” I told him. I went through Christina’s drawers a second time. Checked under the bed. Went through the drawers again, this time emptying them out onto the floor. Nothing. Where is it?! I ran to check under the bed again and cracked my ankle against an open drawer.
“Have you tried the closet?” asked Calahan helpfully.
“Yes, I’ve tried the closet!” I snapped, clutching my ankle in pain. But I ran back in there again and—
On the floor in one corner, there were some piles of neatly-folded winter clothes. Which was weird because there was plenty of hanger space for them. I lifted a coat off the top of the pile….
There was a box wrapped in lurid red metallic paper and tied with a silver bow. The card taped to the top read Mom. Christina had wedged it into the corner and then piled clothes all around it and on top of it. Why hide a birthday gift? But it didn’t matter now. I grabbed it and ran.
When I asked one of the guards if he’d drive me into the city, he didn’t even bat an eyelid: apparently shopping trips were how Christina spent most of her time. Within minutes, I was in the back of the big black Mercedes, speeding towards Manhattan.
I arrived at the mall with five minutes to spare and found the food court. But then I had a new problem. “How am I going to recognize her?” I asked Calahan.
“I’m working on it,” he said. “Trying to find a photo.”
I paced back and forth, clutching the gift, my heart racing, desperately looking for someone who looked like an older version of Christina. How am I going to do this? What if she started talking about family gossip, or stuff from my childhood I had no idea about?
“Get out of there!” yelled Calahan, so loud it hurt my ear.
I started moving. “What? What’s going on?” I reached the edge of the food court and merged into a crowd of shoppers. “Talk to me!”
“I found Christina’s mother,” said Calahan breathlessly. “She died four years ago.”
30
Hailey
I RACED into the restrooms and shut myself in a cubicle. “What the hell is going on?” I asked Calahan.
“Well, clearly Christina wasn’t coming here to meet her mom. It must be an errand for Konstantin. A delivery.”
I stared at the gift for a second. Then I sat down on the toilet and opened it up.
The whole thing was filled with stacks of $100 bills. I ran some rough math in my head. “There must be a quarter of a million here,” I croaked.
I could hear Calahan rubbing at his stubble. “Makes sense. Konstantin knows the FBI are watching him so he gets Christina to deliver it for him.”
“But why did Christina have it in her calendar as meeting her mom?”
Despite everything, I heard Calahan chuckle. “You’re adorable. You think she’s going to carry around a phone full of stuff like, ‘Meet arms dealer for lunch,’ and ‘Pay bribe to politician’?”
I flushed. I wasn’t cut out to be a criminal. Then I checked the time. “It’s noon,” I told Calahan. “I need to go to the meet.”
“What?! No!” I could hear the fear in his voice. “A quarter of a million dollars? This is something big. It could be dangerous!”
I stood up, trying not to let my legs shake. “That’s why I’m here, right? To find the something big. This could be what we need to bring down Konstantin.”
“You don’t even know who you’re meeting or what they look like!”
“We’ll just have to hope they recognize me.”
Before he could argue, I walked out of the restroom and back into the food court. I started threading my way between the tables, looking at every face. Could he be a criminal? Her? Them?
I felt a hand grab my wrist and tug. Before I knew what was happening, my ass was on a seat and I was staring at a slender, dark-haired guy across a table.
“Jesus, he said it would be gift-wrapped,” said the guy, nodding at the garish package. “I didn’t expect that.”
He grabbed the gift from me. And then, before I could speak, he was up and walking, pushing his way through the crowd. “He’s getting away!” I whispered to Calahan. “I have to follow him!”
“No! He’ll know there’s something wrong. I’ll try to get him on the mall security cameras.” I could hear him frantically pressing buttons and calling for help. “Shit! We don’t have agents in place in the parking lot. We thought you were just meeting your mom!” I waited, holding my breath. Then, “We lost him.”
I slumped in my seat. We had no idea who the guy was or what Konstantin had just paid him to do. We just knew that something big was happening and that meant the mission would take on a new edge. It wouldn’t be enough for me to passively observe, anymore. I’d have to find out what Konstantin was planning so we could use it to bring him down.
Just as I was developing feelings for h
im, I was going to have to betray him.
31
Hailey
CARRIE WANTED a conference call so I’d gone to the one place I knew I could be alone: the garden. I was sitting on the moss-covered tree trunk where Konstantin had found me and I’d found a new friend. Moments after I’d sat down, the biggest, fluffiest ginger cat I’d ever seen had emerged from the long grass like a miniature tiger. After just a few moments of cautiously nuzzling my hand, it had sprung into my lap. It was good cover: if a guard saw me mumbling from a distance, he’d assume I was talking to the cat. Plus, stroking it helped keep me calm and I needed that because the more I talked to my friends at the FBI, the more stressed I felt.
“Do you think you can ask Konstantin what the money was for?” asked Carrie in my earpiece.
I shook my head before I remembered she couldn’t see that. “No, that would make him suspicious. He doesn’t tell me anything. I was never meant to know what was in that box, I was just meant to hand it over.”
“We asked Christina,” said Calahan. “Unsurprisingly, she wouldn’t talk.”
That threw me for a second. Then it clicked that he was talking about the real Christina, the one in FBI custody. God, I’d started thinking of me as Christina.
“You’ll have to go digging,” said Carrie. “His laptop: there must be something in there.”
I froze and the cat scowled at me. I resumed my stroking. “The laptop’s impossible. It’s locked with his ring.” But it wasn’t just the risk that had made me tense.
Calahan spoke up. “I trust Hailey’s opinion. If she says it’s impossible, it is.”
Carrie went silent. I could feel her brooding on it: she didn’t want to put me in danger but…. “This is the best chance we’ve ever had,” she said at last. “Maybe the best chance we’ll ever have. Something big is going down. If we can find out what that money was for, find out when it’s happening, we can catch Konstantin in the act. If you can’t get into his laptop, you’ll have to get into his safe.”
The Double Page 12