by Anna Zaires
He’s not wearing cologne either.
Confused, I still underneath him and realize I’m not actually in pain.
He’s on top of me, but he’s not hurting me.
Reality shifts and realigns, and I remember.
Kirill was seven years ago. I’m not in Kiev—I’m in Colombia, captive of another man who wants to punish me for what I’ve done.
“Yulia.” Lucas’s quiet voice is near my ear. “Can I let you go?”
“Yes,” I whisper into the pillow. My muscles are trembling from overexertion, and my breathing is labored, as if I’ve been running. I must’ve been fighting Lucas instead of the phantom in my nightmare. “I’m fine now. Really.”
Lucas rolls off me, and I feel a tug on my left wrist, where the handcuffs still join us. My skin underneath the metal is stinging and raw. I must’ve been yanking on the shackle during the fight.
He stretches away from me, and a second later, a soft light comes on, illuminating the room. The sight of the clean white walls serves as additional proof that I was dreaming and Kirill is nowhere near me.
Lucas reaches into the nightstand and extracts a key to unlock the handcuffs. When he puts the key back in the drawer, I automatically note its location, though my teeth are already beginning to chatter. I haven’t had a nightmare this strong and realistic in years, and I’ve forgotten how bad it can be.
Lucas turns to face me. “Yulia.” His gaze is somber as he reaches for me. “What happened?”
I let him draw me into his lap, so I can feel the heat of his body on my frozen skin. I can’t stop trembling, the shadow of the nightmare still hovering over me. “I—” My voice cracks. “I had a bad dream.”
“No.” He tilts my chin up with one hand, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “Tell me why you had this dream. What happened to you?”
I clamp my lips shut, fighting an illogical urge to obey that quiet command. Something about the way he’s holding me—almost like a parent comforting a child—makes me want to confide in him, tell him things I’ve only shared with the agency therapist.
“What happened?” Lucas presses, his tone softening, and I feel a swell of longing, a desire for the connection I imagined between us before. Except maybe I didn’t imagine it. Maybe there’s something there.
I so badly want there to be something there.
“Yulia.” Curving his palm over my jaw, Lucas strokes my cheek with his thumb. “Tell me. Please.”
It’s that last word that breaks me, coming as it does from a man so hard and domineering. There’s no anger in the way he’s touching me, no violent lust. It’s true that he hurt me earlier, but he also gave me pleasure and some semblance of tenderness afterwards. And right now he’s not demanding answers from me—he’s asking.
He’s asking, and I can’t refuse him.
Not while I feel so lost and alone.
“All right,” I whisper, looking at the man I dreamed about for the last two months. “What do you want to know?”
4
Lucas
“How old were you when it happened?” I ask, moving my hand to the back of her neck to massage the tense muscles there. Yulia’s body is shaking as I hold her in my lap, and a fresh surge of rage knots my insides.
Someone hurt her, badly, and I’m going to make that person pay.
“Fifteen,” she answers, and I hear the catch in her voice.
Fifteen. I force myself to remain still and not give in to the volcanic violence boiling within me. I’d suspected it was something like that. Her voice as she screamed had been high-pitched, almost childish, the words tumbling out in either Russian or Ukrainian.
“Who was he?” Keeping my voice even, I continue my little massage. It seems to be soothing her, easing some of her trembling. Her face color matches my white sheets, her blue eyes dark in the dim light of the bedside lamp. She might be twenty-two, but at this moment, she looks impossibly young.
Young and incredibly fragile.
“His name—” She swallows. “His name was Kirill. He was my trainer.”
Kirill. I make a mental note of that. I’ll need his last name to mobilize a search, but at least I already have something. Then the second part of what she said sinks in.
“Your trainer?”
She averts her gaze. “One of them. His specialty was hand-to-hand combat.”
Motherfucker. A fifteen-year-old girl—hell, even a grown man—wouldn’t have stood a chance.
“And the people you work for allowed this?” The rage creeps into my voice, and she flinches, almost imperceptibly. Not wanting to frighten her, I take a deep breath, trying to regain control. She’s still looking away from me, her eyes trained on some spot to the left of me, so I slide my hand into her hair and gently cup her skull, bringing her attention back to me.
“Yulia, please.” With effort, I even out my tone. “Did they sanction this?”
“No.” Her lips curl with bitter irony. “That’s the thing. They didn’t.”
“I don’t understand.”
She laughs, the sound raw and full of pain. “They should’ve just sanctioned it. Then he wouldn’t have been angry like that.”
My blood feels both hot and icy. “Tell me.”
“He started coming on to me when I turned fifteen, right after I got my braces off.” Her gaze drifts away from mine again. “I was an ugly child, you see—tall, skinny, and awkward—but when I grew up, I looked better. Boys started liking me, and men began noticing me as well. It happened almost overnight.”
“And he was one of the men.”
She nods, returning her attention to me. “Yes. He was one of the men. It wasn’t a big deal at first. He’d hold me a little longer on a mat, or he’d make me practice a move a few extra times so he could touch me. I didn’t even realize he was interested, not until—” She stops abruptly, a tremor running over her skin.
“Not until what?” I prompt, trying to remain calm enough to listen.
“Not until he cornered me in the locker room.” She swallows again. “He caught me after a shower, and he touched me. All over.”
Motherfucking piece of shit. I want to kill the man so badly I can taste it.
“What happened then?” I force myself to ask. It’s not the end of the story, I can tell that much.
“I reported him.” A shudder runs through Yulia’s slim body. “I went to the head of the program and told him about Kirill.”
“And?”
“And they fired him. They told him to go away and have nothing to do with me ever again.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No,” she agrees dully. “He didn’t.”
I take a breath and brace myself. “What did he do to you?”
“He came to the dormitory where I lived, and he raped me.” Her voice is flat, and her gaze slides away from me again. “He said he was punishing me for what I did.”
The words knock the breath out of me. The parallels don’t escape me. I, too, planned to use sex as punishment, sating my lust on her body and showing her how little she meant to me at the same time.
In fact, that’s what I did earlier tonight, when I took her roughly, ignoring her struggles.
“Yulia…” For the first time in years, I feel the bitter lash of self-hatred. No wonder she panicked when I had her pinned on the hallway floor. “Yulia, I—”
“The doctors said I was lucky the other trainees found me when they did,” she continues, as though I hadn’t spoken. “Otherwise, I’d have bled out.”
“Bled out?” A swell of rage tightens my throat. “The fucker hurt you that badly?”
“I was hemorrhaging,” she explains, her face oddly calm as she meets my gaze again. “It was my first time, and he was rough. Very rough.”
The motherfucking bastard’s death will be slow. Very slow. I picture myself using some of Peter Sokolov’s techniques on the trainer, and the fantasy steadies me enough that I can ask evenly, “What is his last name?”
; Yulia blinks, and I see some of her unnatural calm dissipating. “His name doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.” I clasp her shoulders, feeling the delicacy of her bones. “Come on, sweetheart. Just tell me his name.”
She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she repeats. Her gaze hardens as she adds, “He doesn’t matter. He’s dead. He’s been dead for six years.”
Fuck. So much for that fantasy.
“Did you kill him?” I ask.
“No.” Her eyes glitter like shards of broken glass. “I wish I had. I wanted to, but the head of our program sent an assassin for him instead.”
“So they deprived you of vengeance.” I know most people would be glad that a young girl didn’t get a chance to commit murder, but I’ve never believed in turning the other cheek. There’s a certain satisfaction in revenge, a sense of closure. It doesn’t undo the past, but it can help one feel better about it.
I know, because it helped me.
Yulia doesn’t respond, and I realize I’ve hit a sore spot. She resents them for this, this agency she refuses to speak about—this “head of the program,” who should’ve protected her from the trainer to begin with.
Would she give them up if I asked her about them now? She’s raw and vulnerable after reliving her painful past. I would be a real bastard to take advantage of that. Except if I do, I could have the information I need, and I wouldn’t have to hurt her.
I would keep her safe, and nobody would hurt her ever again.
Yesterday, I would’ve pushed the thought aside, dismissing it as a weakness, but no more. I have been lying to myself all these weeks, and it’s time to admit it. I won’t be able to torture her. When I try to picture myself using my knife on her the way I did on that trespasser, my stomach turns. Even before her nightmare, I couldn’t bring myself to treat Yulia like I would a real prisoner, and now that I know how much she’s already suffered, the idea of causing her more pain makes me physically ill.
Reaching a decision, I say quietly, “Tell me about the program.” This is my best chance to get the required information, and I have to use it, even if it means exploiting Yulia’s vulnerability. Still holding her gaze, I move one of my hands to her nape and rub it gently. “Who are the people who recruited you?”
She freezes on my lap, and I see a flash of pain contort her features before they smooth into a beautiful mask. “The program?” Her voice sounds cold and distant. “I don’t know anything about it.”
And pushing me away, she leaps off the bed and sprints out of the room.
5
Yulia
I run down the hallway, my bare feet silent on the carpet. Betrayal is a bitter, oily slime coating my tongue.
Fool. Idiot. Dura. Debilka. I castigate myself in two languages, unable to find enough words to cover my stupidity. How could I have trusted Lucas for even a second? I know what he wants from me, but I still gave in to that stupid longing, to fantasies that should’ve died out the moment I realized he was alive.
The man I dreamed about in prison has never been anything but a figment of my imagination.
The interrogation technique he used on me is beyond basic. Step one: Get close to your enemy and understand what makes her tick. Step two: Lend a sympathetic ear and pretend like you care. It’s the oldest trick in the book, and I fell for it.
I had been so starved for human warmth I let an enemy see into my soul.
“Yulia!” I can hear Lucas running after me, but I’m already by the bathroom. Darting in, I close the door and lock it, then lean against it, hoping to keep him from breaking it down for at least a few moments.
“Yulia!” He bangs his fist on the door, and I feel it shaking, echoing the quaking of my body. I feel cold again, the chill from the nightmare returning. Why did I tell Lucas about Kirill? I never trusted anyone but the agency therapist with the full story. Obenko knew, of course—he was the one who ordered the hit on Kirill—but I never spoke about it with him.
Outside mandated therapy sessions, I never spoke about it with anyone until Lucas.
“Yulia, open this door.” He stops banging, his tone turning calm and cajoling. “Come out, and we’ll talk.”
Talk? I want to laugh, but I’m afraid it’ll come out as a sob. When I was first recruited, the agency therapist expressed a concern that I wouldn’t be sufficiently detached for the job, that losing my family at a young age made me susceptible to emotional manipulation. It was a weakness I’ve worked hard to overcome, but apparently not hard enough.
A tender touch, a show of anger on my behalf, and I turned to putty in Lucas Kent’s hands.
“Yulia, there’s nothing in that room for you. Come out, sweetheart. I won’t do anything to you, I promise.”
Sweetheart? A spark of anger ignites in me, chasing away some of the icy chill. How much of an idiot does he think I am?
Stepping back, I turn and unlock the door. Lucas is right: there’s nothing in this bathroom for me but self-recriminations and bitterness. I can’t change what happened. I can’t take back the fact that I trusted a man who desires nothing more than revenge.
What I can do, however, is turn the tables.
When the door opens, I look up at Lucas and let the tears stinging my eyes finally fall.
6
Lucas
She stands in the doorway, looking so beautiful and vulnerable that my heart squeezes in my chest. Her eyes are glittering with tears, and as I reach for her, she wraps her arms around her naked torso in a defensive gesture.
“No, come here, sweetheart.” I unwrap her arms and pull her toward me, doing a quick visual scan of her hands to make sure she’s not concealing a weapon. No matter how fragile Yulia appears, I can’t forget that she’s a trained agent who’s already tried to kill me.
To my relief, she’s unarmed, so I fold my arms around her, pressing her against my chest. “I’m sorry¸” I whisper, stroking her hair. “I’m so sorry.”
The feel of her bare skin against mine makes my body stir again, and I have to focus to ignore the press of her nipples against my chest. I don’t want to get distracted by lust, not after what I’ve just learned.
I know I’m being irrational. It shouldn’t matter that she’s been abused. Some of the most twisted individuals I know have had a rough past, and I’ve never been inclined to cut them any slack. If they fucked up, they paid. Nobody gets a free pass with me, yet that’s precisely what I’m planning to give her.
My one-eighty turn is so sudden I want to laugh at myself. She’s been here less than twenty-four hours, and my plans for her have already gone up in smoke. I suppose I should’ve expected this, given that I haven’t been able to get Yulia out of my mind for the last two months, but the intensity of my need and the inconvenient feelings that came with it still blindsided me.
She killed dozens of our men and nearly killed me.
The thought that always enraged me now brings up only echoes of my former fury. She was doing her job, carrying out the assignment she’d been entrusted with. I’ve always known it was nothing personal, but that didn’t matter to me before. An eye for an eye—that’s the way Esguerra and I have always operated. You cross us, you pay.
Except I don’t want to make Yulia pay anymore. She’s been through enough, first at the Russian prison, then at my hands. Instead of her, I’ll focus my vengeance on the ones who are truly responsible: the agency that gave her that assignment.
“Let’s go back to bed,” I say, pulling back to gaze down at Yulia. She’s stopped trembling, though her face is still wet with tears. “It’s early.”
She gives a curt shake of her head. “No, I can’t sleep. I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”
“All right.” The sun’s already starting to come up, so I figure it’s not a big deal. “Do you want something to eat?”
She extricates herself from my hold and takes a step back. “Another sandwich?” Her voice still sounds shaky, but there’s a tiny note of amusement there too.
“I have soup,” I say, trying to keep my eyes off her slim, naked body.
She blinks. “What kind of soup?”
“I’m not sure. I forgot to look inside the pot before putting it in the fridge. It’s something from Esguerra’s house. His maid gave it to me last night.”
A small, surprising smile curves Yulia’s lips. “Really? Do they also feed you scraps from their table?”
“No.” I chuckle at her not-so-subtle jab. “I wish they would, though. Esguerra’s housekeeper is amazing in the kitchen, and I can’t cook worth shit.”
Yulia arches her delicate eyebrows. “Seriously? I can.”
“Oh?” I find myself enjoying the unexpected banter. “Did they teach you that in spy school?”
“No, I taught myself some basic recipes when I first arrived in Moscow. I was living off a student stipend, so I didn’t have a lot of money for eating out. Later on, I discovered I liked cooking, so I started experimenting with more advanced recipes.”
The reminder of the fucked-up nature of her job kills my lighter mood. “You weren’t getting a salary?”
“What?” She looks taken aback. “No, of course I was. It was being deposited into my bank account in Ukraine. I just couldn’t use those funds—I had to live like a student, else I wouldn’t have passed the Kremlin’s background checks.”
Of course. Undercover living at its finest.
“All right,” I say, forcing my tone to lighten. “Let’s try the soup for now. Maybe later you can show me your cooking skills.”
* * *
The soup Rosa gave me is delicious, filled with mushrooms, rice, beans, and chunks of lamb. As we eat, I observe Yulia, wondering what the hell I’m going to do with her now. Keep her naked and tied up in my house forever?
To my shock, the idea holds a certain dark appeal. For the first time, I understand why Esguerra kept his wife, Nora, on his private island for the first fifteen months of their relationship. It’s as secure and isolated as one can get—a perfect place for a woman who may not necessarily want to be there.