“Galina, sweetheart- It’s time to go. Our flight is booked and we leave in a few hours. Wake up and let’s get moving,” he prompted a bit harshly as he knew that he’d started the stopwatch on their limited time together. As of 10:48 AM, she would be on board a plane and he…he would be in handcuffs or in the back of a police van.
Everything he did was for the love of his sweet American.
As Galina sat up and pushed her long hair off of her face, she gave him a soft sleepy smile that made his breath catch and his heart skip a beat. She eagerly moved to the front passenger seat and clapped her hands giddily in her innocence, making his own face crack a smile.
“Good morning, beautiful. I don’t think I will ever forget how stunning you are when you smile,” he admitted softly, starting the van and glancing at her. Galina laughed shyly and tucked her hair behind her ear, revealing the soft pink cheeks that flushed delicately.
“Stop, you’re embarrassing me,” she spoke in a husky voice that gave him goosebumps. Dear God, please let me do the right thing for her, he prayed silently as he put the bus in gear and hurriedly pulled out of the rest area. Nik had to distract himself before he broke down or revealed the change of plans.
13
Galina was so excited and knew she was blabbering on repeatedly to Nik about things they’d already discussed. She was listing off places to visit and already plotting out locations where he could foster and develop his craft. He was brilliant when it came to computers and there was no reason he couldn’t apply it for himself or the government in the United States.
She couldn’t wait for him to meet her family. She could see her father shaking his hand and welcoming him in, her mother would simply crush him in a massive hug and her brother…he would be himself and do his best to embarrass or irritate his sister. Until Nik got on his feet, he would be welcome to stay with them or she could help him into a hotel once his currency was exchanged. There was so much to do and while it was slightly overwhelming, she was excited at the prospect of welcoming Nik to her homeland just as he had done for her.
“Do you want to stop for coffee or gas?” she asked suddenly and saw him stare straight ahead. His hands were clenched on the steering wheel but she assumed it was because he was simply ready to get there. She understood, the sooner they got in the air – the better off they’d be – so she wasn’t surprised as Nik shook his head silently.
Galina was ecstatic to see the sign indicating the border up ahead. It was not long to the airport, then after that they’d be on a plane. He’d taken care of all the details and explained how the change in her passport would work. The fact that he could do all of that online was both scary and impressive. Nik was simply brilliant and she was so proud of his skill.
“Be calm, right? Isn’t that what you would normally say?” she teased as the van was slowing down for the checkpoint and getting into line. Galina glanced over at Nik to see he had a pale, sickly pallor to his face and looked like he was about to be physically ill. “Nik, are you okay? Are you feeling alright?”
“Galina, if they come up to us- I want you to do what they say, okay?” he said in a voice she barely recognized and it made her break out in a cold sweat.
“What are you saying?” she whispered, staring at him horrified as she saw out of the corner of her eyes several men begin to approach the van, drawing their guns. Nik looked over at her and she saw the truth in his eyes. “Nik, no…”she breathed.
“Get out of the van, Petrov!” was shouted by several men just outside of the automobile and could be heard through their cracked windows. “Get out now as agreed!”
“What have you done?” Galina asked, shocked and frozen-her eyes locked with his. His face looked so stricken with remorse.
“I love you so much, my little American,” Nik told her in a soft voice. “I would do anything in the world to keep you safe. Let’s get out of the van slowly so they don’t fire on us or think we are resisting.”
“I AM resisting,” she shouted at him, horrified. “You can’t tell me you love me and then throw me away. That isn’t how love works!”
“I would never throw you away, Galina,” he amended, opening his car door. “Please get out so they know we are complying. We can talk outside of the van.” Galina didn’t have much of a choice because her van door was opened in split second but instead of being pulled roughly from the van, she was extended a hand and helped down.
It was odd because they were being so nice to her and when she turned, she saw they’d thrown Nik up against the side of the van, patting him down. Galina was handed a soft blanket to wrap around her shoulders in the cool morning air and while part of her wanted to slap it away, she also knew it would be foolish. What if they were out here for an extended period of time? All she wanted was to get to Nik.
“Stop hurting him,” she ordered and walked over to the other side of the van only to see someone punch Nik and call him a foul name. “Stop it!”
“Galina Dombrosky, you are to come with us.” Galina looked at the man nearby, the same one who’d given her the blanket. He’d followed her around the bus and was nearby with his hand on his gun, but it was still holstered. “Miss Dombrosky, they are going to hold the flight for you but we need to hurry.”
“Who are you? I’m not going anywhere alone unless they are holding the flight for us,” she stressed, pointing at herself and Nik. She glanced at Nik and saw his sad smile, immediately shaking her head as the officers removed her bag from the van.
“No.”
“Galina, yes,” Nik countered firmly. “Can I have a moment with her, please?” Seeing them pull back from him, Galina took a step forward as Nik moved towards her. She enveloped him in her arms, circling them both with the blanket as if it was creating a wall to separate them from the horror just outside of it.
“Don’t do this to me, Nik- please,” Galina whispered just before he kissed her. He was saying goodbye and she hated it. Her heart was breaking and she felt like she could shatter into a billion pieces at any moment. “Please, please don’t do this. I love you and want to be with you.”
“I love you too,” Nik told her, a tear slipping from the corner of his eyes as he stared at her. “I would do anything to give you a chance to be free to…”
“Don’t say it!” she interrupted, “I want to be with you. Take me with you.”
“I can’t. I made a bargain to get you safe because they found us early this morning and broke through my attempts to hide us. I had to make a decision- do I risk our lives… or give you yours. My choice was easy- you are my everything.”
“Then don’t give me up, don’t give up on us. There’s got to be another way,” she hedged and whispered tenderly into his ear as she wrapped her arms around him. She could not give him up and would not – not now that she’d given her heart to him.
“I’m not giving up on us, it’s just a massive delay,” he said wryly. He picked up a lock of hair and tucked it behind her ear. “Smile at me, sweetheart. Tell me you love me again so I can hear it and see it in my dreams. I would give up the world for you and my life is nothing if you aren’t safe.”
“Nik,” she pleaded, feeling herself close to breaking down. “Nik- I love you so much. Please, there’s got to…” Galina felt herself being yanked from Nik’s arms and screamed-a mix of horror and anger.
“Miss Dombrosky, my apologies but your flight leaves in thirty minutes. We have got to go,” the officer said flatly as he attempted to subdue Galina. She was fighting him with everything in her, kicking and screaming at him. “Mr. Petrov, stop her or our pact is voided.”
Nik immediately flew into action, making several officers pull their guns again. Nik grabbed Galina’s face with both of his hands, almost fiercely, and stopped her flailing. Galina stared at him mulishly, feeling betrayed and like she was sacrificing the man she loved.
“Don’t ask me to do this,” she said hotly. “Don’t ask me to give you up.”
“Never sweetheart,” N
ik said firmly. “But you are getting on that plane and you will do what they say without any more fighting. Do you understand me?” Galina started to open her mouth and he promptly shut it.
“No Galina, no more- you will go and I will be tracking you to make sure you are safe. I love you from the bottom of my heart-but you have a flight to catch and a life to live on the other side of the world.” Galina slowly nodded, feeling her eyes well up with tears as she stared at the blue eyes of the man she adored with every fiber of her being.
“Good girl,” Nik praised thickly, blinking back his own tears. “I want you to know that I will do everything I can to make sure you are safe and taken care of. I love you.”
Nik took a step back and nodded. The officer turned Galina around and walked her numbly to the police car that waited to take her to the airport. As she got in, she saw him raise a hand towards her and mouth the words ‘love you’ to her. Galina stared horrified as the car began to move away from him and she saw Nik drop to his knees, burying his face in his hands. Galina bit her knuckle to keep from screaming in denial and pain- knowing it matched what he was feeling right now and there was nothing she could do.
Nik couldn’t watch the car drive off with Galina inside. It was like watching his heart and soul being wrenched from his very being. The light in his world already seemed to be fading, growing darker and darker with the growing distance between them.
He knew he’d done the right thing when he felt the ping on his watch to let him know they’d been traced – but it didn’t make him feel any better. All he’d ever wanted to do was to help people and do good…but his skills were being manipulated and used for something that could bring pain, hurt and destruction – not the intention or goal he’d ever dreamed or wanted for anyone.
His apps had brought happiness, joy and people together, making him a very, very rich man – but all the money was for nothing if it created a target on his back and became a massive burden affecting his future with the woman he loved. Nik knew now why building the Soyuz program was wrong: you can’t remove the human element -because people were flawed. Personality, character, and people made calculated choices based off emotion feeling or reaction.
No program he would ever build could create such intense feelings or reasonings that love could bring. No program he could build would ever suggest he give himself up for Galina, but he did because he knew that it was the right thing to do in his heart. He chose her freedom and happiness over his- and would do so a thousand times over again.
Galina had smiled, laughed and flirted her way into his soul and he would miss her terribly. Nik got to his feet, looking at the sky and saying a simple prayer as the officers handcuffed him.
Keep her safe, please.
14
Nik sat in his cell, lying on his small twin bed with his arm tucked behind his head. It had been two months since he’d seen Galina and he missed her terribly. He’d checked his phone, part of his bargain with the government was that he kept it until she landed safely before they confiscated it and arrested him. He knew the pattern that was coming from the government as well too.
They’d throw the book at him with charges for espionage and collusion with another country. He thought the collusion bit was pretty comical – they considered his relationship with Galina as collusion. If that was the case he dreamt of collusion with the pretty brunette every evening. Espionage? You mean the job he was hired for by the Intelligence Agency? Nik couldn’t help himself and it didn’t aide his situation when he’d laughed in the courtroom at his hearing.
That was how he ended up in a cushy jail cell in Siberia.
He was in prison- but doing the same thing as before per the agreement with the government. They wouldn’t let him suffer physically because they wanted intel. He had agreed to give them information so long as Galina was safe. So, he had – Nik told them all about the new app he was working on for tracking calorie goals. Soyuz would never, ever see the light of day…but then again, neither would Nik.
He’d been sentenced to jail time with no determined limit under the agreement that if he turned over everything, they’d consider re-evaluating his term sentence. They wanted his Soyuz project, complete or not. Nik had played stupid and admitted to deleting it when he couldn’t get the program to work. They’d had him on the next train out of town.
Nik scrolled through the photos on his phone. They’d disabled the phone and email capabilities- wiping the phone of everything entirely and basically giving him a scrolling picture frame that played music from iTunes. When they’d handed it back, he’d been completely shocked moments before he lost his temper. He was certain that the government had wiped his phone completely. He would have rather been in a blizzard naked than to lose the only images of Galina he had. Silently, he’d scrolled through the pictures of her and turned away from the officers so they wouldn’t see his relief or loneliness. The thought of her smile was the only thing that carried him through the days, how would he ever survive the next several years or decades?
Weeks passed and time felt like it was standing still for Nik. Each morning he would get up and curse himself for not taking a photo of the two of them sleeping in the bus, wrapped in each other’s arms. He could still picture that moment but he knew time would eventually make it fade -that was why his phone was so precious to him. He could look at Galina, zoom in or simply imagine what she was up to. He hoped that she was happy and healing. She’d been so angry and upset, it was destroying him inside to make her cry. He vowed if he ever saw her again, she would never shed another tear at his expense.
Nik was desperate to know if Galina was getting by or if she’d moved on. Glancing at the calendar he saw that it was almost wintertime and wondered what it was like in Maryland? It was the little things he wanted to know more about…what was her favorite perfume? What did she like to do for fun? Did she sing in the car? He missed her very essence and craved her smile.
Today he was cuffed to a chair in the main library in order to work on coding and deciphering bugs in another system that had screwed up, sending four people to the hospital. They’d made him feel extremely guilty- by rubbing it in that he could have stopped it if he wasn’t a traitor to his country. Nik was no traitor, he was a decent human being and kept reminding himself of that every time they tried to destroy his psyche.
I’m not a traitor.
Galina loved him .
He wasn’t killing people – those were the truths in his mind that he kept near and dear to his heart, despite their words and accusations. Glancing around, Nik saw his officer sitting beside him was nodding off in his chair instead of watching the screen.
Slowly he opened another window and began typing, infiltrating page after page. He’d already tried opening social media sites or email and immediately he would be jerked out of the chair and tossed back in his cell. They watched what he did very carefully and he knew that if they found out, he would lose access again. Moving as fast as he could, he searched and searched – finally reaching Galina. He could see her photo from her ID badge and marveled at her beauty, even though she wasn’t smiling. Scrolling down, he found an internet file that had her IP address.
Logging in remotely, he opened up her word documents and wondered if she was sitting there at her desk. Probably not, it was near 11 PM where she was. He typed quickly and prayed she saw it when she next logged in- just to be sure, he emailed it to her as well.
My beloved Galina,
I hope you are doing well and forgive me for separating us. I couldn’t let them harm you and I can’t give them my project. I think of you often, your sweet smile brighter than the sun. I miss you and don’t know when I can reach out again.
Love always,
Nik
Closing the computer windows, he felt a spark of life flicker down deep inside as he thought of her reading it. He hoped she was doing well and thought of him. Hearing a loud disruptive snore, Nik let out his breath as the officer woke up and immediately pushed N
ik back to check the computer screens he had open. Nik saw one of them was still up, but the officer glanced over it unknowingly. Thank you, God, he thought, dreading the thought of being able to reach Galina and then having it taken away again.
15
“Okay, someone has a sick- sick!- sense of humor!” Galina spat disgustedly as she sat down at her desk and abruptly stood up, staring. Her knees were certain to give out under her and she grabbed the chair to keep from collapsing. Her eyes raked the room with barely veiled hostility, absolutely certain someone was messing with her in a twisted way. She could practically feel her heart stop beating as she saw the message on her screen. “Who did this? We are the CIA, it’s not like you can hide. If I find out one of you did this, I’ll…”
“Dombrosky! You’ve already been reprimanded once for not following order, don’t make me add-on threating your coworkers too,” Adrian Dima interrupted in a voice that commanded attention as he walked over to her terminal. “If there is a problem, report it to your superior officer… Me.”
“Sir, someone pretended…” she whispered brokenly as her anger faded, staring up at him painfully. Tears welled up in her eyes and she quickly dashed them away. “Someone pretended to be Nik Petrov and left me a note on my screen.”
Spying on the Billionaire Page 11