Falling For The Forbidden

by Hawkins, Jessica

  “Did the transfer go through?” I ask when we’re done, and Anton nods.

  “Seven million euros as agreed, with the other half to come upon job completion. Should keep us in beer and peanuts for a while.”

  I chuckle dryly. Anton and two other members of my old team—the Ivanov twins—joined me two years ago, after I got my list and approached them for help, promising to make them wealthy in return for throwing in their lot with me. They agreed, both out of friendship and because they’d been growing increasingly disillusioned with the Russian government. With the team in place, I switched from security consulting to more lucrative—and flexible—wet work, using my connections to get high-paying gigs for us. I needed the money to finance my revenge and stay ahead of the authorities, and the guys needed a new challenge. While elimination of the people on my list took priority, we carried out a number of paid hits along the way and built up our reputation in the underworld. Now we specialize in eliminating difficult targets all over the world and get paid enormous sums of money for jobs everyone else is too scared to touch. Most often, our clients are dangerous, insanely rich criminals, and our targets tend to be that too—like Carlos Velazquez, head of the Juarez Cartel.

  As far as my crew is concerned, there isn’t much difference between tracking down terrorists and taking out crime lords. Or bumping off whoever gets in our way. We’ve all lost whatever passes for conscience and morality ages ago.

  “Heading out?” Anton asks, closing the laptop when I get up and put on my jacket. “Going to be with her all night again?”

  “Probably.” I pat my jacket, making sure my weapons are well concealed. “Most likely.”

  Anton sighs and stands up, leaving the laptop on the couch. “You know this is nuts, right? If you want her so much, just fucking take her and be done with it. I’m tired of these local ten-grand gigs; the stupid thugs don’t even put up a fight. If we don’t have another real job before Mexico, I’ll go out of my fucking mind.”

  “You’re always welcome to strike out on your own,” I point out, and suppress a chuckle when Anton gives me the middle finger in reply. Even if we weren’t friends, he wouldn’t leave the team. My connections are the reason we get all this lucrative business. In the process of obtaining the list, I’ve ventured deep into the criminal underworld and gotten to know many of the key players. As skilled as my guys are, they wouldn’t be half as successful without me, and they know it.

  “Have fun,” Anton calls out as I head for the exit, and I pretend not to hear as he mutters something about obsessed stalkers and poor tortured women.

  He doesn’t understand why I’m doing this to Sara, and I’m not inclined to explain.

  Especially since I don’t understand it myself.

  Chapter 26

  Sara

  The mouthwatering smell of buttery seafood and roasted garlic greets me when I walk into the house, my handbag hanging casually over my shoulder. As I hoped, once again the dining room table is set with candles, and a bottle of white wine is chilling in a bucket of ice. Only the food is different today; it looks like we’re having seafood linguini for the main course, with calamari and a tomato-mozzarella salad for the appetizers.

  The setup couldn’t be more perfect if I tried.

  Act normal. Stay calm. He can’t know what you’re planning.

  “Italian night, huh?” I say as Peter turns from the kitchen counter, where he was chopping up something that looks like basil. My heart is thumping erratically in my chest, but I succeed in keeping my tone coolly sarcastic. “What’s tomorrow? Japanese? Chinese?”

  “If you wish,” he says, walking over to the table to sprinkle the chopped basil on the mozzarella. “Though I’m less familiar with those cuisines, so we might have to order in.”

  “Uh-huh.” My gaze falls to his hands as he brushes the remnants of the basil off his fingers. A warm, shivery sensation curls through me as I remember how those fingers touched me with devastating pleasure, making me unravel in his arms.

  No. Don’t go there.

  Desperate to distract myself, I focus on his outfit. Today, he’s wearing a black button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and my throat goes dry at the sight of his tan, muscular forearms, the left one covered by tattoos all the way down to the wrist. Inked guys aren’t normally my thing, but the intricate tattoos suit him, emphasizing the power flexing under that smooth, hair-dusted skin. I’ve always been drawn to strong, masculine forearms, and Peter has the best I’ve ever seen. George worked out, so he had nice arms too, but they were nowhere near as powerfully cut as these.

  Ugh, stop. Self-disgust burns in my throat as I realize what I’m doing. At no point should I be comparing my husband, a normal, peaceful man, to a killer whose life revolves around violence and vengeance. Obviously, Peter Sokolov is in better shape; he has to be, to kill all those people and evade the authorities. His body is a weapon, honed by years of battle, while George was a journalist, a writer who spent most of his time with his computer.

  Except… if I were to believe Peter, my husband wasn’t a journalist. He was a spy operating in the same shadow world as the monster puttering around my kitchen.

  Bands of tension loop around my forehead, and I push all thoughts of my husband’s alleged deception away, focusing on the rest of my stalker’s outfit: another pair of dark jeans and black socks with no shoes. For a second, it makes me wonder if Peter has something against wearing shoes, but then I recall that in some cultures, it’s considered disrespectful and unclean to wear outside shoes inside the house.

  Is the Russian culture like that, and if so, is the man who tortured me in this very kitchen showing, in some very roundabout way, that he respects me?

  “Go ahead, wash your hands or whatever you need to do,” he says, dimming the lights before sitting down at the table and uncorking the wine. “The food is getting cold.”

  “You didn’t have to wait for me,” I say and go to the nearby bathroom to wash my hands. I hate how he acts like he knows all my habits, but I’m not about to compromise my health to spite him.

  “Really, I mean it,” I say when I return. “You didn’t have to be here at all. You know feeding me isn’t part of your stalker duties, right?”

  He grins as I take a seat across from him and hang my handbag on the back of my chair. “Is that right?”

  “That’s what all the stalker job postings say.” I spear a piece of tomato and mozzarella with my fork and bring it to my plate. My hand is steady, showing nothing of the anxiety shredding me inside. I want to clutch my bag against me, keep it on my lap and within easy reach, but if I do, he’ll get suspicious. I’m already taking a chance by hanging it on my chair when I normally plop it carelessly on the couch in the family room. I’m hoping he ascribes that to the fact that I came straight to the kitchen/dining area instead of making my usual detour to the couch.

  “Well, if that’s what they say, who am I to argue?” Peter pours us each a glass of wine before placing some of the mozzarella salad on his plate. “I’m no expert.”

  “You haven’t stalked other women before?”

  He cuts a piece of mozzarella, brings it to his mouth, and chews it slowly. “Not like this, no,” he says when he’s done.

  “Oh?” I find myself morbidly curious. “How did you stalk them?”

  He gives me a level look. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  He’s probably right, but since there’s a chance I might not see him after tonight, I feel a bizarre urge to find out more about him. “No, I actually do,” I say, drawing comfort from the handbag strap brushing against my back. “I want to know. Tell me.”

  He hesitates, then says, “The majority of my assignments have always been men, but I’ve followed women as part of my job, too. Different jobs, different women, different reasons. Back in Russia, it was often the wives and girlfriends of the men who threatened my country; we followed and questioned them to locate our real targets. Later, when I became a fugitive, I
tracked a couple of women as part of my work for various cartel leaders, arms dealers, and such; usually it was because they posed a threat of some kind, or betrayed the men I worked for.”

  The bite of tomato I just consumed feels stuck in my throat. “You just… tracked them?”

  “Not always.” He reaches for the linguini, winds a fork in it, and brings a sizable portion of the pasta to his plate without spilling any of the buttery sauce. “Sometimes I had to do more.”

  The tips of my fingers are starting to feel cold. I know I should shut up, but instead, I hear myself asking, “What did you have to do?”

  “It depended on the situation. One time, my quarry was a nurse who sold out my employer—the arms dealer I mentioned to you before—to some terrorist clients of his. As a result, his then-girlfriend was kidnapped, and he was nearly killed rescuing her. It was an ugly situation, and when I found the nurse, I had to resort to an ugly solution.” He pauses, his gray eyes gleaming. “Do you want me to elaborate?”

  “No, that’s…” I reach for my glass of wine and take a big gulp. “That’s okay.”

  He nods and begins eating. I have no appetite anymore, but I force myself to follow his example, transferring some pasta onto my plate. It’s delicious, the seafood and the pasta perfectly cooked and coated in the rich, savory sauce, but I can barely taste it. I’m dying to reach into my bag and take out the little vial sitting there, but for that, I need Peter to be distracted, to look away from his wine glass for at least twenty seconds. I timed it back in the hospital, practicing with a vial of water: five seconds to open the vial, five more to reach across the table and tip the contents of the vial into the wine glass, and three more to yank my hand back and compose myself. That’s about thirteen seconds, not twenty, but I can’t have him suspect anything, so I need the extra cushion.

  “So, tell me about your day, Sara,” he says after most of the linguini on his plate is gone. Looking up, he pins me with a cool silver gaze. “Anything interesting happen?”

  My stomach contracts, knotting around the linguini I forced down my throat. Peter couldn’t know about me running into Joe, could he? My tormentor hasn’t said anything, but if in his mind, this weird thing between us is some kind of courtship, he might object to me talking to—and making plans with—other men.

  “Um, no.” To my relief, my voice sounds relatively normal. I’m getting better at functioning under extreme stress. “I mean, one woman came in with extra-heavy spotting and turned out to have miscarried twins, and we had a fifteen-year-old girl come in with a planned pregnancy—she’s always wanted to be a mom, she said—but that wouldn’t be all that interesting for you, I’m sure.”

  “That’s not true.” He puts his fork down and leans back in his chair. “I find your work fascinating.”

  “You do?”

  He nods. “You’re a doctor, but not just someone who preserves life and cures disease. You bring life into this world, Sara, helping women when they’re at their most vulnerable—and most beautiful.”

  I inhale, staring at him. This man—this killer—couldn’t possibly understand, could he? “You think… pregnant women are beautiful?”

  “Not just pregnant women. The whole process is beautiful,” he says, and I realize that he does understand. “Don’t you think so?” he asks when I continue looking at him in mute shock. “How life comes about, how a tiny bundle of cells grows and changes before emerging into the world? Don’t you find that beautiful, Sara? Miraculous, even?”

  I pick up my wine glass and take a sip before responding. “I do.” My voice sounds thick when I finally manage to speak. “Of course I do. I just didn’t expect you to feel that way.”

  “Why?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” I put down my glass. “You take life. You hurt people.”

  “Yes, I do,” he agrees, unblinking. “But that only makes my appreciation for it stronger. When you understand the fragility of being, the sheer transience of it—when you see how easy it is to snuff something out of existence—you value life more, not less.”

  “So why do it, then? Why destroy something you value? How can you reconcile being a killer with—”

  “With finding human life beautiful? It’s easy.” He leans in, his gray eyes dark in the flickering light of the candles. “You see, death is part of life, Sara. An ugly part, sure, but there’s no beauty without ugliness, just as there’s no happiness without sorrow. We live in a world of contrasts, not absolutes. Our minds are designed to compare, to perceive changes. Everything we are, everything we do as human beings, relies on the basic fact that X is different from Y—better, worse, hotter, colder, darker, lighter, whatever it may be—but only in comparison. In a vacuum, X has no beauty, just as Y has no ugliness. It’s the contrast between them that enables us to value one over the other, to make a choice and derive happiness from it.”

  My throat feels inexplicably tight. “So you what? Bring joy to the world with your work? Make everyone happy?”

  “No, of course not.” Peter picks up his wine glass and swirls the liquid inside. “I have no delusions about what I am and what I do. But that doesn’t mean I don’t comprehend the beauty in your work, Sara. One can live in the darkness and see the light of the sun; it’s even brighter that way.”

  “I…” My palms are slippery with sweat as I pick up my wine glass and surreptitiously reach into my bag with my free hand. As fascinating as this is, I have to act before it’s too late. There’s no guarantee he’ll pour himself a second glass. “I’ve never thought of it that way.”

  “No reason why you should.” He puts his glass down and smiles at me. It’s his dark, magnetic smile, the one that always sends heat surging to my core. “You’ve led a very different life, ptichka. A gentler life.”

  “Right.” My breaths are shallow as I pick up my glass and bring it to my lips. “I guess I have—until you came into it.”

  His expression turns somber. “That’s true. For what it’s worth—”

  My glass slips out of my fingers, the contents spilling out onto the table in front of me. “Oops.” I jump up, as if embarrassed. “So sorry about that. Let me—”

  “No, no, sit.” He stands up, just as I hoped he would. Though he’s in my house, he likes to play at being a good host. “I’ll take care of this.”

  It takes him only a few strides to reach the paper towel rack on the counter, but that’s all the time I need to open the vial. Six, seven, eight, nine… I do the mental count as I pour the contents into his glass. Ten, eleven, twelve. He turns back, paper towels in hand, and I give him a sheepish smile as I sink back into my chair, the empty glass vial dropped back into my bag. My back is soaked with icy sweat, and my hands are shaking from adrenaline, but my task is done.

  Now I just need him to drink the wine.

  “Here, let me help,” I say, reaching for a napkin as he mops up the spilled wine on the table, but he waves me away.

  “It’s all good, don’t worry.” He carries my wine-soaked plate to the garbage and dumps the remnants of my pasta—that could’ve been another opportunity, I note with a corner of my brain—and then returns with a clean plate.

  “Thank you,” I say, trying to sound grateful instead of gleeful as he swaps my wine glass for a new one and pours me more wine before adding some to his own glass. “Sorry I’m such a klutz.”

  “No worries.” He looks coolly amused as he sits down again. “Normally, you’re very graceful. It’s one of the things I like most about you: how precise and controlled your movements are. Is it because of your medical training? Steady hand for surgery and all that?”

  Don’t act nervous. Whatever you do, don’t act nervous.

  “Yes, that’s part of it,” I reply, doing my best to keep my tone even. “I also took ballet when I was a child, and my instructor was a stickler for precision and good technique. Our hands had to be positioned just so, our feet turned just so. She’d make us practice each position, each step until we got it completely right
, and if we ever slipped from good form, we’d have to go back and practice whatever we got wrong again, sometimes for the duration of an entire class.”

  He picks up his glass and swirls the liquid inside again. “That’s interesting. I’ve always thought you looked like a dancer. You have the posture and the body type.”

  “I do?” Drink. Please drink.

  He puts the glass down and fixes me with an enigmatic stare. “Definitely. But you don’t dance anymore, do you?”

  “No.” Come on, pick up the glass again. “I quit ballet when I started high school, though I did a little salsa later in college.”

  “Why did you quit ballet?” His hand shifts closer to the glass, as if he’s going to pick it up again. “I imagine you must’ve been good at it.”

  “Not good enough to do it professionally, at least not without a lot of additional training. And my parents didn’t want that for me.” My pulse speeds up in anticipation as his fingers curl around the stem of the glass. “The earnings potential of a dancer is fairly limited, and so is the length of her career. Most stop dancing in their twenties and have to find something else to do with their lives.”

  “How practical,” he muses, lifting the glass. “Did that matter to you or to your parents?”

  “Did what matter?” I try not to stare at the wine glass as it hovers a few inches from his lips. Come on, just drink it.

  “The earnings potential.” He swirls the wine again, seeming to derive pleasure from the sight of the light-colored liquid circling the glass walls. “Did you want to be a rich, successful doctor?”

  I force myself to look away from the hypnotic movement of the wine. “Sure. Who doesn’t?” The anticipation is eating me alive, so I distract myself by picking up my own wine glass and taking a big sip. Please mimic me subconsciously and drink. Come on, just take a few sips.