Midnight Hunter

by Brianna Hale

  I look away, feeling sick, wishing I hated him. It should be so easy to hate him.

  He watches me narrowly, his mind making connections. “You’ve been distant these past weeks, so pale and tired. All I saw was a woman loathing herself for wanting the man who stole her but really you were spying on me. It was the spying that you hated. It manifests so similarly. I’ll make a note for the future.”

  There’s a hard, ironic edge to his voice, and I hear it in my own when I reply, “Oh, I hated myself for wanting you as well. Don’t worry, you’re not losing your edge. Not completely.”

  He pulls back a little and gazes at me with speculative, calculating eyes. Reinhardt is retreating and Oberstleutnant Volker of the Staatssicherheit is coming to the fore.

  “The car. I don’t believe you stole it. Is there something you want to tell me about, Evony? Or rather, someone?”

  The bottom falls out of my stomach. He knows. How can he know?

  His eyes light with preternatural cunning. “There is someone. But whom can you have been in contact with? You are with me, always. Ah, but you have been leaving the apartment at night. Have you been meeting with someone as well as tailing me?”

  Don’t say anything. He can’t figure anything out as long as you stay silent.

  “But there must have been a first meeting. Perhaps someone at—” He breaks off, alarm flashing over his face. “Liebling, please tell me it isn’t anyone at HQ.”

  And just like that, sleek, predatory Volker is gone and I see Reinhardt again. He takes my hands between his, engulfing them and squeezing tightly. When he speaks his voice is soft and urgent, as if he’s trying not to frighten a child or a cornered animal. “Evony, have you been spying on me for someone at HQ? I won’t be angry with you if you say yes. I just need to know.”

  I don’t understand why he’s acting like this. Is it some sort of trick? I shake my head, trying to look sincere. “No, I told you there’s no one. I’ve been doing this by myself.”

  He takes a deep breath and asks me again, and the first tendrils of fear spread through my belly because I know my lover very well by now and this isn’t what his trickery looks like. What is he afraid of? “I promise, there’s no one HQ.”

  He stands up, a hand to his mouth. “Scheisse. It’s someone at HQ.”

  Panic thuds through me. How does he know this? “Reinhardt, there’s no one. I stole the car and—”

  But he’s not listening to me. “I should have told you about him. I should have made you understand the danger but I didn’t think he would be so brazen. Right under my nose.”

  He? Does he mean Peter? Why would someone who works in the mail room be of any danger to me or Reinhardt? If he knows about Peter then why isn’t Peter in prison?

  The firelight is flickering in Reinhardt’s eyes. “Does he know who you really are, or are you useful to him merely because you are close to me?” He studies my face, his eyes fixing on the faint scar on my lip that hasn’t quite healed. “Does he think that I hit you? Did you let him think that? Yes, you’re clever enough not to correct such a misapprehension if it worked in your favor.” He takes a deep, calming breath. “That is good, Evony. Good. You are just an opportunity to him. All is perhaps not lost.”

  I watch him thinking out loud, not understanding anything he’s saying.

  “So, he approached you at HQ after the car accident, and when I took you to bed you agreed.”

  How does he know all this? It’s as if he’s reading my mind.

  He crouches down in front of me again, his hands on my knees, his eyes probing my face. “Tell me, is your contact a man or a woman? Another secretary perhaps, who promised you passage to the West in exchange for spying on me? Are you worried for your little friend? Don’t be, Liebling. They’re well protected.”

  Relief surges through me—he doesn’t know about Peter. But then who was the “he” he was referring to, and how can Reinhardt not have the power to root out a traitor at Stasi HQ?

  He’s silent for a moment, watching me closely. “Did you tell them that I got Frau Schäfer out of East Berlin? No, you didn’t, otherwise I would already have been arrested. You know the truth but you have kept it to yourself.” A smile warms his face and he reaches out to touch my cheek, but I pull away.

  “I didn’t do it for you.” But that’s a lie. I didn’t want the price of my freedom to be his imprisonment, even after everything he’s done to me.

  His hand drops back to his side. “I see you’re confused, Liebling. Let me explain to you what has happened. I have an enemy at HQ and he has been using you to get to me. No, don’t shake your head. It might be disappointing, but it’s true. This friend of yours has been lying to you.”

  He lets that sink in a moment, and then continues. “There’s something I need to know.”

  “I won’t tell you anything.”

  “Your loyalty is admirable, if misplaced. But put it aside for a moment as I need you to tell me this. Does this person know who you are? Did you give them your real name, or could they have discovered your true identity?”

  I search his face for cold cunning but see only concern. For me? Or for himself? “Why does that matter?”

  He brushes the backs of his fingers over my cheek, his voice gentle. “Please trust me. Who do they think you are? Did you tell them you were caught in the bakery raid? Did you give them your real name?”

  Tears fill my eyes, because when he talks like this I want so dearly to confide in him. I want Reinhardt, even as I hate and fear Oberstleutnant Volker. Voice cracking, I say, “I can’t tell you anything. You’re my enemy and you always will be, no matter how I feel about you.” I feel as bereft as when Ulrich turned on me, only worse this time because this was my last chance to escape and it’s my own fault I let it slip through my fingers.

  “Evony, I am not asking as a Stasi officer. I am asking as Reinhardt. I need to know what steps to take to protect you from him. Does your contact know who you really are?”

  Protect me? From what? I don’t understand any of what he’s saying.

  Reinhardt sees my confusion. “I will explain in a moment. Just answer me, please.”

  I turn the question over in my mind. Does Peter know who I am? I thought I was clever giving him Dad’s name but calling him “my friend”. A resistance group would be unlikely to connect Heinrich Daumler, lowly mechanic, with Evony Dittmar, Volker’s cosseted Stasi secretary.

  I moisten my lips, giving myself time to think. “What will you do if my friend does know who I am?”

  His eyes darken with anger. I know that look. It’s the expression I saw in his eyes as he tore Ulrich off me. I shake his arm, making him focus on me. “Reinhardt, I don’t understand. Who is this enemy of yours and why does he hate you so much?”

  Reinhardt gets up and goes to sit on the sofa opposite me. “I should have told you about him so you would be on your guard. The night you all tried to escape through the bakery tunnel I should have been there to stop you, but another Stasi officer ran the raid himself, and botched it. His name is Hauptmann Heydrich.”

  Heydrich. I remember his cold, assessing eyes as he sat on the edge of my desk in HQ. His false smile. His sharp interest that made me so uncomfortable. I thought it was the instincts of a Stasi officer that made him examine me so closely, but if Reinhardt is telling the truth he was assessing me for my usefulness.

  And—oh god. Peter is working for him? Is that what Reinhardt is saying? Peter approached me not long after Heydrich. Why did that never strike me as suspicious? A resistance member working within Stasi HQ that just found me and told me he could get me out? It was too good to be true because it was.

  Reinhardt is looking at me with sympathy. “Liebling, I’m sorry.”

  I realize I’m crying again and wipe the tears away. “Why are you sorry?”

  “Because it is painful to be betrayed.”

  “As I have betrayed you?”

  He merely smiles, a small, regretful smile. I wonder if h
e’s deciding what to do with me. I don’t believe him when he says he’s going to protect me. I know how he feels about traitors.

  Blinking away fresh tears I ask, “Why does Heydrich hate you so much?”

  “Professional jealousy. Impatience. I may not always have been…” He gives me an eloquent half-shrug that I take to mean that he’s made the younger officer’s life hard in the past, but he doesn’t much care. I can easily believe that Reinhardt looks upon Heydrich as an upstart and a sneak, and perhaps he is if he really went behind Reinhardt’s back over the bakery raid. To Reinhardt, Heydrich is an annoyance. A nobody. But look what nearly happened. I was on the verge of handing the young captain everything he needed to put Reinhardt in prison. Heydrich is dangerous.

  “For him, the quick way up is preferable to the hard, slow way. I’ve always preferred the hard, slow way. It yields better results.” Reinhardt’s eyes narrow on my face and then he stands up, straightening his jacket. “So, do you believe what I’m telling you? That your contact is not your friend, but your enemy and mine, and that they’re working for Heydrich?”

  I consider this for several minutes. “I don’t know. It’s occurred to me that telling me my contact is lying to me is your way of preventing my escape.”

  “A little elaborate, isn’t it? How long do you suppose it would take for me to ascertain your daily movements from Fräulein Hoffman and the other secretaries who work on our floor? There can’t be many people at HQ whom you come into contact with.”

  There’s something in that. He could probably find Peter quite easily if he wanted to. I’m still chewing my lip when he continues.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen. You will continue to tail me and feed your contact empty reports. I talk to the border guards, I drive about the city. They will eventually lose interest.”

  I stare up at him, not able to believe what I’m hearing. Just like that, as if nothing happened tonight?

  “You will not tell me who your contact is. It’s better I don’t know. That way I can’t be tempted to strangle him or her in the corridors as they pass by.”

  I believe that he would, too. I watch him light a cigarette with an assured air, comfortable in the knowledge that the danger has passed. “The important thing is that they don’t find out who you really are.”

  But I don’t feel as confident as Reinhardt. In fact I’m certain, deadly certain, that Peter is going to figure out who I am. If he works for the Stasi then he’ll have access to files, identification papers, official photographs. My father’s file. My file. My photograph will be in Evony Daumler’s records.

  I take a deep breath. “Reinhardt, I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as that. I gave my contact my father’s name. They’re going to find out who I am. In fact, if they are who you say they are, they probably know who I am already.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Volker

  I smoke three cigarettes in a row without saying anything. There’s an unfamiliar emotion knotting my gut.

  Fear.

  Somewhere along the way between wanting to possess her and just wanting her I forgot the risk that comes from too strong an attachment to another person. That they might one day be ripped from you and you’ll be left bleeding. That she might be left bleeding. I can’t even tell myself that she knew the risks when she returned my kisses and shared my bed. I chose this life for her. It’s my duty to see that she comes to no harm.

  It’s not myself I fear for. It’s Evony.

  People like Heydrich are dangerous, more dangerous than they first seem. He’s not as clever as I am. He’s not nearly as patient. Patience and cunning make a Stasi officer. But he is ambitious, and covetous of my position. And he hates me. I remember the anger burning in his eyes as I told him he’d never advance in the Stasi and I made him salute me. Maybe if I hadn’t taken such delight in humiliating him after the bakery raid none of this would have happened. But I never feared retribution. I know how to look after myself, and I didn’t know then how much this young woman sitting quietly before me would come to mean to me, and how the old fear would stir again. That I could lose her. That I might be unable to save her.

  My one thought now is to keep her safe and remove Heydrich as a threat. How much does Heydrich know? How much does he suspect? The fear rises afresh in my chest as I look at Evony’s tense, lovely face. It’s not her that Heydrich wants, ultimately. It’s me. But he will tear her apart on his way to me and once he realizes how much this will devastate me he’ll make me watch as he grinds her into the dirt. The perfect revenge.

  If he knows. I think through the possibilities, and it’s bad, but it’s perhaps not yet dire. “It may be all right. Your contact may know who you are, but they don’t know that I know that they know who you are. They don’t know that I know about any of this.”

  Evony presses the heels of her hands into her eyes, as if she’s unable to bear this convoluted train of thought. “I can’t do this tonight. If you’re not going to throw me into prison then I’m going to bed.”

  As she moves past me I catch her around the waist and she looks up into my narrow, heated gaze. “You are the most confounding, devious young woman I’ve ever met and I assure you in my line of work I’ve met a great many.”

  Her eyes go wide, and then understanding dawns on her face. “You’re proud of me.”

  I laugh softly. “Yes, my clever girl. All that you did, right under my nose, for weeks? And do you know why I’m not angry?” I press my lips against her ear and whisper, “Because with all the evidence you had against me you never betrayed me.”

  She softens in my arms and a shiver goes through her. “But I’ve been working with your enemies.”

  “And yet you never told them a thing.” I kiss her hungrily. I know I’m right. She had everything she thought she needed to get away from me and yet she couldn’t do it.

  “It wasn’t for you,” she says desperately, pulling away. “I was waiting until I heard something about my father.”

  I run my thumb over her swollen lower lip. “Sweet girl, you mustn’t tell me lies, and you must forget about your father. I’m sorry, but he’s gone. He’s fled, or he died that night. I searched the prison records and I didn’t find him.”

  “You looked for him? You never told me that.”

  “Of course I looked. And if I’d found him I would have told you because it would have been one more weapon in my arsenal to make you stay. You wouldn’t leave East Berlin if your father was imprisoned here.”

  Evony considers this, and then shakes her head unbelievingly. “Honestly, are there no depths to which you won’t sink?”

  “None. And do you know why? Because you’re mine. Because I’m going to keep you, no matter what.” I take a deep breath, searching her eyes. I wanted to coax the words from her first, the same way I coaxed her lips to mine, her body to yield beneath me. But I can’t wait any longer. “And because I love you.”

  She whimpers and her fingers tighten on my lapels. “But I’m trying to escape you. I’ve tried again and again to get away from you. I’ve sneaked behind your back, nearly betrayed you, almost had you thrown in prison. Why do you love me?”

  “Because it’s not me you’re trying to get away from and it hasn’t been me for a long time. It’s East Berlin you hate. It’s the Stasi you hate. I’m what you want.” My voice is whisper-soft against her mouth. “Come to my bed, Liebling. There’s no reason why not now. I want you in my arms all night. I want you as mine.”

  “You want me, the traitor?”

  “I want my Valkyrie. My battleground flower. My indestructible girl. Your love is hard won.”

  “I haven’t said that I—”

  But I stop her lips with my own. I won’t have her telling me she doesn’t love me. I don’t want her lies. I will have the truth from her lips, and soon. But for now I’ll have it from her body.

  I scoop her up and carry her to my bedroom. There’s no biting, no scratching, no swearing at me. Her lips are
soft and panting as I undress her, her breasts heavy in my hands, her curved hips warm and soft to my touch. I pick her up and settle her naked in my lap as I sit on the edge of the bed, stroking her, plucking her nipples. Her clit is swollen and slick to the touch as I rub it in tight circles, watch her face flush, her eyes close. She tips her head back, offering to me the long, creamy column of her neck.

  When her cries reach a crescendo she reaches down between her legs and fumbles at my trousers. Her movements are clumsy because I don’t stop stroking her hard nub of pleasure and she’s close to coming. When she frees my cock she strokes its length in her small hands, pressing her face into my shoulder, lost in the sensations coursing through her. Then, licking her lips she raises herself up a little and positions my length at her sex. She bears down slowly, inch by inch, piercing herself slowly, tight and delicious around me. I hold her waist, watching the movements of her hips as she starts to rock. Her arms wrap around my neck and her mouth is against mine as she rides me harder and faster, eager to come, needing to work out all her stress and confusion on my hard length.

  Whimpering my name over and over, she reaches her climax, her body locking around mine and skin heating like a furnace. She stills and goes limp, but I haven’t finished with her. Still inside her, I lift her up and turn around so that she’s on her back on the bed. I thrust hard, deeply, needing to feel her all the way to the hilt. She holds onto my uniform jacket, watching me with desperate eyes as I pound her hard, keeping a tight hold on myself even though I’m on the verge of coming as I can see she’s close and I want to break with her.

  “Reinhardt, I—”

  She wants to say something important but she breaks off and kisses me instead. Then she moans, long and loud, and I let my body go, finishing with long, hard strokes as she tightens and clenches around me, the sensations breaking over us.