Assassins in Love

by Kris Delake

“What the hell,” she said, shaking her head. “What do you want from me?”

  He stepped forward. “I thought I knew,” he said. “But I’m not so sure anymore. I’m not sure at all.”

  Chapter 32

  She looked like a scared little kid. That’s what startled him the most. Suddenly, somehow, in the middle of their conversation—if he could call pulling laser pistols on each other and snapping at each other a conversation—she transformed from a calm, self-possessed, highly trained assassin into a terrified little girl.

  Her eyes got wider, her voice got higher, and most astonishingly, her hand started to shake. He wasn’t sure she had even realized how badly she was shaking.

  And that frightened him. He didn’t worry about a pistol in the hands of a professional. But when a pistol was in the hands of an amateur anything could happen.

  And she had just lost control of herself—or, at least, of her adult self. She had gone from a professional assassin of long standing to a terrified little girl who believed she faced her father’s killer.

  Misha wasn’t even sure she saw him. He wasn’t sure she was here, at least mentally.

  He’d seen enough people who suffered post-traumatic shock to know that they could mentally time-travel back to the event that started it all. And he had sent her time-traveling.

  Surprising him, really, because she shouldn’t have this issue. There were treatments, ways to overcome it. She should have gotten treatment that night all those years ago.

  He had given her to medical professionals, told them she was in shock, told them she needed help. And they had promised to give it. Had they failed? God, he would never have given her up that night if he had known they were going to fail her. He thought she was in good hands.

  All he wanted to do was get her away from that burning house, and make sure she didn’t see his mother again. His mother had done her job, but no child needed to see the person who killed her father. He knew that better than anyone.

  That was why he had taken care of her.

  She had been such a fragile, bruised, frightened little girl.

  And she looked frightened now.

  He gently took the laser pistol from her. He wasn’t even sure she knew he had taken it from her hand. He disarmed it, and put it in his waistband so that she couldn’t reach it.

  He knew better than to touch her as she stood there, her back against the wall, unable to go anywhere.

  “Come on,” he said softly. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  She frowned at him—she was slowly coming back to herself—and she said, “Why are you here?”

  The lying was over, at least for now. If he had been angry with her—and he had been when he got here—he wasn’t any longer.

  If she thought, if she truly thought, he had murdered her father, not assassinated a very bad man, but murdered the man who had raised her, if she thought Misha was now coming after her for a reason she didn’t understand, then she had been right to flee that ship any way she could. She had been trying to survive.

  He mentally moved her from colleague, adult, competent assassin, to victim, survivor, someone who, in this one area, wasn’t rational at all.

  He might move her back to the other category soon, but at the moment, it was better to treat her gently.

  “Come on,” he said. “That sandwich smells good. Is there enough for two?”

  Her eyes—their proper brown now—looked wild. And sad. And lost. She looked down at the bag with the very silly baseball cap, and took a deep breath.

  “You didn’t come here to eat with me,” she said.

  All right. Half victim, half competent professional. He was going to have to tread lightly here.

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t. I came because I was mad, because I couldn’t work without figuring out what the hell happened between us.”

  “You used me,” she said. “You’re toying with me.”

  “I’m not, Rikki,” he said. “I didn’t. I was as surprised by what happened between us as you were.”

  She raised her gaze to his. Her mouth was a thin line.

  He had forgotten how beautiful she was, or maybe he hadn’t really known. The chestnut hair, the green eyes, they truly hadn’t suited her. Now she looked perfect, except for the expression on her face—an expression filled with such sadness that he wanted to take her in his arms.

  He hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t really experienced tenderness before.

  Except that was a lie.

  He had experienced tenderness that night, all those years ago, watching a little girl whose world was collapsing, and she didn’t even know why.

  Apparently even then she had figured out a way to wrap her fingers around his heart.

  “You were trying to kill me,” she repeated.

  “No,” he said. “If I wanted to do that, I would have done it so fast, you wouldn’t even have known I was there.”

  Her eyes teared up and she looked away. He saw the force of her will in her slight frown, in the way the tears receded. She took a deep breath.

  “Then why did you come after me?” she said.

  “I told you. You were hurting my business. Initially, I thought you were doing it because you didn’t know any better. I thought you needed Guild training.”

  “You thought I was incompetent.” And in her voice, he heard the beginnings of anger.

  Good. He could work with anger. He couldn’t work with the sad lost little girl, but he could work with the angry woman.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I’m not,” she said.

  “That’s open for debate,” he said.

  He saw her adult self snap into place. She stood taller, her cheeks flushed, her eyes became sharp.

  “I got in here,” he said. “You made some rookie mistakes.”

  “You didn’t show up on any sensor,” she said. “I monitor everything in this building.”

  “I hacked into the system,” he said.

  “You weren’t in this apartment,” she said. “I would have known.”

  “True enough,” he said. “This place is a fortress. Or it was, until you decided to get take-out.”

  She cursed. She had clearly known she had taken a risk, and she knew it hadn’t paid off.

  “Come on,” he said again. “Let’s eat.”

  “Why should I eat with you?” she snapped.

  He gave her a shrug, and his most appealing smile. “Because I have your gun?”

  “That’s not a good enough reason,” she said as if he had been completely serious.

  “Because you’re hungry,” he said, “and so am I.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “Come on, Rikki,” he said. “We have a lot to talk about. You have questions, I have questions. If you don’t like the conversation, then you can use one of the weapons you’ve hidden all over this apartment, and kill me where I stand. But let’s see if we can talk to each other first.”

  “Talk’s overrated,” she said. But she scooped up the bag. “Give me my gun back.”

  He supposed he could be churlish and hold onto it. Or was that churlish? Maybe it was just prudent.

  Either way, he had to trust her a little.

  He handed her the laser pistol. She examined it without taking her gaze off him, then she flicked it back on.

  “I could kill you where you stand,” she said, pointing it at him. Her hand was no longer shaking.

  He shrugged again, as if he didn’t care, as if his pulse hadn’t started to race. “Then you’ll never find out what happened that night.”

  “I’m not going to find out now. You’re going to lie to me.”

  “I wasn’t planning on it,” he said. “But I can if you want me to.”

  Her gaze met his. She was furious. Good. He’d have to keep her that way, just to keep her with him mentally, not to get lost in that night so far in her past.

  After a moment, she shook her head and brought the gun down.

  “God
, you’re an asshole,” she said.

  “I’m surprised you’re just figuring that out,” he said.

  “Oh, hell, I knew it from the moment I met you,” she said. “The question is, just exactly what kind of asshole are you? An annoying one? Or one that is so vile, so venal, that he toys with his prey before he kills it?”

  “A venal man wouldn’t return the gun,” he said.

  “Unless he poisoned the food,” she said. She waved the bag at him. “Go to the kitchen.”

  “And turn my back on you?”

  “Again,” she said. “Annoying? Or venal? Annoying wouldn’t worry about his back.”

  He smiled at her and walked somewhat sideways, so that he could see her and the hallway as he headed toward the kitchen.

  “Anyone would watch his back around you, Rikki,” he said.

  “Are you saying you can’t trust me?”

  “Rik,” he said, and she started at the shortening of her name. He wondered who else had called her that. “You kill people for a living.”

  “So do you, asshole,” she said.

  “Good point,” he said. “Very, very good point.”

  Chapter 33

  Misha slipped into the kitchen as if he had been there before. And considering how easily he had come into the apartment, he had at least seen it. Dammit. She had loved these open windows. She probably was going to have to move after this, and she really didn’t want to.

  She followed him in, and stopped near the counter. She disarmed the pistol and shoved it in the waistband of her pants. He had already had a dozen opportunities to kill her. If he tried again, she would stop him with her bare fists if she needed to.

  But he wasn’t going to try. If he had wanted to try, he would have done it when she lost it a few minutes ago.

  She had never lost it like that before—at least, not with someone she really didn’t know, someone she certainly didn’t trust. She had only lost it like that with Jack, and it had been years since that happened.

  Since they were children.

  She pulled the sandwich out of the bag, and put it on a plate. The sandwich was still warm, and the scent of meatballs, marinara, garlic, and fresh bread made her stomach growl again. When had she last eaten?

  She couldn’t remember.

  She set the plate in the very expensive food analyzer. Then she leaned against the counter and crossed her arms.

  Misha was standing only a few feet from her, watching her every move. That tousled hair, his eyes—no longer piercing, but soft, compassionate—made him so attractive. She hated this pull she felt for him. She hated the way her body betrayed her.

  And it had betrayed her since he came into the apartment—since she met him, really. She still wanted him, even though she was furious at him. Furious, confused, and beneath it all, terrified.

  “You wanted to talk,” she said. “So talk.”

  He ran a hand over his mouth, a nervous gesture that surprised her. Then he frowned.

  “I’m not sure how to approach this,” he said.

  She waited. She wasn’t about to help him.

  He nodded, and then sighed. “First, I need to ask you something.”

  “So ask,” she said. The food analyzer beeped behind her. She turned slightly. The list of ingredients ran across the analyzer’s screen. Nothing artificial; spices were in order and in the right amounts.

  She took the plate out, grabbed a knife, and cut the sandwich in half. Then she put that half on another plate and handed it to him.

  “I thought you were going to ask me something,” she said.

  “Not when you have a knife in your hand,” he said, and he wasn’t joking.

  “I’m going to have a knife while I eat this,” she said. “It’s too messy to eat with my hands.”

  He sucked in a breath. Then he said, “Let’s at least go into the dining room.”

  She nodded. She grabbed silverware—and in deference to him, she grabbed a less nasty looking knife, and headed into the dining room that she almost never used. Usually she ate in her office or standing in the kitchen.

  She sat down at the table, her back to the wall. She faced the kitchen door. He followed, holding matching silverware, his plate, and a glass of water. He sat across from her.

  She cut up the sandwich. “So ask,” she said.

  He set his silverware down. He hadn’t even started carving up the food. “Do you really not remember what happened that night?”

  She stiffened. She didn’t want to talk about that night. But she wasn’t sure how she could avoid it.

  “I remember it,” she said.

  “How much of it?” he asked.

  Finally, the right question. She stabbed a bit of sandwich with her fork and ate. It was good: spicy, garlicky, with a strong after-bite. Better than she remembered.

  “I remember that night,” she said.

  He tilted his head and took a bite of his own sandwich. “Then you remember me.”

  She was starting to shake again. She didn’t remember him. She knew he had to be there because at the time, his mother rarely worked alone. At least according to all the available information about the woman.

  And really, there wasn’t a lot of available information. Halina Layla Orlinskaya had been an assassin, after all.

  “Should I remember you?” Rikki asked.

  “Yes,” Misha said firmly. “You should. I got you out of the burning house.”

  Her cheeks grew warm. The fire— red and strong and hot, oh, so very hot and all the people silhouetted against it, that other little girl crying, the medical personnel— God. She didn’t remember how she got out of the house at all.

  How did he know that?

  “After you killed my father,” she said.

  “I didn’t kill him,” Misha said. “My mother did.”

  Rikki took another bite, but this time, she didn’t taste it.

  “But let’s focus for a second on what happened between us,” Misha said.

  She had trouble swallowing. “Nothing happened between us.” Another lie. Everything was happening between them.

  “That night,” he said. “Let’s focus on what happened that night.”

  She waited. She felt like she was made of glass and she could shatter at any moment. She hated that feeling. She had started this work, this profession, so she could learn how to take care of herself, how to prevent nights like that, to make sure if someone died, that someone was the right person, not a single father doing his best.

  “I got you out of the house,” Misha said.

  So you say. She bit back the words. She didn’t dare say them. She didn’t want him to know how little she remembered.

  “And then I waited with you until the authorities arrived. My mother dealt with law enforcement.”

  “They didn’t even arrest her for the arson,” Rikki said bitterly.

  He didn’t break eye contact, but something changed in his expression. Something slight. Something she couldn’t read.

  God, she didn’t trust him, and yet part of her really wanted to trust him. Thought she could trust him. Hoped she could trust him.

  “Again,” he said in that patient tone, “we’re just going to focus on you and me for the moment. We’ll get to the other details in a minute.”

  “That fire’s not a detail,” Rikki snapped.

  “And neither is your father’s death.” Misha sounded cautious. His hands were folded in front of his plate. “Just let me continue.”

  She waited.

  “After I got you out of the burning house,” he said, “I waited with you for the authorities. Do you remember that?”

  She remembered standing outside. She remembered everyone leaving the buildings. She remembered how the front of her—the part of her facing the fire—was very hot, almost too hot, and how the back of her was freezing cold.

  She shrugged. That was the only answer she was going to give him.

  “First, the police arrived,” he said when it b
ecame clear she wasn’t going to say anything else. “My mother went to talk with them. Then the fire brigade showed up. The fire had spread awfully fast, but everyone got out.”

  “Everyone except my father,” she said and heard the bitterness in her own voice, a bitterness that sounded almost alien to her.

  He turned his head slightly, almost as if he didn’t believe what he was hearing. But he kept that eye contact.

  “Your father was already dead,” he said softly.

  “So you say,” she said.

  He picked up his fork and knife, and cut into his sandwich. He took a bite.

  That made her remember hers. She ate faster than she usually did, but it gave her something to do.

  He took a drink of water. Then he said, “After the fire brigade showed up, the medical team showed up. I took you to them. Do you remember that?”

  “Stop asking me what I remember,” she snapped, and immediately wished she hadn’t. That was an admission she didn’t remember.

  He nodded, just once, as if agreeing to her terms. “When we reached the medical team, I asked them to take care of you. They took you in. You were horribly bruised, and you had some broken bones—”

  “What did you do to me?”

  He bit his lower lip. “I took you to them. And after I got you into their transport, I told them to make sure you got psychological treatment as well.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because of the trauma,” he said. “I went through a similar trauma. It’s better to have the counseling. But I guess they didn’t give it to you. Did they?”

  The nurse wouldn’t talk to her. Rikki was in that hospital bed, under wraps of all kinds, and no one talked.

  “I was burned,” she said. “You didn’t mention the burns.”

  “Only your right hand,” he said. “You tried to open the door.”

  She made herself finish the sandwich. The only burn scar she had that she had trouble getting rid of was on her right hand. It took several treatments before the skin came back.

  Her right hand.

  But she thought she had been burned other places. Even though the doctors kept her sedated while they worked.

  Bruised, he said. Broken bones, he said. The very thought of that made her head hurt.