by Anna Zaires
By now, I should be used to that—I’ve been living with a team of assassins for months—but it’s still startling to realize how normal this is to them, and how utterly unconcerned they are with such banalities as good and evil. Where I come from, people feel ashamed if they don’t recycle or donate their used clothes, much less say or do anything to hurt another. The bad men in my world cheat on their wives, drive drunk, or refuse to give up their seat for a pregnant woman. They don’t kill for money or sell weapons that can wipe out entire towns.
That’s a whole other level of evil.
Yet even as I tell myself that, I can’t help being aware of the treacherous passage of time, of how each minute brings us closer to the end of this meal and Peter’s departure. Given everything, it should be a relief to have him leave, but I can’t suppress the anxiety simmering underneath my fear and anger.
No matter what, I can’t stop worrying about the monster I should hate.
All too soon, the desserts are consumed—most of them by Anton—and the tea is finished. Getting up, Peter and his men thank Yulia, praising the meal in glowing terms, and then Anton and the twins head to the exit, accompanied by our host. Yulia disappears into the kitchen, and I find myself alone with Peter for the first time since his revelation.
Coming up to me, he gently brushes his knuckles across my cheek. “I have to go,” he says quietly, and I nod, trying to ignore the painful lump expanding in my throat.
“Okay,” I manage to say semi-calmly. “Good luck.”
Be careful. Come back to me. I need you. The aching confession is on the tip of my tongue, but I hold the words back, suppressing the urge to step into his embrace and kiss him. He’s not my lover going off to war; he’s my kidnapper, my captor. By the time he returns, I might be gone, and if I’m not, we’ll have the biggest battle on our hands. What Peter wants—to impregnate me against my consent—is worse than kidnapping, more terrible than torture.
It would deprive me of the most basic choice of all and bring an innocent child into the twisted mess of our relationship.
Peter holds my gaze, and I can tell he’s waiting. For what, I don’t know, but when I continue to stand there silently, his face tightens and he drops his hand.
“I will see you soon,” he says grimly, turning away, and I watch, my heart breaking into pieces, as he leaves the room.
42
Peter
It’s just before midnight when we land on a private airstrip near Istanbul, less than five miles from our target’s suburban mansion. Our task for tonight is to scope out the area in person, as we’ve been going by satellite and drone imagery so far.
If all goes well, we’ll strike in a few days.
We’re all tired and jet-lagged—it’s already morning in Japan—so we keep our reconnaissance brief. Anton and Yan drive around the gated community where the mansion is located, noting key landmarks and potential escape routes, while Ilya and I enter the community on foot, using the guard shift change to scale the ten-foot fence near the main gate.
This level of security is designed to keep out ordinary criminals, not former Spetsnaz assassins.
The difficult part will be the security at Arslan’s mansion. Though the place masquerades as just another residence in this wealthy community, it’s protected with everything from motion detectors to a small army of bodyguards. Retina scanners, weight sensors, silent alarms, backup generators—there are redundancies upon redundancies in the security of the place, and for a good reason.
When you double-cross the ruthless oligarch who put you in power, you know to prepare for the worst.
Once we’re inside the gated community, we head toward Arslan’s mansion, making sure to keep out of sight of cameras placed strategically at intersections and in front of the majority of the sprawling luxury homes. Our target’s neighbors—other crooked politicians and wealthy Turkish businessmen—have enemies too, though none as powerful as the Ukrainian oligarch who is our client.
We don’t go up to Arslan’s property—the cameras there would be impossible to avoid—but we don’t need to. It takes us only a few minutes to disable the alarms on the three-story house on the far end of Arslan’s street—the residence of a real estate magnate who’s currently vacationing in Thailand. Once the alarms are off, we go up to the roof and set up a long-range camera, so we can observe everything going on at our target’s place. We then repeat this process with a mansion on the opposite end of the street, and then two residences a block over, so we have a 360-degree view of Arslan’s mansion.
The simplest, and safest, way to kill the politician would be to take him out with a long-range sniper’s rifle. Unfortunately, the windows of the mansion are bulletproof, and whenever our target is in the open, he’s surrounded by bodyguards. The next best thing would be to wire a bomb into his car, but he switches vehicles regularly and without any detectable pattern—plus the cars are always heavily guarded, even when they’re just parked on the street. Every delivery to his place is thoroughly checked too, as is each person entering and leaving the mansion.
At first glance, Arslan’s security is impenetrable, but we know better. Home is always where everyone feels safest—and that’s a weakness in itself.
Leaving the cameras in place, Ilya and I make our way out of the community and to the intersection where Yan and Anton pick us up. For the remainder of the night, we go to a private house we rented under false identities and organize shifts to watch the footage from the cameras we set up.
Yan is up first, followed by Anton, so I get a solid six hours of sleep before getting up to do my three hours of camera monitoring. Ilya, the lucky bastard, got the long straw this time, with a total of nine hours of shuteye.
It’s during the middle of my shift that we notice movement inside the house. Even with the shades on the windows drawn shut, we see the lights come on in the master bedroom on the second floor, followed by more lights downstairs.
Arslan’s household is waking up.
He keeps his domestic staff lean, with just a housekeeper, two maids, and one butler/bodyguard living on the premises. Their rooms are downstairs, which works well for our plan. The other guards—all twenty-four of them—are stationed in a guardhouse in the back. To look unobtrusive to the neighbors, they come out in small groups at random intervals to patrol the street and the beautifully landscaped yard surrounding the mansion.
Watching the cameras, I jot down the time and mark the pattern of the lights upstairs. People are creatures of habit, even those who were instructed by their bodyguards to be as unpredictable as possible.
“Keep an eye on his departure time,” I tell Ilya when he comes to replace me. “We know he leaves the house at a different time every day, but I want to see how much time passes between those lights coming on and his departure.”
Ilya nods and sits down in front of the computer while I go into one of the bedrooms to take a nap. My temples throb with a tension headache, and I need to rest so I’ll have my wits about me as we plan this attack.
The moment I close my eyes, however, my mind turns to Sara and our tense parting. I’ve been trying not to think about it, to focus solely on the job, but I can’t help recalling the wounded look on her face when I admitted my intentions… when I confirmed that the forgotten condoms were no accident.
I didn’t realize it myself until that moment, didn’t know I’d given in to my deepest desires until I heard the words coming out of my mouth. The moment I said it, though, I knew it was the truth. It might not have been a conscious decision to impregnate her, but it wasn’t a careless error either. On some primitive, instinctual level, I chose to fill her with my seed, to make her mine in the most visceral way possible.
The only time in my life I was careless with contraception was in Daryevo all those years ago, when Tamila seduced me before I woke up.
Opening my eyes, I stare at the ceiling in the unfamiliar bedroom. Despite Sara’s reaction, I feel lighter, as if a weight has been lifted
off my chest. It’s liberating to embrace the worst part of myself, to let go of the last of my moral qualms. I don’t know why I resisted for so long, why I tried so hard to fight for her love when she’s determined to cling to hate.
It’s obvious to me now that no matter what I do, Sara won’t let go of the past, and if that’s the case, she might as well have another reason to hate me.
Resolved, I close my eyes and force my tense muscles to relax.
When I return, there will be no more condoms. One way or another, Sara is going to have my child.
If she can’t love me, she’ll love a part of me.
43
Sara
It takes me several minutes to compose myself after Peter leaves, and by the time I head into the kitchen to talk to Yulia again, Kent returns and politely but firmly ushers me to my room.
“You should get some sleep,” he says, and from the implacable look on his face, I can tell he’ll use physical force to make me obey if he has to.
He has no intention of helping me, of that I’m certain.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” I say evenly when we get to my room, and he nods, his pale gaze inscrutable.
“Good night, Sara,” he says, and as he closes the door behind him, I hear the faint click of a turning lock.
I wait thirty seconds, then try the door handle to confirm my suspicions.
Sure enough, I’m locked in.
Taking a breath to calm myself, I walk over to the big window. It looks like the bottom portion should open by sliding up, but no matter how hard I try to push it up, the thick glass doesn’t budge. It’s either sealed shut or simply too heavy for me to lift. Some kind of bulletproof glass, maybe? That would make sense given Kent’s profession.
Either way, opening the window is out.
Next, I explore the small window in the bathroom. It has the same thick glass as the window in the bedroom, and there are two additional problems with it: it’s too small for me to crawl through, and there’s no opening mechanism as far as I can tell.
Frustrated, I leave the windows alone and go through the closet and the dresser, looking for a forgotten phone or an old tablet. The odds of finding such a device here are slim, but back home, people would leave their electronics everywhere, and it’s feasible Kent and his wife might do the same. After all, this is their house, not a place where they regularly keep prisoners.
At least I’m hoping that’s the case.
Unsurprisingly, I don’t find anything. The closet and the dresser hold what one would usually expect to find in a guest room: extra bedding and towels, along with some unopened toiletries.
Feeling increasingly drained and dispirited, I decide to take a shower and get some rest as Kent suggested.
With some luck, I’ll get to talk to Yulia tomorrow.
At this point, she’s my best, if not my only, hope.
To my disappointment, I don’t see Yulia the next day, nor am I allowed out of my room. Kent himself brings me my meals—a mix of leftovers from dinner and new gourmet concoctions undoubtedly made by his wife—and then he carries away the dishes an hour later. I don’t know if he’s purposefully trying to keep me away from Yulia, or if it’s just an unlucky coincidence, but by evening, I’m going stir crazy, frustration about my predicament mixing with growing worry about Peter. All I have are a few books that Kent brought me around lunchtime, and it’s not nearly enough to keep me from dwelling on the dangers Peter’s team might be facing at that very moment.
“Have you heard from them? Are they okay?” I ask Kent when he brings me dinner. The hard-faced arms dealer intimidates me, but I’m determined not to show it.
After all, I’ve been living with four equally dangerous criminals for months.
At my question, Kent looks coolly amused. “You want to know if they’re okay?”
I nod, though a flush warms my face. I understand how this appears. Given Kent’s treatment of me so far, he obviously knows I’m not here of my own free will. Still, I’d rather he believe I’m suffering from Stockholm Syndrome than continue to remain in the dark and worry about Peter all night.
“They’re okay,” Kent says, placing the tray on the dresser. His face is expressionless again, though a trace of amusement glimmers in the icy depths of his eyes. “Peter messaged me a couple of hours ago, asking about you. For now, they’re just gathering intel for the strike, so I doubt anything will happen tonight. You can rest easy.”
I exhale in relief. “Thank you.”
He nods and turns to leave, but I decide to push my luck. “Wait, Lucas… where’s Yulia? I haven’t seen her all day, and I wanted to thank her for these lovely meals.”
He gives me an inscrutable look. “I’ll convey your thanks to her.”
This is my cue to be a good captive and slink away, but I’m not about to give up so easily. “I’d rather do it in person, if you don’t mind,” I say, pasting a slightly embarrassed smile on my lips. “Is she really busy? There’s actually something I wanted to ask her… about some female items, you know…”
“Ah.” Kent looks amused again. “Yulia said to tell you that tampons and other girl necessities are in the cabinet under the sink.”
“Oh, it’s not about that,” I say quickly, though that was indeed what I was hinting at. “It’s something else.”
His eyebrows lift. “Oh? What is it?”
Crap. I was counting on him being like most men and acting embarrassed when confronted with the reality of women’s biological functions. Thinking quickly, I say, “It’s just a cream for something. It’s okay, though; I’m sure it’ll go away on its own.”
His expression doesn’t change. “Just tell me what cream it is, and I’ll see if we can get it.”
“Monistat,” I say, looking straight at him as I name a popular treatment for yeast infections. “The generic name is miconazole. It’s for—”
“Yeast. I know.” He doesn’t look embarrassed in the least. “We’ll get it for you.”
I grit my teeth. “Okay, thanks.”
He is determined to keep me from Yulia, and that makes me want to talk to her even more.
The following day passes in a similar manner, with me locked in my room all day. The only difference is that, at dinner time, Kent voluntarily updates me about Peter.
“They’re planning to do it the day after tomorrow, in the morning,” he says, placing my food tray on the dresser. “I will let you know if anything changes.”
I eye the arms dealer morosely. “Okay, thanks.”
It feels like an axe—a very slow-moving axe—is hanging over my head. I dread both the failure of this operation in Turkey and its success. If something goes wrong, I will lose Peter and regain my old life, and if he returns unscathed, I will be tied to him forever, bound by a child he intends to force on me.
The only way out is to escape before Peter returns, and I don’t see how that’s possible when I’m even more of a prisoner here than I was in Japan.
Kent leaves, and I eat dinner on autopilot, barely tasting the richly flavored food. On the tray, along with covered dishes, is a tube of the cream I requested—something I have absolutely no use for other than as a way to explain my need to talk to Yulia. Now that it’s been two days, I’m even more convinced that the beautiful blonde might be sympathetic to my situation—if only I could explain it to her fully.
Finishing my meal, I study the cream, noting dispassionately that it’s packaged a little differently from the way I’m used to seeing in the United States. It’s not surprising, of course. This is Europe. The Japanese morning-after pill also looked nothing like what I was used to.
The morning-after pill…
Sucking in a breath, I jump up, unable to contain my sudden excitement. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before, but if Kent was willing to get this cream for me, there’s a chance he’d agree to get something else—such as the pill I so badly need.
My first instinct is to rush to the door and hammer o
n it until my jailer comes, so I can implement my plan right away. However, that wouldn’t be wise. Acting overeager could make Kent suspicious, maybe even cause him to consult with Peter on the issue.
Taking a calming breath, I force myself to sit and wait for Kent to return for the tray. For this to have the best chance of success, I have to be smart.
I have to pretend this is yet another ploy to talk to Yulia.
The waiting seems interminable, though the clock tells me it’s only been an hour. Finally, Kent opens the door, and I implement my plan.
“So,” I say casually as he walks in, “is Yulia still busy? I would really like to talk to her.”
The arms dealer gives me a cool look. “Why? Is it about another female item?”
I try to look embarrassed. “Yes, actually. I’m sorry I forgot to mention it yesterday, but it’s something I really need.”
“And that is?”
“Plan B.” I give him my most innocent face. “Do you know what that is? There are other brands too, like Next Choice, My Way—“
“Got it. You will have it soon.”
And swiftly collecting the tray, he heads out the door.
44
Sara
That night, I toss and turn, tortured by worry about Peter’s upcoming operation and the realization that, despite my little victory this evening, the pill will at most delay the inevitable. Every time I sink into light sleep, I wake up with my heart racing, as if from a panic attack. It reminds me of the first couple of months after Peter’s assault in my kitchen, when nightmares about waterboarding and ruthless gray-eyed men were my nightly reality.
Finally, I give up on sleep and get up to use the bathroom. It makes no sense whatsoever, but what I want most right now is Peter. I want his warmth in the darkness and his strong arms around me, holding me tight. I want his deep voice calling me “ptichka” and telling me how much he loves me.
