A half hour later, Adam called in Roberta. He asked me to wait in the hallway while they discussed my reassignment. While they discussed me.
It turned out that the soundproof walls at Langley aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?!” yelled Roberta. “She’s a languages geek, not a field agent!”
She’d always seemed so proud of my skills. It didn’t feel that way now.
“She’s smart,” said Adam calmly. “She’s resourceful. She handled herself well at his house.”
“She could have been killed! If he’d seen her messing with his laptop—”
“He didn’t. And anyway, it’s her choice.”
Roberta’s voice rose further. “You don’t know her like I know her! She’s got issues!”
“Do you think I’d be suggesting this without having read her file?”
“That’s not the same as knowing her! She has flashbacks! Nightmares! She can barely get in a goddamn car, Adam!”
Hot shame flared in my cheeks. I hated being a mess. I hated still feeling like a teenager.
“She’s CIA,” said Adam. “She’s done her training. She wants to do field work. And Malakov wants to fuck her. That’s good enough for me.”
“You know that kind of field work needs a certain kind of woman,” snapped Roberta. “Arianna is not it. Get Nancy!”
I jerked at that. Nancy? They’d put my best friend on this, instead of me? My stomach tensed up. Nancy was the best. That showed how hard Roberta thought this mission would be. Maybe I should back out. Let Nancy have it. She was the mature one, the together one.
But then I thought of her seducing Luka, effortlessly and professionally, and...part of me didn’t want that. Am I jealous?! That’s insane!
“Nancy’s in Venezuela,” said Adam. “And Malakov doesn’t want that sort of woman. He wants Arianna.”
“You can’t do this, Adam! Why do you even want Malakov so badly? Let the Russians handle him!” Their voices were getting louder. I winced. I hated hearing them fight.
I heard Adam’s chair scrape the floor as he stood. “You need to back off. That girl works here and right now we need her and she’s stepped up to the plate. The only one who’s not on board here is you!”
“I’m the only one who’s thinking straight! Arianna is—” She must have realized she was shouting, because she lowered her voice.
A woman in a suit—someone from another division—chose that moment to walk by. She glanced at the closed door and raised voices and then at me, standing outside, and gave me a sympathetic smile.
“Arianna is fucked up!” Roberta hissed at that exact moment.
I did my very best to smile back at the passing woman, despite feeling as if I wanted to die.
“Sorry, Roberta,” said Adam. “You’re going to have to let go of your little pet. Now get out of my office.”
A moment later, Roberta marched out of the office. “Follow,” she snapped, without even looking at me. I scurried after her, despite being close to tears at what she’d said about me.
When we got back to our department, she took me straight through to her private office and closed the door. I’d barely ever been in there. She normally liked to sit out in the open office with the rest of us.
Today, though, she closed the blinds, nodded me to a chair and then leaned against the desk, gripping the edge of it so hard that her knuckles whitened. Her dark hair fell forward, hiding her face. I imagined her counting to ten in her head. Then she took a long breath and looked up at me. “Sorry, if you heard some of that.”
“It’s okay,” I lied. I’d been loyal to this woman for years, ever since she’d recruited me. Now I just wanted to be sick. Was that what she’d thought of me all this time? That I was fucked up?!
Roberta caught my expression. “I was just trying to protect you. That’s all I want, Arianna—to protect you.”
I swallowed, thinking of Adam and how he believed in me. “I know. But I want to do this.”
Roberta sighed and sat down heavily in her chair. “It’s my fault,” she muttered. “I should have let you move into field work.” She opened a filing cabinet and, from the very back of the drawer, pulled out a bottle of Scotch.
Roberta drank?! During the day?
She must have seen my look. “Only on special occasions,” she said. And she poured two glasses, handing me one.
I stared at the amber liquid. My brain was still trying to catch up. “You’ve been a great boss,” I said truthfully. Until today. And maybe she had just been trying to protect me. And what she’d said was true—I was fucked up. But I hadn’t wanted her to tell Adam that and I hadn’t wanted to hear her say it. Hearing that conversation had made me want to prove her wrong and impress Adam even more.
“I know you want to get out of here,” Roberta said despondently. “I just—You’re so good at what you do, Arianna. I need you here. And I don’t want anything to happen to you.” She looked me in the eye. “Russia’s nothing like America. It’s hard. Brutal. Adam should know better—he worked over there for years before he got moved up the ladder. I can’t believe he’s even thinking of sending you. I don’t even understand why he wants to do this op in the first place.” She shook her head. “Look—don’t do this. Not Malakov.”
“I can do it,” I said, with a certainty I didn’t feel.
“Can you? Really?” She sighed. “This sort of man can be charming, but underneath he’s pure ice. He’ll kill you if he finds out. He won’t hesitate. Mafia guys are all about loyalty. You’ll be violating that in the worst possible way. And if you can keep him fooled, you’ll have to be with him.” She sipped her Scotch. “God knows what he’ll want in the bedroom. A man like that, Arianna, he’s not going to be…” She sighed again. “He’s not going to be like one of your boyfriends.”
A chill went through me. A chill that changed to heat when it hit my groin. God, what’s wrong with me? I flushed.
When I met Roberta’s eyes again, she was staring right at me, a worried look on her face. She can’t know how I feel about him...can she?
“Arianna, reconsider,” she said. “You’re about to get into shit you can’t handle.”
I took a deep breath...and shook my head.