I WOKE, rolled onto my side, and groped around blindly. Where are my glasses?

“What are you looking for?” asked a Russian voice that vibrated right down my spine.

I sat bolt upright, the memories landsliding down on top of me. The mission. The mansion. My new face. Konstantin.

He was standing next to the bed, wrapped in a soft white robe that set off his tan. The inner edges of that strong chest were visible through the vee in the front and all I wanted to do was run over to him and push up against him like a cat, sliding my head inside his robe and resting it against that hard, warm muscle. God, what’s happening to me?

There was a robe for me, too, and we wore them down to the dining room for breakfast. I stared at the flawless white tablecloth and gleaming silver cutlery, at the waiter who stood ready to take our orders. We can order anything we like?! My usual breakfast was coffee and an energy bar, eaten at my desk.

Konstantin ordered eggs, bacon, sausage and toast. I was about to do the same when I realized I had no idea what Christina normally ate.

To my relief, the chef asked, “Your usual, Miss Rogan?”

I nodded in relief. “Yes, please.”

He blinked and cocked his head, as if me saying please was a surprise, and then hurried away.

A waiter brought Konstantin The New York Times and he shook it out and disappeared behind it. Papers at breakfast: awesome. I’m a news junkie and I hadn’t caught up in days—

The waiter handed me a glossy fashion magazine. Oh.

Konstantin’s breakfast arrived: a groaning plate loaded with at least four eggs, a teetering stack of bacon, a pile of thick sausages and half a loaf of toast. My mouth started to water.

Then the waiter set a smoothie in front of me. Not above my place setting, where a drink would go. Right where the plate would be. That was my breakfast.

And it was green. Not the bright, cheerful green of apples and kiwi fruit and other tasty things. An ominous gray-green halfway between avocado and kale.

I looked up at the waiter, thinking maybe he was messing with me. But he wasn’t smiling: in fact, he looked scared. “It’s just how you like it, miss,” he reassured me. When I just stared at him, he started to go pale and I had to quickly smile to make him relax. God, were all the staff terrified of me?

I took a sip. God, it was disgusting, thick and gloopy and I could taste broccoli and fish oil and something bitter and pungent that could have been Brussel sprouts. I looked up at the waiter. “It’s perfect, thank you,” I managed.

“I don’t know how you drink that stuff,” muttered Konstantin from behind his paper.

I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible so I gulped it down and was finished long before him. I climbed the stairs towards our bedroom, full of vitamins, but in desperate need of something to wash the taste away.

But on the second floor, I stopped. Konstantin’s study was right there. I bit my lip. I still had a mission. And I knew he’d be safely downstairs for at least a few minutes.

I sneaked inside. The room must have been a bedroom originally because a door led off it to a small bathroom. The map on the wall was of New York, with neighborhoods color-coded to show who controlled them. Right in the middle of Konstantin’s territory were three red spots, like drops of blood, showing where Ralavich had set fires the night before. I frowned at them. Why had Ralavich done it? He couldn’t possibly hope to take over those neighborhoods, let alone hold them: Konstantin was far too powerful. So what did Ralavich hope to gain by scaring the people who lived there?

I searched the drawers of Konstantin’s desk, but they were empty and the desk itself was clear. He must lock everything in the safe every night.

I crept over and took a look at it. The thing was ancient—why were so many things in the house so old? But it was still sturdy enough: there was no way of getting it open without the combination. I had my phone in the pocket of my robe so I snapped a quick photo of the door and sent it to Calahan: maybe he could help.

Then I heard the stairs creak. Shit! I raced out onto the landing and turned towards the next flight of stairs...but it was too late. Konstantin rounded the corner and saw me.

His mood changed in a heartbeat. “What are you doing?” he snapped.

I took a faltering step back. “Nothing! Going upstairs!”

He stalked over to me and frowned suspiciously at the door to his study. “Were you in there?”

I backed up again. “No! Of course not!”

He took a step towards me. I shrank back against what I thought was the wall. But my ass hit something smooth and polished and when I put my hand behind me to steady myself, it hit only air. I screamed and flailed as I tipped over the banister—

He grabbed the front of my robe and jerked me forward to safety. I slammed into his chest and he wrapped his arms around me, holding me close. I could feel my heart pounding at how close I’d come...and I could feel his heart hammering as well, at the shock of nearly losing me.

When he gently pushed me back, all the anger had gone out of him. He didn’t say sorry, but I could see the guilt on his face. His eyes had a protective gleam that made me go weak inside and he gripped my wrists like he didn’t ever want to let me go. “Don’t go in my study,” he said gently. “Okay?”

I nodded quickly, too awash with adrenaline to speak.

He disappeared into his study and closed the door and I climbed the stairs to our bedroom on shaking legs. If he’d finished breakfast a few seconds earlier... if he’d seen me taking a photo of the safe….

In the bedroom, I drank a tall glass of water and leaned against the wall while I tried to slow my breathing.

“You okay?” said Calahan’s voice in my ear.

I sat down heavily at the dressing table, staring at my reflection in the mirror. “Yes,” I lied.

What I didn’t want to say was, in that moment when he’d nearly caught me, I hadn’t just been scared. I’d felt...bad. Just for a fleeting second, I’d felt disloyal for betraying him.

“Tell me about Ralavich,” I said. I started to do my make-up as we talked.

“He’s very. Bad. News. Lots of drugs. Some guns. But his specialty is brothels in St. Petersburg that...they aren’t normal brothels. The women are all trafficked and the men, they pay to….” Calahan’s seen a lot of evil, in his time. I knew this must be something awful, for it to be so difficult for him to say. “They call them rape clubs,” he managed at last, his voice shaking with anger and disgust.

“And now he’s trying to expand into America,” I said, my voice tight. “He wants to bring that here. But how could he possibly hope to take on Konstantin?”

Carrie came on the line. “Hailey, the mission is Konstantin.”

I bit my lip. “But if you’d seen what Ralavich did...he was happy to burn families in their homes, just to make a statement. I feel like he’s the real danger. Konstantin...people respect him. He protects them. They’re not the same—”

“All these men are the same,” said Carrie sharply. Then, more gently. “Hailey, it’s important not to get drawn in.”

I flushed. Was that what was happening? Was my judgment sliding, because I was attracted to him? “Yes ma’am,” I said, chastened. But it still felt wrong.

I told them about the safe and they said they’d show the photo to the FBI’s technical team. Then I finished off my make-up and did my hair. I was gradually getting faster at it, but I was also realizing it’s a lot easier to look glamorous when you don’t have a job to rush off to each morning.

The weather had changed. The freezing winds of the night before had dropped away and it was a bright, clear day. I pulled on a green jersey dress and a soft pink cardigan to keep my shoulders warm. I wasn’t going to risk any more sneaking around, not right now. So I figured I’d explore the rest of the mansion. But when I opened the bedroom door to step out, Grigory was there, his hand raised to knock.

Before I could stop him, he’d pushed me inside and kicked the door closed behind him. “Konstantin’s in his study,” he panted, his hands already on my waist and sliding upwards. “We have at least an hour.”

My eyes went wide. This is how they’d done it? Right here in our bedroom, while Konstantin was downstairs?! It was a miracle they’d never been caught!

Grigory walked me backwards towards the bed, our bodies pressed together. His hands pulled my dress up over my ass and I could feel his cock hardening against my thigh. “No,” I said into his shoulder, but he ignored me. “No!” I said, more loudly.

He stopped and I twisted away from him, breathing hard. I staggered away, tugging my dress back into place.

He ran a hand through his hair, angry and hurt. “What’s the matter with you? You normally….”—he shook his head—“you enjoy the risk.”

I swallowed. “Not anymore.”

He shook his head. “Then let’s get out of here. Leave him and let’s go! You keep saying it’ll be soon. When?!”

I stared at him. It was worse than I thought: Christina hadn’t just been having an affair with him, she’d been planning to run away with him. “Things are different, now,” I croaked. “Konstantin—”

“He doesn’t love you! But I do!”

And I could see in his eyes that it was true. I felt awful for him and I could see exactly how it had happened. Of all the guards, he was the one who was closest to Konstantin and Christina. He’d been with them every day, for months. He’d seen his boss’s sexy girlfriend, seen how she was trapped in a loveless relationship, and he’d wanted to rescue her. I actually started to feel a little sorry for Christina. Maybe I’d been too hard on her. Maybe, starved of warmth and affection, she had fallen in love with Grigory, and planned to run off with him as soon as she’d accrued enough money from Konstantin.

I took a deep breath. “I need to think,” I told him. “Just be patient.”

I started to back away, but he grabbed my shoulder and drew me back to him. And then he leaned down and—

I drew in my breath as he kissed me. He was very different to Konstantin: there was no heady rush of pleasure, no dominant, commanding intensity that sent a spike of heat straight down to my groin. But each press of his lips was full of love: it was a slow, sweet, lover’s kiss, light as a butterfly but loaded with the weight of how he felt for me. He buried his hands in my hair and it felt so good, for a second I lost myself in it….

And then I gently pushed him away. “I have to go,” I told him. And ran.

I raced down the stairs, lips still throbbing. As I passed the door to Konstantin’s study, my cheeks exploded into heat and my chest contracted. Guilt? I told myself it made no sense. I was lying to Konstantin, plotting to betray him. What did it matter if I let some other guy kiss me?

But that’s how I felt. I knew I couldn’t let Grigory kiss me again.

I didn’t want to run into him again so I hurried out of the back of the mansion, somewhere I hadn’t been yet. When I saw what was in front of me, my run slowed to a jog and then a walk. And then I just stopped and gazed around in wonder.

Many years ago, someone had planted a garden to match the mansion. There were flower beds full of color, tree-lined paths where lovers could stroll and red-brick walls that divided the garden up and created secret, shady spots where you could sit on a bench with a book.

But while the mansion had been maintained and modernized, the garden hadn’t had any attention in decades. The grass was knee high and wildflowers fought with roses in the flower beds. The trees had grown out of control, some of them twisting together until you couldn’t see where one stopped and another began. Ivy had engulfed one of the oaks, transforming it into a rearing dragon with shining green scales, while three more trees had fallen in storms and lay on their sides, gathering moss. Some of the walls were crumbling and the wooden benches had been bleached almost white by the sun.

It was insanely beautiful. The sun filtered through the trees casting dappled light on the ground and throwing shafts of gold onto old sundials and other abandoned treasures. The leaves had just finished their transition to the red and copper of fall and a gentle wind turned them into a rolling sea of vivid color. I could hear birdsong from high above and brightly-colored butterflies fluttered through the flower beds. And then, just as I started forward, a rabbit hopped out of the undergrowth and onto the path, looked at me, and hopped off into the grass.

I felt something inside me lift...and tears prickled at the corners of my eyes because I was suddenly aware of a deep, crushing ache that had been there ever since I left Wisconsin, a need I’d been pushing out of my mind all these years.

I ran into the garden and started exploring. I felt twigs catch and pull at my dress as I pushed through bushes. A stocking tore, scraped on rough bark as I climbed over logs. The heels of my shoes sank deep into the earth, the shining leather ruined forever. And I didn’t care about any of it. I was drunk on nature: there were birds and rabbits and hedgehogs and field mice...I wished I had my camera. It was the happiest I’d been in a long time.

Hours flew by. Then I heard something huge crashing through the undergrowth behind me. “Christina?”

I was getting used to the name, now. And hearing it in that accent...the silvery hiss of the is like a soft breath against my neck, then the hard t that was almost a kiss. It made me go shaky every single time. I turned to see him clamber over a fallen, mossy tree trunk.

“What are you doing?” He sounded genuinely bemused. “One of the guards said he saw you come out here hours ago.”

I looked around in wonder. “It’s amazing!”

He gazed around, bewildered. What is?

I was so blown away by the place that I forgot to be Christina. “Look around you! It’s wild, it’s like nature’s taken over!”

He shook his head. “It’s a mess.” He rubbed at his stubble. “We should get it all cut back. An assassin could use the undergrowth to sneak close to the house.”

I stared at him. “Do you have to see everything as a threat?”

He frowned at me, astonished. Everything is!

I sighed and moved closer. “Look! Just look at….” I turned a slow circle. There was so much to see, I couldn’t pick just one thing. “Everything!”

He frowned deeper, exasperated, and picked a leaf out of my hair. But he gamely turned his head and looked at the trees, the flowers, the butterflies…and nothing happened. His eyes didn’t light up. He didn’t see. Whatever had happened to him, it had made him narrow his worldview down to his empire: money and allies and enemies and threats.

“Can’t you see the beauty in anything?” I asked, looking up at him in desperation.

He slowly turned his head towards me. Then he looked down into my eyes. And that’s when I saw the gray flicker and soften, that tiny trace of blue slipping through. I swallowed, feeling my chest go light, feeling that helpless flutter. And the longer we held each other’s gaze, the more the battle in his eyes grew.

My breathing hitched. He took a step forward, awkward and halting. I saw his hands twitch. The mood was totally different to the airport, or at the bottom of the stairs. This was soft and romantic, everything he denied he could be. He was going to—

He leaned down. His finger lifted my chin, tilting my head back to meet him. His lips brushed mine….

And then he tore himself away, straightening up and cursing in Russian. For a moment, he wouldn’t look at me and I was left there stunned. I wanted him to. God, I really wanted him to. There was no way I could deny it, now. I was starting to have feelings for him...and I wanted him to have them for me. Am I falling for him? For someone I know is pure evil? Someone I know I’m going to betray?

I had to get out of there. I turned and stumbled off into the undergrowth, heading for a building I’d seen earlier but hadn’t explored yet.

It was a glasshouse that must have been built at the same time as the mansion. The bricks came only to knee height and then it was all ironwork and panes of glass. The green paint was flaking off the metal and the glass was so old and cloudy, it distorted the outside world like a funhouse mirror. Inside, I paced up and down past tables laden with ancient, crumbling flowerpots. Remember who he is! He’d kill you if he found out who you really are!

And then I saw him coming after me. The cloudy glass made him just a huge, dark shape, a monster approaching.

He opened the door and for a second he just stared at me. He was breathing fast with anger but it didn’t feel directed at me. He was mad at himself. Because he nearly let himself feel something?

“You must come out of there,” he told me. “It’s not safe.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “It’s very old. The glass could fall from the frames.”

I looked around. The metal had baked and frozen through so many New York summers and winters that it had deformed, and most of the putty that held the glass in place had crumbled away. Probably everything was pretty precarious. I looked up at him and there was a sudden swell of warmth in my chest. He’d followed me in here because he was worried about me.

I nodded and he held the door for me as I walked out. He followed me back to the mansion, but his heavy footsteps never came closer than ten feet. I could feel his eyes on my back the whole way and it wasn’t just lust, anymore, it was something deeper. A longing that was so dangerous, he had to hang back so it didn’t overwhelm him completely. Oh God, what am I going to do? I could feel myself rushing towards a precipice I wouldn’t come back from.

Back inside the mansion, I headed upstairs and heard Konstantin break off behind me and enter his study. Just as I reached our bedroom, the pocket of my cardigan started to buzz. I pulled out Christina’s phone, confused. I hadn’t set any alarms.

But she had. A reminder was on the screen. Meet Mom to give her birthday gift.

My eyes widened. Shit! I’d been so focused on Christina’s relationship with Konstantin, I hadn’t thought about her having family or friends. I’d fooled Konstantin and Grigory...but how the hell was I going to fool Christina’s mother?