By the time I’d cleaned myself up, it was nearly time to do it. I couldn’t risk Vasiliy going to bed. If he was still alive in the morning and Adam got wind of it, he’d think I’d double crossed him and kill Vasiliy and Luka as well.
A brand new dress and underwear had been discreetly hung on the doorknob of the bedroom while I’d been bathing—Luka must have sent one of the maids out to buy them. With them on and the necklace Luka bought me around my neck, I felt a little more human.
For a second. Until I remembered what I was about to do.
Yuri was at the foot of the stairs, cleaning one of his many guns. His arm was in a sling. He looked up at me. “Okay?” he asked gruffly.
I nodded.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have sent more men to the back of the warehouse. Olaf should not have got away.” He pushed the magazine into the gun with a vicious snap.
“It’s okay,” I said comfortingly.
He jumped to his feet. He wasn’t quite as big as Luka, but his size was still intimidating, especially when he was angry. “Is not okay.” He stared at me. “Bastard takes Luka, takes you...he needs to die. He’s pure poison. Always has been.”
There was something in his eyes—a more intense version of that sadness that always seemed to be there. I suddenly knew who’d given him the scar across his face.
I put a hand on his arm. “You did great, Yuri,” I said softly. “You rescued us. Without you….”
I didn’t want to think about what would have happened without him. I could still feel Olaf’s hands, cutting my dress away. Before I was even aware I was going to do it, I pulled the big man into a hug, wrapping my arms around him and patting him on the back. He responded awkwardly, as if no one had hugged him in a very long time.
When I unwound myself, he said, “Luka likes you.”
I nodded.
“I think that maybe you are what he needs,” said Yuri.
I nodded again.
“But I’m there to protect him,” said Yuri, the loyalty fierce in his eyes. “From everyone.”
“I understand,” I said levelly.
He nodded solemnly, as if to say that we’d never mention this conversation again, and went back to cleaning his gun.
***
I found Luka and Vasiliy in the drawing room, looking at something on a laptop. Blueprints of a house, presumably Olaf’s. Luka reached for the lid to close it as I walked in....and then relaxed and left it open.
He trusted me. He finally trusted me enough to have no secrets from me. Just as I was about to destroy his life.
He came over to me and put his arms around me. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “You look worried.”
I stared into his eyes and drew in a long breath. “I—” Tell him. “I—” Tell him!
Vasiliy was looking at me, too. He walked around from behind his son. “Arianna,” he said, his accent rolling around my name like rocks grinding it smooth, “I owe you an apology. When you came here before, when you indulged me by playing chess...I did not trust you.”
He suddenly grabbed my hands, squeezing them in his. I felt as if I was contaminating him with my sins. My own hands felt like cold, dead flesh. “Luka was right about you,” he said. “And I am honored—honored—to welcome you into our family.”
My mouth moved soundlessly. I could feel the tears rushing towards my eyes. God, no! Don’t do this to me! Not now!
“Leave her alone,” Luka muttered. “She’s been through enough without being pressured.”
Vasiliy smiled kindly at me and released my hands. They throbbed from his warmth. “I’m sorry. Don’t mind me, Arianna. I’m not looking for you to marry him.”
“Father!” Luka’s cheeks were flushing.
“Not yet, at least.”
“Father!”
Vasiliy’s eyes were twinkling. Any other time, it would have been funny and wonderful. Now, it just made me want to vomit up all the darkness inside me. No, I wanted to run to the stairs and hurl myself over the edge, down to the bare stone floor below. Maybe I’d crack my skull open and maybe then I wouldn’t be a threat to them anymore.
But even that wasn’t an option. Ever since Adam’s phone call, we’d all been locked into our fate. The only question was how many of them I was going to kill.
And really, there’s only one answer to that. I’m a geek at heart. I know how to do math. One death is better than two.
“Maybe we could have a drink,” I said, surprised at how level my voice was. “To celebrate.”
Luka looked at me, surprised, but then smiled. Vasiliy led us down the corridor to the tiny room where he’d questioned me, and poured whiskey for himself and vodka for us.
I had the tiny capsule in the palm of one hand. The two of them were so happy, it was easy to pick up Vasiliy’s glass for a second and crush the plastic against the rim so that the clear fluid dribbled into the whiskey.
“To family,” Vasiliy said, picking up his glass.
“To family,” Luka repeated.
“Family,” I said in a hollow voice.
We all raised our glasses to drink.
Time seemed to stop. I was in the car again, the wheels sliding over the snow. Falling and falling, the ground coming up to meet us.
I couldn’t do it.
I slapped Vasiliy’s glass away from his mouth, cracking it against his teeth and spilling the drink down his shirt. He cursed in Russian and frowned at me.
The glass hit the floor and shattered.
With anyone else, in any other country, Luka’s next words would have been What are you doing?! But he was Luka Malakov and this was Russia, and both he and Vasiliy had been living this life for far too long.
I turned to Luka to see his face going pale. I could feel the tears forming in my eyes, too powerful to stop. “I’m sorry,” I managed to get out.
“What did you do?” said Luka.
I shook my head.
“What did you do?!” Luka thundered.
“They’re going to kill you,” I whispered. “They’re going to kill you both.” I looked at Vasiliy. “Killing you was the only way to stop it.” I looked back to Luka, trying to drink in a last glimpse of him through the blur of tears. “I’m sorry. I’m CIA.”
He stared at me for three quick breaths. Then he stepped behind the table, pulled open a drawer and grabbed a handgun. He pointed the barrel right at my head.
I closed my eyes and waited for the bullet.
“Get out,” I heard at last. Luka’s voice, but choked up with so much emotion that it barely sounded like him.
I opened my eyes and stared at him, tears coursing down my cheeks. “They’re going to kill you!” I sobbed.
“GET OUT!” he screamed. I saw his finger tense on the trigger.
I turned and ran, blundering down the stairs. I staggered on my heels, half-blinded by tears. I finally made it to the front door and out, past the bewildered guards.
I ran. I didn’t know where I was going or even where I was. I had nothing but the dress I was wearing.
I was still running when the cell phone Adam gave me rang. I stared at it in disgust for three rings before I answered.
“I had someone watching the house,” he said. “They saw you run out. I’m disappointed, Arianna.”
“Fuck you,” I told him with bravery I didn’t feel.
“No,” he said coldly. “You see, you no longer work for the CIA. You’ve been officially recorded as switching sides to the enemy. You’re on your own. Arianna Ross no longer exists. If you try to use her passport or credit cards, the authorities will pick you up for fraud. And, as far as we know, Arianna Scott is an unemployed languages graduate who’s still in the US.”
I shook my head. “You can’t do this—”
“So really, Arianna, it’s fuck you.” And he hung up.
Seconds later, the cell phone went dead, its number disconnected.
I staggered to a stop by a payphone and tried calling the CIA main switchboard. None of my access codes worked. I’d been completely erased.
The CIA had disavowed me as a traitor. And that meant that I could never convince them of what Adam had done.
Vasiliy was still going to die and now, Luka as well. I’d condemned him with my own weakness. And Adam was going to get away with it. He’d keep on making millions from the gun trade and that bastard Olaf Ralavich would take control of the whole of the North American gun trade—only his smuggling would have all of the violence Luka had been working to end.
I was only wearing a dress. It was starting to snow, the flakes turned into little daggers of ice by a bitter north wind, stabbing the cold into my exposed arms and face. But I was past caring. The cold soaking into my body from the outside was nothing compared to the way I was freezing up inside. All the parts of me Luka had brought back to life were shutting down again, this time forever. I’d lost him, the one man who could have saved me.
I slumped down beside the payphone, hugged my knees and sobbed.
The wind scoured my skin and pushed the warmth inside me deeper and deeper, like an animal withdrawing into its burrow. I could feel myself losing feeling in my hands and toes, but the loss of caring was worse. I no longer saw the people passing by on the street—my eyes just stared fixedly ahead. I no longer felt the sidewalk under me as I sat, or smelled the exhaust fumes from the traffic as it rushed past. I felt as if I was floating.
The warmth receded and receded inside me. My head grew swimmy and my thoughts slowed and became big, lumbering barges creaking through ice. I don’t know how long I sat there—an hour? More? I shivered at first, but then I stopped and just felt sleepy.
I was sitting in the snow on a windswept street with the temperature well below zero. My thin dress was soaked through and just made the cold sink in faster.
Somewhere, on a very distant level, I knew I was going to die.
But I’d been there before, trapped in a car, screaming, and this creeping cold was easier and quicker. I could just let my eyelids close and go to sleep.