DIMA
I pace back and forth in Ravil’s office.
I fucking hate everything about sending Natasha to meet Alex.
“He’s an FBI agent,” Maxim reminds me. “He’s not going to hurt her. The worst he can do is bring her in for questioning, and if he does, Lucy will make such a racket, they’ll let her go immediately. Don’t forget the video we have of him shooting Nikolai.”
“I still don’t see why this is necessary. He’s not going to tell her anything I haven’t already ferreted out. I don’t want him near her.”
“You can shadow her if you want, just to make sure she’s safe,” Maxim reminds me.
As if I needed his permission. Of course, I’m going to fucking shadow her.
Ravil remains silent, but I know his mind is already made up.
“I just want to hear what he has to say about what happened, and he offered to give her an explanation. We’d be foolish to turn it down,” Maxim reasons.
“So what do we want her to know going in?” Ravil asks. “What questions we want her to ask, what warnings about what she can and can’t say?”
I fold my arms across my chest and look to Maxim. He’s our Fixer. This is his strategy.
“She can tell him Nikolai pulled through, no thanks to him. Obviously, no information about the cabin or who or how he was treated. She should ask him what he was after and why he fired on Nikolai. Just basics. I just want to hear what he’ll say.”
“You want her to wear a wire?” I ask. I don’t like it.
“No. We’re not collecting evidence. Unless you don’t trust Natasha to tell us everything he says?” He raises his brows at me.
I trust Natasha. I was foolish to doubt her in the first place. But I can’t vouch for how cooperative she’ll be. She didn’t want to do this in the first place, and we didn’t part on good terms.
Since I’m hating this plan anyway, I simply shrug.
“Right. She’s pissed at you, no?” Maxim asks. “You want to tell us what happened?”
“No.” My arms tighten over my chest.
“You break her heart?”
I stare at Maxim, feeling punched in the gut by the question. Finally I nod, unable to speak.
“You plan on fixing that mess?”
I do plan on fixing things, but I haven’t figured out how, yet. I didn’t call or text her last night when we got back. It felt too soon. This morning my gut said she still needed time. And I needed to get my shit together first.
“I’m going to try.” My voice cracks like I’m a teenager.
Ravil pins me with a sharp look. “She’s not broken enough to roll over on us, is she?”
I hesitate but then shake my head. I may have doubted Natasha before, but I was wrong. She wouldn’t do that. She’s not mean or vindictive, even when angry at me.
He nods at Maxim. “All right. You talk to Natasha-she wants no part of Dima right now.”
Even though I knew that, having Ravil say it out loud guts me.
I go to my room, unwilling to hang out in the living room with the living. But once I’m there, I don’t know what to do with myself. It feels like so long ago that I was cyberstalking Natasha’s on the building security feed.
She was just a fantasy then. An obsession, but nothing I’d ever act on.
Now I know her. I’ve tasted her. Held her. Kissed her and laughed with her. Now she feels like mine. And yet nothing could be further from the truth.
The place on my finger where I wore Alyona’s ring marks the change in me. Everything’s different and rearranged inside, but was it too late?
I sure as hell hope not.
Natasha
I order a drink at Starbucks and look around. Alex isn’t here yet. He was totally punctual the other times we met up, but I don’t read too much into it.
I feel both hollow and heavy at the same time. Sort of like I’ve been filled with sand. I don’t want to be here.
Interacting with any other human would be painful at the moment, but I especially don’t want to talk to Alex. He’s another one who used me. I wasn’t even his fall-back friend. I was just a target he used to get to my friends.
And yes, I do still consider them my friends even if I’ve had it with all of them. They’re still my community. My people.
But maybe he did really care about me. I read all the texts he sent over the last week. The ones Dima intercepted and replied to. He apologized. Said he felt bad for involving me and that he knew I wasn’t a part of the bratva. He said he liked me, and he hadn’t been faking the good times he had on our dates.
I’ll bet that one drove Dima particularly nuts.
I sit down and wait. Time crawls. Five minutes goes by then ten.
Seriously? What. The. Fuck? Alex is standing me up now?
Well, screw this. I did my part. I’m not going to waste any more time here. Not when I just spent the last week as a pseudo-prisoner in the forest for the bratva. I stand and walk out.
“Natasha!”
I turn in the direction of my name to see Alex in his car at the curb. He gives me a wave. “Sorry I’m late.”
I walk toward his car.
“You already had coffee?” He glances at the cup in my hand.
“Um, yeah.” I turn and look over my shoulder at the Starbucks. I really don’t want to go back in. I’d already thought I was off the hook.
“I couldn’t find a place to park. Why don’t you hop in? I’ll drive you back, and we can chat in the car.”