Lie to Me (12 page)

Alexei rose to his feet.

When he got halfway to the doorway to the bedroom, it opened. Sasha stepped out, her blue eyes wide and searching. They landed on him, and for an instant, Alexei observed the same touch of vulnerability that had held him captive these last two years. Then, as she blinked and offered him a hesitant nod of acknowledgement, the subtle defenselessness disappeared behind a blank mask of indifference.

The same detachment he expected from a pampered princess whose words were pretty but meaningless.

His jaw locked reflexively, the barriers he had erected so many years ago slamming into place. He had to give her credit—she didn’t make a pathetic show of pretending she wanted anything more than bedroom amusement. Thank God for small miracles. He’d lost his stomach for that game at seventeen.

S
asha pushed open the scrap of wood barely thick enough to qualify as a door, entered the dingy apartment’s bathroom, and dropped the sack of clothes Kadir’s maid had given her in the sink. She kept her gaze focused straight ahead on the mirror, afraid if she looked around she’d find a roach or two. Or worse, spiders. There’d be one sitting on the drain in the tub, and that would make her scream, which would totally destroy her little act of bravado on the plane.

Taking a deep breath, she closed the door and leaned against it with her eyes closed. Somewhere tonight she’d lost her mind. All the bits of logic and sense disappeared right out the same window she had crawled through. Nothing else could explain how Alexei, the very man who shot Saeed, could overpower her heartache.

Sense was coming back though, quicker than she’d like. Kadir’s sweeping vineyards and stone villa had reminded her so thoroughly of the only home she’d known these last two years, that ever since they’d left them for this rat hole in Florence, an hour away, all she had done was relive comfortable memories.

A car backfired outside the tiny barred window that let in only a brief glimpse of the historic city beyond. The loud
bang
flashed another picture across the back of her eyelids. Saeed slammed against the peach-painted wall, his soulful brown eyes wide with shock. Then he was dead on the floor, a crimson stain on the wall trumpeting the life he had lived. In a flash, another explosion pummeled through her mind, the newspaper clippings of the ruptured subway train in London
seven years ago as fresh in her memory as if it had happened yesterday.

Tears brimmed as Sasha’s heart twisted. She covered her face with her hands and slid slowly down the door to the dirty floor, finally able to grieve. Saeed had been her one true friend. He knew her darkest secrets. Knew she had murdered her brother, how her father had used that to coerce her into making bombs, and the retribution he would extract for her anonymous confession of her crimes to the Americans if he found her again. Saeed gave her protection. He could have abused her, could have used her for whatever purpose he desired. But no. He had understood and accepted. Without asking for anything in return.

And her foolish whisper sent him to the grave. Alexei was right—she had killed him.

Just like she had killed the thirty innocent people on that English subway.

Something Alexei could never find out. If he knew the truth about her, he wouldn’t just take her to her father, he’d turn her in for terrorism. She wasn’t a terrorist, but no one would believe her. No one would understand how her father had manipulated her.

She might have killed, but she refused to pay a murderer’s price until she could somehow take her father down with her. Turning him in, however, was out of the question. For God’s sake, he had won the Nobel Prize for his work in T-cell signaling complexes and had led researchers to the beginnings of finding a cure for AIDS. People throughout the world respected, even
revered,
him. They’d laugh her claims out of the room as fast as they could slap cuffs on her.

But she’d stake her life on the fact her father would exterminate her before she could subject him to the infinitesimal risk that someone would listen to her. If he didn’t, the people he worked for, Moscow’s
Solntsevskaya Bratva,
would.

Unbidden, a sob rose. She clamped her teeth down, trying to swallow it into silence. It came out against her will, strangled and broken. Before it had died off completely, a second rose, then a third, a fourth,
until she was crying openly, unable to staunch the freeflow of anguish from her heart.

She hadn’t cried like this since her father told her the truth about her brother’s death.

T
he sounds of Sasha’s crying grated on Alexei’s nerves. He couldn’t think about the soccer game on the television, or how Brazil’s goalie had gone to crap since the last season. All he wanted to do was kick in that worthless hunk of hollow particleboard, take her in his arms, and make the pitiful sounds stop.

His gaze flicked to the closed bathroom door, then back to the television, and he ground his teeth together.

“Breaks your heart, doesn’t it?” Grigoriy murmured from the 1970s wood-framed and orange-cushioned couch at Alexei’s left.

Alexei chose not to answer. Instead, he took in the apartment the agency had acquired thirty years earlier or more. Despite the dim lamps and theme of flowers, golds and greens that screamed hippie era, this tiny cage brought a sense of contentment. It reminded him of home. Of his mother, and summer days spent lying on a similar couch watching black and white reruns of
The Beverly Hillbillies
while she made tuna salad sandwiches in the kitchen.

“Guess she has had it rough tonight,” Grigoriy continued, oblivious to the hint in Alexei’s silence. “Did she ask questions?”

No, questions hadn’t been part of their…conversation. Alexei crossed his left ankle over his right knee to escape the sudden tightening in his groin. Christ, he couldn’t remember a time when just merely thinking about a woman could tempt his cock. But every time Sasha crept into his central awareness, his dick woke up like she had touched it.

Realizing Grigoriy was still staring expectantly, Alexei shook his head. “You heard all the important ones.”

“Don’t you think that’s odd?”

Sasha’s crying increased in volume for several heartbeats, making it nearly impossible for Alexei to carry on a conversation. He could no more pretend not to be aware of the sadness he’d wrought than he could pretend he didn’t want to fuck her senseless.

“Have
you
ever met someone who didn’t ask questions? Who
accepted
a forced relocation?”

“Yes,” Alexei murmured, remembering the last time he had forced Sasha into a converted military vehicle and delivered her to Amir. She hadn’t asked questions then, hadn’t protested. With unforgettable stoic silence she accepted her fate.

“So why isn’t she jonesing for a pick-me-up? The rest of the girls all went into rehab programs.”

Another question Alexei didn’t feel like answering. He let it hang. Grigoriy was fishing, and this was one expedition Alexei refused to entertain. There were too many damn complications, too much room for perceived failure. He had shared everything with only two people, his first partner and best friend, Misha, and Natalya, who understood the price that came with sacrificing one’s soul for a mission. She had helped him heal…somewhat.

Several long seconds passed, Grigoriy’s fingertips drumming out an antsy rhythm on the couch’s wooden arm. Sasha’s tears diminished into blubbery sniffles and faint soggy whimpers. Alexei stared at the television, every particle of his being attuned to the grieving going on behind that bathroom door.

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. Giving in to a harassed exhale, he rose out of his threadbare chair.

Grigoriy smirked. “Wondered how long it would take.”

Alexei shot his partner a scowl. It would be damned gratifying to wipe that smirk off his face with a hard right hook. He hadn’t liked the accusation he was in over his head, and he loathed the insinuation he’d gone soft. Contenting Sasha was a necessity—he couldn’t begin to sleep with that intolerable racket going on. He needed sleep to survive the next leg of the journey tomorrow with her.

Or so he told himself as he stalked across the room and rapped lightly on the door. “Sasha?”

“Just a second.” Her words came out in a flurry, like a child caught doing something she shouldn’t. She sniffed loudly, hiccupped, then cracked the door open.

Her glistening cheeks and puffy eyes sliced through Alexei’s defenses. He caught himself mid-wince and laid a palm flat on the door. He pushed, but she braced it from opening farther.

“Let me in,” he ordered in a quiet tone that warned he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

She puffed out a sigh and eased the door open.

Alexei shut it behind him. He took one look at her, choked on the vulnerability glowing in her light blue eyes, and cracked. Letting out his own sigh, he folded her into his arms. She came against him willingly. Her shoulder tucked against his chest, her arms wound around his waist. As he laid his cheek against the top of her head, he breathed in the exotic perfumes that had tempted him to oblivion much earlier. An unfamiliar knot loosened behind his ribs.

He didn’t know how long they stood that way, but with his eyes closed, her body soft and warm against his, exhaustion began to tug at his mind. His limbs grew heavier. His breathing leveled out. Her tight hold on his waist loosened.

Opening his eyes, he smoothed a hand down her long silken hair. “You should get some sleep.”

“It’s morning. The sun’s peeking up.”

Carefully avoiding the mirror, he shifted his gaze to the window, noting the early violet hue in the sky. “I guess it is.” Which meant they wouldn’t be going anywhere until tomorrow morning. He’d put her through enough for one night. Her father could live another day without her. Particularly since he knew she was safe at least.

As he nuzzled her hair once more, tiny wisps getting caught on his unshaven chin, all the places they connected soaked into his awareness. His pulse kicked up a notch. Against his thigh, his cock stirred.
Damn. What was the matter with him? It was like some animal had invaded his body. Sure, the sex was mind-blowing, but this wasn’t normal. Certainly not for him.

His cock was going to have to wait. He knew from experience Sasha could go all night. But those amazing evenings hadn’t included bullets and death. She might be strong, yet he couldn’t ask her to endure more.

Easing out of her embrace, he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and guided her to the door. “You still need sleep.”

All five and a half feet of her tensed like stone. Bracing against his steering efforts, she shook her head. “I don’t want to sleep, Alexei.”

In her adamant whisper, he heard the fear he had once known so intimately. Dreams had a way of making all the realities unavoidable. Alexei stopped urging her toward the door and turned to catch her chin in his hand. He tipped her face to his. A dozen reassurances floated through his mind. What made it off his tongue shocked him. “Why don’t you hate me?”

S
asha stared into Alexei’s searching green eyes, sideswiped by the question. Why didn’t she hate him? She wasn’t sure she knew the answer. Of all the people in the world, aside from her father, Alexei deserved her hate. He’d fucked her, drugged her, sold her into slavery, and killed her only friend.

Then, as his gaze shifted, and the well of emotions she had carried with her since that fateful night in the transport vehicle reflected back at her, she knew. Words didn’t exist to explain how his expression told her things she couldn’t comprehend but understood all the same. Telling him the only way she knew how, she cupped her palm against his cheek and yielded to a tender smile. “I’ve never forgotten your face.”

She saw her confession hit him. Felt the instantaneous tightness beneath her palm before it ever settled into his mouth. When that tension compressed his lips, his entire body tensed. He dropped his hand
and opened the door. “Come on. We’ve got a lot of traveling ahead of us. I need you rested.”

This time, he didn’t give her opportunity to resist. He tugged her out of the bathroom, down the hall, and into the solitary bedroom. When he flipped on the light switch, illuminating a dingy lamp near the bed, a rat scurried across the carpeting and disappeared beneath the closet door. Sasha shuddered. Rats took a close second to spiders.

“It won’t eat much,” Alexei muttered as he guided her to the bed. “The sheets are clean. They always send a maid when they’re expecting someone.” He reached down and threw the covers back. “Probably not suitable for a princess, but you can always take the floor.”

The bitterness in his voice confused her. What he had just asked implied she had reason to fault him. So why the hell was he continually acting like she carried the blame?

She opened her mouth to demand an explanation, but Alexei was already out the door. She would have gone after him if she wasn’t tired of all the fighting, all the conflict. Besides, Alexei was right about one thing—no matter how she feared what would greet her when she closed her eyes, she needed sleep before she traveled. Only this journey wouldn’t include Alexei.

Sasha fell more than reclined onto the bed. Tears had done one thing for her—they’d given her courage. For over two years she’d run from her father and the
Bratva
. People had paid that price.
Saeed
paid that price. It was beyond time to confront Yakiv Zablosky. She might not make it out alive, but she still remembered how to use a gun, even if they did scare her shitless. She was already going to hell. One more death would only make that eternal punishment justified.

Tomorrow, at the first opportunity, she was striking out for Russia on her own. Before they came after Alexei, looking for her. She
would not
wear his blood on her hands too.

A
s the sun rose over the eastern horizon and gray-violet light gave way to blue sky, Alexei stretched out on the hard couch. Well, stretched out wasn’t entirely true. He could only extend his legs if he hooked his ankles over the arm, and lying on his back, he felt like a squished sardine. His left shoulder hung off the seat a good inch; his right was jammed beneath the back cushion, against the frame.