“Yulia!” He bangs his fist on the door, and I feel it shaking, echoing the quaking of my body. I feel cold again, the chill from the nightmare returning. Why did I tell Lucas about Kirill? I never trusted anyone but the agency therapist with the full story. Obenko knew, of course—he was the one who ordered the hit on Kirill—but I never spoke about it with him.
Outside mandated therapy sessions, I never spoke about it with anyone until Lucas.
“Yulia, open this door.” He stops banging, his tone turning calm and cajoling. “Come out, and we’ll talk.”
Talk? I want to laugh, but I’m afraid it’ll come out as a sob. When I was first recruited, the agency therapist expressed a concern that I wouldn’t be sufficiently detached for the job, that losing my family at a young age made me susceptible to emotional manipulation. It was a weakness I’ve worked hard to overcome, but apparently not hard enough.
A tender touch, a show of anger on my behalf, and I turned to putty in Lucas Kent’s hands.
“Yulia, there’s nothing in that room for you. Come out, sweetheart. I won’t do anything to you, I promise.”
Sweetheart? A spark of anger ignites in me, chasing away some of the icy chill. How much of an idiot does he think I am?
Stepping back, I turn and unlock the door. Lucas is right: there’s nothing in this bathroom for me but self-recriminations and bitterness. I can’t change what happened. I can’t take back the fact that I trusted a man who desires nothing more than revenge.
What I can do, however, is turn the tables.
When the door opens, I look up at Lucas and let the tears stinging my eyes finally fall.
6
Lucas
She stands in the doorway, looking so beautiful and vulnerable that my heart squeezes in my chest. Her eyes are glittering with tears, and as I reach for her, she wraps her arms around her naked torso in a defensive gesture.
“No, come here, sweetheart.” I unwrap her arms and pull her toward me, doing a quick visual scan of her hands to make sure she’s not concealing a weapon. No matter how fragile Yulia appears, I can’t forget that she’s a trained agent who’s already tried to kill me.
To my relief, she’s unarmed, so I fold my arms around her, pressing her against my chest. “I’m sorry¸” I whisper, stroking her hair. “I’m so sorry.”
The feel of her bare skin against mine makes my body stir again, and I have to focus to ignore the press of her nipples against my chest. I don’t want to get distracted by lust, not after what I’ve just learned.
I know I’m being irrational. It shouldn’t matter that she’s been abused. Some of the most twisted individuals I know have had a rough past, and I’ve never been inclined to cut them any slack. If they fucked up, they paid. Nobody gets a free pass with me, yet that’s precisely what I’m planning to give her.
My one-eighty turn is so sudden I want to laugh at myself. She’s been here less than twenty-four hours, and my plans for her have already gone up in smoke. I suppose I should’ve expected this, given that I haven’t been able to get Yulia out of my mind for the last two months, but the intensity of my need and the inconvenient feelings that came with it still blindsided me.
She killed dozens of our men and nearly killed me.
The thought that always enraged me now brings up only echoes of my former fury. She was doing her job, carrying out the assignment she’d been entrusted with. I’ve always known it was nothing personal, but that didn’t matter to me before. An eye for an eye—that’s the way Esguerra and I have always operated. You cross us, you pay.
Except I don’t want to make Yulia pay anymore. She’s been through enough, first at the Russian prison, then at my hands. Instead of her, I’ll focus my vengeance on the ones who are truly responsible: the agency that gave her that assignment.
“Let’s go back to bed,” I say, pulling back to gaze down at Yulia. She’s stopped trembling, though her face is still wet with tears. “It’s early.”
She gives a curt shake of her head. “No, I can’t sleep. I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”
“All right.” The sun’s already starting to come up, so I figure it’s not a big deal. “Do you want something to eat?”
She extricates herself from my hold and takes a step back. “Another sandwich?” Her voice still sounds shaky, but there’s a tiny note of amusement there too.
“I have soup,” I say, trying to keep my eyes off her slim, naked body.
She blinks. “What kind of soup?”
“I’m not sure. I forgot to look inside the pot before putting it in the fridge. It’s something from Esguerra’s house. His maid gave it to me last night.”
A small, surprising smile curves Yulia’s lips. “Really? Do they also feed you scraps from their table?”
“No.” I chuckle at her not-so-subtle jab. “I wish they would, though. Esguerra’s housekeeper is amazing in the kitchen, and I can’t cook worth shit.”
Yulia arches her delicate eyebrows. “Seriously? I can.”
“Oh?” I find myself enjoying the unexpected banter. “Did they teach you that in spy school?”
“No, I taught myself some basic recipes when I first arrived in Moscow. I was living off a student stipend, so I didn’t have a lot of money for eating out. Later on, I discovered I liked cooking, so I started experimenting with more advanced recipes.”
The reminder of the fucked-up nature of her job kills my lighter mood. “You weren’t getting a salary?”
“What?” She looks taken aback. “No, of course I was. It was being deposited into my bank account in Ukraine. I just couldn’t use those funds—I had to live like a student, else I wouldn’t have passed the Kremlin’s background checks.”
Of course. Undercover living at its finest.
“All right,” I say, forcing my tone to lighten. “Let’s try the soup for now. Maybe later you can show me your cooking skills.”
* * *
The soup Rosa gave me is delicious, filled with mushrooms, rice, beans, and chunks of lamb. As we eat, I observe Yulia, wondering what the hell I’m going to do with her now. Keep her naked and tied up in my house forever?
To my shock, the idea holds a certain dark appeal. For the first time, I understand why Esguerra kept his wife, Nora, on his private island for the first fifteen months of their relationship. It’s as secure and isolated as one can get—a perfect place for a woman who may not necessarily want to be there.
If I had an island, I’d keep Yulia there, with nothing but her long blond hair to cover her.
Her spoon clinks against her ceramic bowl—I don’t have paper plates for soup—and I tense, my gaze jumping to her hand. She’s just eating, though, her attention seemingly focused on her meal.
Despite her calm demeanor, I don’t relax. She’s going to try something, I’m sure of it. I may have decided against making her pay, but that doesn’t mean I trust Yulia or expect her to trust me. Even if I told her I no longer plan to punish her, she wouldn’t believe me. Given a chance, she’d escape in a heartbeat, and the fact that she’s being so docile worries me. It’s a good thing I took the precaution of stashing all weapons from my house in the trunk of my car; it would’ve been too risky to have guns around when I let her eat untied like this.
Naked and untied.
I try not to get distracted by the sight of her nipples peeking through the veil of her hair, but it’s impossible. Under the table, my cock feels like it’s made of stone. I took the time to throw on a pair of cut-offs and a T-shirt before leading Yulia to the kitchen, but I didn’t give her any clothes, and I’m starting to think that keeping her undressed like this is not such a good idea.
As if sensing my thoughts, Yulia tucks her hair behind her ear, causing it to shift and mostly cover her breasts. I let out a sigh of relief and resume eating as my arousal slowly subsides.
“You know, you never told me what happened that day with your plane,” she says midway through her soup, and I see that her blue eyes are trained on my face, studying me. Once again, I’m reminded that I’m up against a skilled professional. She might’ve seemed fragile after her nightmare, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a deep reservoir of strength.
She must have it, else she couldn’t have done her job after that brutal attack.
“You mean after they shot the missile at us?” I push my empty bowl aside. The fact that she can talk so calmly about the crash brings back some of my anger, and it’s all I can do to keep my voice even.
Yulia’s hand tightens around her spoon, but she doesn’t back down. “Yes. How did you survive it?”
I take a deep breath. As much as I hate talking about this, I want her to know what happened. “Our plane was equipped with an anti-missile shield, so it wasn’t a direct hit,” I say. “The missile exploded outside our plane, but the blast radius was so wide that it damaged our engines and caused the back of our plane to catch fire.” Or at least that’s the theory our engineers have come up with based on the remnants of the plane. “We crashed, but I was able to guide us to a cluster of thin trees and bushes. They softened our landing somewhat.” I pause, trying to keep my fury under control. Still, my voice is hard as I say, “Most of the men in the back didn’t survive, and the three who did are still in the hospital with third-degree burns.”