“It was.” There’s no point in denying it. “They falsified my documents and enrolled me in the university so I could live in Moscow and get close to key people in the Russian government.”
“Get close how?” He leans forward, and I see something dark flash in his pale eyes. “How exactly did they want you to carry out your assignment, beautiful?”
I don’t answer, but I can see that he knows. How else does a young woman insinuate herself into top government circles?
“How many?” Lucas’s voice is sharp enough to slice me into pieces. “How many did you have to fuck to ‘get close’?”
“Three.” Two lower-level officials and one of Buschekov’s friends—which is how I got the job as Buschekov’s interpreter. “I had to sleep with three of them.” I stare directly at Lucas, ignoring the ball of shame lodged deep in my chest. “Esguerra would’ve been the fourth, but I ended up with you instead.”
His eyes narrow further, and my pulse spikes with cold fear. I don’t know why I’m taunting him like this. Getting Lucas angry is a bad idea. I need to be pacifying him, buying myself more time. It doesn’t matter that the contempt on his face is like a knife stabbing into my liver.
An actual knife would be much, much worse.
He stands up abruptly, looming over me, and I try not to flinch as I tilt my head back to meet his gaze. His eyes glint at me, rage flickering in their blue-gray depths again. For a moment, I’m convinced he’s going to hit me, but he grips a fistful of my hair instead, forcing my head to arch back more.
“Did you want them?” His fingers tighten in my hair, making my eyes sting at the pain in my scalp. “Did your pussy cream for them too?”
“No.” I’m telling the truth, but I can see that he doesn’t believe me. “It wasn’t like that with them. It was just something I had to do.” I don’t know why I’m trying to convince him. I don’t want him to know that he was in any way special, but at the same time, I can’t bring myself to lie about this. “It was my job.”
“Just like I was your job.” He stares down at me, and I catch a glimpse of the dark lust lurking underneath his anger. “You gave me your body to get information.”
I don’t deny it, and I see his chest expanding as he draws in a breath. I brace myself for hurtful words of condemnation, but they never come. Instead, his painful hold on my hair eases a fraction, as though he realizes my neck can’t stay bent like that.#p#分页标题#e#
“Yulia...” There is a strange note in his voice. “How old were you when you slept with the first one of the three?”
I blink, caught off-guard by the question. “Sixteen.”
Or at least that was when our relationship began. Boris Ladrikov, a short, slightly balding member of the State Duma, had been my first boyfriend, and our affair lasted for the better part of three years. He introduced me to all the important people, including Vladimir, who had become my next assigned lover.
“Sixteen?” Lucas repeats, and I notice a muscle ticking near his ear. He’s furious, and I have no idea why. “How old was your target?”
“Thirty-eight.” I don’t know why Lucas is asking all these irrelevant questions, but I’m happy to answer them for as long as it keeps him away from more important topics. “He thought I was eighteen; the identity I assumed was two years older.”
I expect Lucas to drill me on this some more, but to my surprise, he releases my hair and steps back.
“That’s enough for now,” he says, and I catch that odd note in his voice again. “We’ll resume this in a bit.”
Without saying another word, he turns and leaves the room. A minute later, I hear the front door open and close, and I know I’m alone again.
21
Lucas
A child. She had been a fucking child when they planted her in Moscow and forced her to sleep with sleazy government assholes.
The rage blasting through me feels hot enough to incinerate my insides. It had taken every ounce of my self-control to conceal my reaction from Yulia. If I hadn’t left the house when I did, I would’ve put my fist through a wall.
The impulse is still with me an hour later, so I hammer the sandbag in front of me, channeling my fury into each blow. I can see the other men giving me inquiring looks; I’ve been at it for the past forty minutes without so much as a water break.
“Lucas, you crazy gringo, what’s gotten into you?” A man’s voice breaks my concentration, and I spin around to see Diego standing there. The tall Mexican is grinning, his teeth flashing white in his bronzed face. “Shouldn’t you be saving some of that energy for your prisoner?”