Assassins in Love Read online

  “Did they treat you for post-traumatic stress?” His voice was very soft.

  He was trying. Or so it seemed. He was trying to talk to her.

  What would it hurt to tell him that she didn’t remember? Except that he could exploit her hole-filled memory. But he was doing that already.

  “They tried,” she said. “They tried all kinds of treatment.”

  “And the post-traumatic stress remained?” he said.

  She shook her head. “I thought I was fine. I didn’t seem to have it.”

  Until I met you, she thought. Until I thought you were back, to kill me, and then so much of that night returned—not in memory, but in emotion.

  “Then what were they working on?” His voice was so gentle. He seemed gentle.

  But he killed people for a living.

  Just like she did.

  Just like his mother had.

  “Apparently there are gaps,” she said. Her cheeks were warm. She hadn’t talked like this with anyone except Jack.

  Jack, who would say she was being stupid to trust this man. Jack, who was investigating him even now, while she sat across the table from him, finishing a sandwich.

  “Gaps in your memory?” Misha asked.

  She nodded and her eyes flooded. She looked away from him and blinked hard. This man brought out all the wrong emotions in her.

  He had finished his sandwich. She hadn’t seen him finish. She was so self-involved that she had missed details she would normally keep track of.

  “I didn’t know,” he started, then shook his head. “I thought there were methods now to bridge those gaps.”

  “The wonders of science,” she said wryly.

  “Yes,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Apparently, if you have a strong enough mind, you can overcome those things.”

  At least, that was what the doctors told her. Which meant they didn’t know why she couldn’t remember. Maybe they thought she was lying, protecting someone, needing the attention, something. Jack believed she didn’t want to remember and maybe there was truth to that too, given how she felt right now.

  Misha made a soft sound.

  She frowned at him.

  He gave her a half smile. “I’m sorry. I almost asked you what you were blocking. But if you can’t remember, then you don’t know.”

  She stood and picked up her plate. There was still a bit of sandwich on it, but she was no longer hungry.

  “Apparently, I blocked you,” she said and went into the kitchen.

  She set the plate down in the sink and spread her hands over it, trying to regain control. She was making rookie mistakes over and over again, mostly because of something that had happened eighteen years ago.

  What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she take control of the memory, of herself, of this situation?

  She should order him to leave.

  She should force him to leave.

  She should talk to him and find out what happened.

  She should get away.

  She should just plain give up and crawl under the bed with the dust bunnies.

  She wished Jack was here. Jack would know what to do. But her heart-brother couldn’t save her anymore.

  She was going to have to save herself.

  Chapter 34

  Apparently, I blocked you.

  Misha sat at Rikki’s dining room table, the empty plate before him, the fork still in his left hand, those words rolling around in his mind.

  Apparently, I blocked you.

  That sentence had hurt. He wasn’t quite sure why it had hurt, but it felt like she had taken her fork and stabbed him in the heart with it.

  He swallowed, tasting the garlic. He reached in his pocket and got a mouth-cleaning strip, just so that he would have something to do.

  Apparently, I blocked you.

  Maybe that bothered him because he hadn’t blocked her. There wasn’t a day in his life when he hadn’t thought about that night—not because he was obsessed with a little girl, but because he thought of that night as a turning point for him, just the way his father’s murder had been a turning point.

  His mother had told him to get the kid out of the house. And he had done things like that countless times before. But this time, he had grabbed the little girl, felt her tremble against him, and he had protected her. He had felt compassion for her, and some fear, and he wanted her to be all right.

  He had felt so badly for her, even before he met her, as he watched her father brutalize her. Misha had known what was coming—the assassination, the changed circumstance—but he had wondered how it would feel to lose a horrible parent, the oppressor, the person who had ruined your life instead of saved it.

  He would have thought she would be grateful. Maybe that was too strong a word. He would have thought she would be relieved to be free of her father.

  And Misha had checked on her after it was all over. She was hospitalized—her wounds too bad to let her out immediately—and he made sure that she got into a high-ranked government program, one that provided excellent health care and education, one whose graduates (survivors?) went on to healthy, productive lives.

  Someone could argue that her life was productive now. She had an approved job. She was good at it—or she seemed to be.

  But she had gaps in her memory. Gaps that, it seemed, included him.

  He sighed and stood. Then he grabbed his own plate and went into the kitchen.

  She had been bending over the sink. For a moment, he wondered if she had been sick, but the air smelled of the sandwich, not of vomit. She stood when she heard him and turned so that her back wasn’t to him any longer.

  Her eyes didn’t meet his as she took his plate and set it beside hers in the cleaner.

  “I’m going to tell you exactly what happened,” he said. “I don’t know if this is prescribed or not, if it will help you or not. But you should know.”

  She remained in front of that sink, slightly hunched, as if her body could protect her from his words.

  “My mother took contracts, like you do,” Misha said. “She worked alone more or less, but a lot of governments hired her. She used to be a spy for the Kazan System until they gave her a job she couldn’t do.”

  “I know,” Rikki said softly.

  He nodded, acknowledging her, but not letting her throw him off his rhythm. “The Eyad government hired my mother to assassinate your father. The Eyad government had caught him selling secrets.”

  Her lips thinned. She crossed her arms. “He was military. He would never do that.”

  Misha sighed silently. He had decided to tell this story, so he was going to have to go through with it all.

  “There was a hearing when it was all over. My mother remained on site. You know that, right? That she contacted the authorities and went with them.”

  “Because she started the fire,” Rikki said.

  “We’ll get to that,” Misha said. “But first, think about this. Because you know it, even if you don’t remember it. Your father’s death was justified.”

  “Don’t—”

  “Not justifiable,” Misha said. “The legal term. It was justified. The authorities checked. And you know it because my mother was never prosecuted, nor was anyone else.”

  Rikki straightened just slightly.

  “If you want, we can look this up. I know it’s in the information stream.”

  He had checked after he saw her again, to make sure he was remembering everything properly. To make sure she really was that little girl who had trusted him with her life.

  Rikki stared at him.

  “Your father,” Misha said, “had sold the wrong information.”

  The skin around her eyes tightened, forming slight lines.

  “And so the Eyad government contracted with my mother. They paid her like you and I get paid, half to start the job, and half after the job was completed.”

  Rikki swallowed visibly. Her arms were crossed so tightly that he could see the strain on he
r muscles.

  “We watched your place.” He kept his voice even and calm. This was the voice he reserved for survivors, people who walked in on him after he had finished a job, people who didn’t always understand what he was doing.

  Rikki’s eyes were wide. She watched him as if she expected him to grab her suddenly and hurt her.

  “I was on leave from the Guild,” he said. “I went to school there, and it was vacation. On the vacations, Mother always made me go with her on jobs. She wanted me to know how ugly the work could be. But she was very good at it, and usually she finished the job quickly and easily.”

  It was his turn to swallow. His mother had been the best at the work because she had been clinical, cold, efficient. Ruthless.

  “But your father’s job, that wasn’t easy. Or quick.”

  Rikki shifted slightly.

  “Honestly,” Misha said, “it was exactly the kind of job Mother had wanted me to see. She figured if I was ever going to turn away from the work, a job like that would make me do it.”

  And he nearly did. If it hadn’t been for Rikki herself, he would have. But he had known that if his mother hadn’t killed her father, Rikki wouldn’t have survived the year.

  That had gotten him through the Guild training, through his own first botched job, through all the tough nights. Remembering the hard face of a little girl, bravely taking the “punishment” her father dished out, and vowing to survive it. A little girl who was breaking on her own. Who would have broken—and died—at that man’s hands, sometime in the next few months, as the stress made that man more and more violent, and made him care less and less.

  “When the medical team arrived,” Misha said softly, “they treated you for several broken bones, for deep, deep bruises, and for a burn on your right hand. One of those bruises was on your stomach. It turns out you were bleeding internally.”

  “You remember this how?” Her voice wasn’t shaking. It was strong. “I mean, you’ve done, what?, a hundred jobs in your lifetime, two hundred? Plus the work you did with your mother. How do you remember me?”

  “I never forgot you,” he said.

  She turned her face slightly, as if he had hit her. “Why?”

  “Because,” he said as plainly as he could. “You’re the reason I do this job.”

  Chapter 35

  He was bullshitting her. He had to be.

  Rikki was pressed against the cabinets, the cool lip of the sink digging into her back. Her arms were crossed—one of the therapists from so long ago would have made her uncross those arms (You can’t hear with your arms crossed, dear. Your arms physically block the information)—and her fingers were tucked into fists.

  She was not the reason he had become an assassin. She couldn’t be. That made no sense at all.

  “Me?” she asked.

  “You.” His face was filled with compassion. “You probably don’t remember. You might not believe me.”

  He seemed to be saying that last part more to himself than to her. She pushed even harder against that sink.

  “Your bruises, those injuries, your broken bones,” he said. “We watched them happen.”

  “Your mother did it,” Rikki said, even though she didn’t remember getting the bruises or broken bones. She remembered the doctors talking about them, the discussions in the case of how unusual they were. That was the reason Halina Layla Orlinskaya had been held an extra few days. The bruising. The broken bones.

  And then Orlinskaya had been released.

  Rikki knew that. But she remembered getting the burn. The worst burn, she thought. The horrible burn.

  The one on her hand.

  “My mother didn’t do it,” Misha said softly. “Your father caused those bruises.”

  That first memory: Her father’s face, purple with anger, his eyes small and flashing, his voice lacerating: You don’t beg. You never beg. Begging gets you nowhere. Stop begging, you little bitch.

  Rikki closed her eyes against the memory, but it only became stronger. His hands, so big. His knuckles, so sharp as they connected with her cheek, the taste of blood in her mouth.

  She opened her eyes, and saw Misha, watching her, as if everything depended on what she was going to say next.

  “We watched him hurt you,” Misha said. “And I wanted to do something. Mother said we would do something. We had to give it time. I didn’t think we had time.”

  Rikki crossed her arms harder, feeling them press against her rib cage, feeling the strain in her shoulders, her back.

  “We planned the job. We were going to go in, and Mother would… take care of your father, and I would get you out, then call the authorities.”

  The shadows, the movement inside the house, the feeling of someone who didn’t belong. Then the harshly beautiful woman’s face, the close-cut white-blond hair, the pale ice-blue eyes, suddenly appearing right beside Rikki, startling them both. The woman recovered first.

  Don’t worry. We have not come for you. You will survive this. You will be Just Fine.

  The woman had spoken with a trace of an accent, and her words hadn’t been comforting. Then she had said, in a much harsher voice, Misha. Do your job.

  Misha.

  The movement in the shadows, the feeling of someone who didn’t belong. Someone beside her, brushing against her.

  Rikki remembered that, the way he had been there, beside her. But he wasn’t beside her now. He was in front of her in her own kitchen. She stared at his face, so like his mother’s. Harsh, beautiful. Blue, blue eyes, but no ice. White-blond hair, tousled, not cut too close. Masculine features, compassion. The woman had had no compassion, even though her words had.

  “Mother made the mistake,” he said. “Mother, who usually never made mistakes.”

  Rikki frowned. He was standing too close, but she couldn’t back away. She was pressed against the sink.

  “Mother startled you,” he said, “and you let out the smallest of sounds. She spoke to you, and beckoned me to get you out, but that was just enough to warn your father. He was prepared for us. He knew someone was coming for him. Someone had probably warned him. Or maybe he was just that smart.”

  He was just that smart. Her father had been brilliant, everyone said so. But no one had liked him. She knew that too. That hadn’t fled her memory. The therapists asked her over and over again why no one had adopted her, why no one had been close enough to their family to show her some compassion.

  My daddy doesn’t believe in friends, she would say, until finally one therapist challenged her.

  What’s wrong with friends? the woman asked.

  They make you weak, Rikki had said.

  Later, she had told that to Jack. Twelve-year-old Jack. He had gotten mad. Do I make you weak? he asked.

  She shook her head—then and now.

  Misha was watching. He didn’t stop talking. Maybe he couldn’t.

  “Your father was prepared,” Misha said. “He had some kind of laser weapon. He tried to talk my mother into leaving. Then he tried to bribe her. My mother wasn’t the kind of woman who took a bribe.”

  The voices. Rikki remembered voices. And someone beside her, hand on her arm.

  She willed herself to concentrate on Misha, on the here and now.

  “Your father was the one who started the fire, Rikki,” Misha said. “He shot into a starter pile.”

  The sharp smell of the house, the stuff he had put on the walls. She had hated it. It had given her a headache. Why do we need it, Daddy?

  He hadn’t answered her. He had simply told her to get out of the way.

  Misha kept his gaze on hers. He wasn’t breaking eye contact. So she couldn’t either.

  “He’d been prepared,” Misha said. “He used the laser to ignite the building. He thought that would make my mother run. My mother never ran. Not from anything.”

  “Except the Kazan System,” Rikki blurted.

  That broke the moment. Misha smiled. It seemed like he smiled with relief. At her comment? Or reli
ef that she was listening?

  Or was she reading something else into it?

  “Yeah,” he said. “You’re right. She ran from them, to save her own life. Although she would have told you she quit and moved.”

  Rikki shrugged. Semantics. She could focus on semantics rather than on what he was saying.

  Because what he was saying disturbed her. So deep that it made her head hurt. Memories flooded into her brain—and they came with a whoosh. Not their own sound, but the sound of that fire, igniting.

  With a whoosh.

  Then the boy beside her said, Holy shit! and grabbed her around the shoulders, pulling her against him, and her father, screaming No, no, no—the last no getting cut off in the middle, and the heat, surrounding them, enveloping them, the smoke rising, the boy saying, Come on, come on, we have to get out of here. I’ll get you out, and pulling her forward. And she didn’t scream—Daddy! Get out, Daddy!—because she didn’t want to, she didn’t want him to get out, she wanted him to die, that horrible, horrible man, because then he wouldn’t touch her again, he wouldn’t hit her and hurt her and tell her not to cry—

  Her knees buckled. She uncrossed her arms and caught herself on the side of the sink.

  Misha took a step forward as if he was going to catch her, and then he stopped himself, clearly uncertain about whether or not he should touch her.

  The bruising, the broken bones, so unusual for an Orlinskaya job, hadn’t been caused by Orlinskaya at all. But by Rikki’s father.

  But that wasn’t what made Rikki block the memory. She hadn’t hidden from herself what kind of man he had been.

  She had talked about it with her therapists—how he hadn’t had friends, how he hadn’t been very nice. (But he had been smart. A survivor, he said. I’m going to teach you how to be a survivor, Rikarda (that name she hated). You will know how to live because of me.)

  She had blocked the memory because of that visceral hatred, that moment when she knew she should yell for him, protect him, get him out of there—and she hadn’t.

  She wanted him to die. She wanted him to die horribly. And she made sure of it. She made sure he couldn’t escape.