Chapter 13 - Sofia #2
"I can't. I've tried my whole life. Watch." I purse my lips, blow. Nothing but air. "See? Nothing." I try again, pursing my lips, and this time manage a small fart noise before spittle flies from my lips.
He shakes his head. "That's not embarrassing. That's just sad."
"Excuse me, I'm a trained killer who can't whistle. Do you know how hard it is to signal during operations? I have to use bird calls. Bird calls!"
"What kind of bird?"
"According to Nico, a very angry pigeon."
He laughs. Actually laughs. Not a smirk or dark chuckle. A real laugh that transforms his face, makes him look like the boy in that photo with his mother.
Oh no. My chest tightens at the sight, the sound. This is dangerous in a way his violence never was. This is the kind of thing that makes you forget who your enemy is. Makes you drop your guard.
Makes you want things you can't have.
The laughter fades. We're both drunk now. Not sloppy, but unguarded. The bottle nearly empty. I should stop. Should go to bed. Should maintain some barrier.
Instead, I pour us each another glass.
"Can I ask you something?" His voice has gone quiet, dangerous in a different way. "Not as the game. Just… asking."
I nod, not trusting my voice.
"Why do you say 'Misha' in your sleep?"
The question hits like cold water. My hand clenches around the glass hard enough that it might shatter.
"I don't know." Complete truth. "I don't remember ever meeting him. But I dream about him every night. A boy in a garden, teaching me Russian words. Laughing."
"Mikhail taught you Russian?"
"I don't know." My voice cracks. Control slipping. "I don't remember any of it when I'm awake. Just fragments. His voice saying the same thing over and over."
Alexei leans forward, predatory even in his curiosity. "What does he say?"
I close my eyes, trying to grasp the dream that slips away every morning like smoke. The taste of copper floods my mouth. Phantom blood from phantom memories.
"He says…" My hands shake. I set down the glass before I drop it. "'Promise me, Sofia. Promise me.'"
"Promise what?"
"I don't know." Tears threaten. I blink them back, but one escapes. "I never hear the rest. I just wake up crying."
Silence stretches. When I open my eyes, he's looking at me with an expression I've never seen. Not anger. Not calculation. Something almost like recognition.
"You really don't remember."
"No."
"But you knew him. Somehow."
"I was fifteen. He was eighteen. And apparently we knew each other well enough that I dream about him eleven years later." I laugh, bitter as the vodka. "And I can't remember any of it."
He moves from the chair to the bed. The mattress dips under his weight. He's too close. Not close enough. My body can't decide whether to run or lean into his warmth.
"One more question," he says. "What do you want, Sofia? Really. Not what your family wants. What do you want?"
I should deflect. Give him something safe. I want to destroy your organization. I want my family safe. I want to go home.
But the vodka has dissolved my filters, and his proximity has scrambled my training.
"I want to remember. I want to know who I was before I became this… this weapon. I want to understand why I wake up crying for a boy I can't remember."
My voice breaks. More tears fall. I don't wipe them away.
"And sometimes… lately… I want things I shouldn't want."
"What things?"
I don't answer. Just look at him. Let him see the heat in my eyes, the way my breathing has changed, the slight lean of my body toward his.
He inhales sharply.
We're so close. I can count his eyelashes, see the flecks of silver in those pale eyes. Map the scar on his jaw that I gave him, according to family legend. His breath smells like expensive vodka.
He reaches out, fingertips tracing my cheekbone with devastating gentleness. The touch burns, brands, claims without taking.
"I should hate you," he murmurs. "I've spent eleven years hating you."
"Do you? Still?"
His thumb brushes my lip, and I part them instinctively. His pupils dilate, breath catching.
"I don't know what I feel anymore." His thumb presses slightly, testing. "You've ruined me, kotyonok. I was certain of everything before you."
I should pull away. Should remind myself this is my captor, my enemy, the man who wants my family destroyed. The man with thirty-seven kills and a basement made for torture.
Instead, I lean into his touch. Let him feel the heat of my breath against his thumb.
"I was certain too. Now I don't know which way is up."
His other hand comes up, cradling my face between his palms. Holding me like something precious. Or something he's about to break.
"If I kiss you right now…" His voice is gravel and sin.
"Then kiss me."
His hands tighten. I see the war in his eyes. Want versus control, revenge versus whatever this is between us. His jaw clenches. His entire body vibrates with restraint.
Then he pulls back. Stands. Crosses to the window in three strides, putting necessary distance between us.
"You should sleep. Take the bed."
"Where will you…"
"The chair."
"Alexei…"
"If I get in that bed with you right now, I won't be able to stop." He looks back at me, and the raw hunger in his eyes makes my thighs clench. "And despite what you think of me… I don't want to take something you'll regret in the morning."
"What if I won't regret it?"
His hands clench into fists. "You will. When the vodka wears off. When you remember who I am. What I've done to you." He turns back to the window. "What I'm going to do."
The threat makes me wetter.
I lie back on his bed, still wearing my rough cotton dress. The sheets smell like him. Cedar and smoke and dark promises. My body aches with want, with the absence of his touch.
"Alexei?"
"Hmm?" He's already folding himself into the chair, settling in for an uncomfortable night rather than risk touching me.
"Tomorrow, I'll make you earn it too."
I hear his sharp inhale. "Earn what?"
"My regret."
Silence. Then, so soft I almost miss it:
"Careful what you promise, kotyonok. I always collect what I'm owed."
Sleep pulls at me, heavy and warm. The vodka makes everything soft. The unfamiliar bed feels foreign, the way moonlight catches on the bonsai's leaves, the sound of his breathing from across the room.
I burrow deeper into his pillow, and it's strange how safe I feel. Here, in my captor's bed, in the heart of enemy territory, with my knife under the mattress and exits memorized. The safety isn't physical. It's something else. Something about the way he chose discomfort over taking advantage.
"Can't sleep?" I mumble.
"Go to sleep, kotyonok."
"You'll be sore tomorrow. In that chair."
"I've slept in worse places."
Of course he has. Thirty-seven kills probably required uncomfortable reconnaissance.
"Number twenty-one," I say, vodka making me reckless. "He was selling information about my family to the feds. I made him watch while I destroyed everything he loved first. Then I made it slow."
Silence. Then: "Good girl."
The approval in his voice makes me clench my thighs together.
Dawn creeps across the floor, painting everything in soft grays and blues. His profile sharpens in the growing light. That aristocratic nose, the brutal curve of his mouth, hands that have killed and almost kissed me with equal skill.
"Alexei?"
"Sleep, Sofia."
"When you finally do it…" I don't have to specify what. "Will you make it quick?"
A long pause. "I haven't decided."
"Liar."
"Sleep."
I'm already falling, pulled under by exhaustion and vodka and the strange comfort of being in his space. Of knowing he's watching. Guarding. Even if it's just guarding his own self-control.
For the first time in eleven years, I don't dream of Mikhail.
I don't dream of Russian gardens or boyish laughter or promises I can't remember making. There's no blood, no screaming, no guilt crushing my chest.
Instead, I dream of butterflies with switchblades for wings. Of a man in a chair, hands clenched to stop himself from reaching for me. Of promises that sound like threats and threats that sound like promises.
And I don't dream of Mikhail at all.