Chapter 6 Elena #2
“That is going to be doubtful, Miss Vasiliev, you are currently in a CIA secure location,” the robot man explains as he and the woman come into the room and take a seat in front of us. They place a manila folder with our names on it on the table.
CIA?
Anna looks up at me, and I can read it on her face, we are so fucked.
That’s the night Anna and I met our handlers, Agent Adam Jankovic, who was assigned to Anna, and Agent Laura Pan, who was now mine.
They explained to us who my father, Maxim, and Sergei really were.
I knew they ran in the wrong circles, but I didn’t realize to what extent.
Seeing photos of Maxim and Sergei killing people and voice recordings of my father ordering hits was a lot to take in.
I knew they were mixed up with the Bratva, but never to that level.
The agents explained to Anna and me that we either joined them on their new program infiltrating the Bratva or we would stay dead, and this glass box would be our home permanently. Not much of a choice now, is it?
My stomach sinks at the thought that my family thinks I’m dead.
Maxim will be blaming himself because he warned me to be careful about going to The Hamptons, and I brushed off his concern.
I’m also worried about my mother. Not long after commemorating the anniversary of one daughter’s death, she is now having to commemorate another.
And Sergei, he has no one else left in the world except Anna. How is this fair? It’s cruel.
“No. I won’t do it,” Anna screams at the agents.
“Anna!” I hiss, grabbing her arm as she cries hysterically.
“He has no one, Elena. They can’t do this to him.” Anna cries.
I pull her into my arms and hug her tightly. “They will send him to jail, Anna, for the rest of his life. He will have enemies there, ones that have no problem ending him. They will kill him in there,” I tell my friend in Russian. How does she not understand we have no choice?
“He will die if he thinks I’m dead.” She wails at me.
There is a chance that could happen, that Sergei’s heartache will be so much that he decides to end it all. But I have faith that Maxim will keep his will to live going. That he won’t let him slip into the darkness, that he will save him enough that he will get to see Anna again.
“If we do this. There’s a chance we can go home. This will be a small blip in the grand scheme of things,” I try to persuade her.
“We will never be ballerinas. Our dreams are over,” she tells me.
“You were never going to be ballerinas,” Agent Jankovic states bluntly.
We both still and turn to where he is sitting.
“You are both talented, but we were the ones that got you into Juilliard,” he explains.
Everything stills in me.
The life I had never existed, it was all a game to get us to this point. There’s no escaping.
“You played the long game. We don’t have a choice, do we?” I ask him.
“You do, technically …” he says, shrugging his shoulders.
“What happens if we aren’t cut out for whatever it is you want us to do?” I ask him.
“Guess you’re going to have to give it your best shot and hope it works,” he states seriously.
After that first meeting, Anna and I were allowed to stay with each other as we did weeks and weeks of psychological exams. They tried to break us, and a couple of times they did.
That’s when I let the old Elena go and started to embrace whoever the hell they wanted me to be.
There was no escaping. They had their hands wrapped around my throat and were slowly squeezing the life out of me.
There was no other choice.
I sacrificed myself for my family and never looked back.
“I’m so sorry, I did this to you,” Maxim says, his voice wavering with emotion as he stands up and walks over to where I’m sitting, pulls me up out of my seat, and hugs me so tightly. “If I hadn’t been me, this would never have happened to you.”
“This isn’t your fault, Max. Please, don’t blame yourself. I didn’t tell you my story to make you feel bad. It’s the agency’s, fault,” I tell him as my eyes narrow over Maxim’s shoulder and glare at Damon.
He nods in understanding.
“There’s been too much guilt over this fucked up world we’ve all been thrust into. Maybe this was always written in the stars for us, Max. Karma for generations of living in the world’s underbelly.”
“I’ll be the first to say, I’m sorry for misjudging you,” Sophie says from where she’s sitting.
“You were the only one judging her,” Mackenzie snips.
Sophie glares at her sister before continuing her words, “They gave you no choice other than to be their killing machine and I honestly don’t know if I could have survived that life.”
Guess that is high praise from her. “You would have coped,” I say.
Sophie shakes her head. “As much as I would like to think I’m that much of a badass, yeah, I don’t think I am.”
“What happened to Anna then?” Sergei asks.
I look over at the old man, and my stomach turns.
“One year after our training we were both sent on our first mission. They told us that it would be one day, then we would be back at the agency. Anna and I wished each other luck, we were both so scared. We didn’t know how we were going to be able to seduce our targets, let alone kill them.
We’d never killed anyone before. I went and did what I had to do and made it back to the pick-up zone and then headed back to the agency.
That night, one by one, the recruits came back, all except Anna.
” Sergei’s face drops. “No one would answer my questions. I tried so hard to find her, but the very next day I was sent off to become a jewel. And I never got back to the agency again till I needed extraction in Moscow. I never stopped looking for her, Sergei,” I tell him.
“That’s because your information is hidden at the highest level. Or so my contacts say,” Brooks explains.
“Even I don’t have high enough clearance regarding Anna’s files,” Damon adds.
“Where the hell is she?” Sergei demands.
“Wherever she is, I’m going to find her. I promise you,” I tell him.