Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Katya
“Tell me a secret,” he says. Well, which one do you want?
Do I tell you your girlfriend is screwing half of St. Petersburg’s criminal underbelly—and your brother? That your sister-in-law’s cancer is spreading faster than you think? That you love your nephew with every fiber of your being but can barely look him in the eye because you feel like a failure? That you hate horror movies even though Uri forces you to watch them? Those last two aren’t secrets, but it does feel too personal for me to know.
Do I admit that your aim is terrible, and if you had tried to fire that gun, I’d probably be dead?
Should I tell you I defused a bomb from your father’s car last week? That I know about the birthmark on your upper left thigh? And the scar on your chest from a fight that nearly killed you when you were sixteen?
Or maybe the truth: I’m a U.S. government spy. I’m here to watch your every move, waiting for the day you break a law we actually care about. I’ve been protecting you from the Smirnov Family—who’s been moving in on your territory—because if you’re dead I can’t unearth the kingpin for Majesty. All my intel suggests your family is the one pushing it.
Or worse—the secret I guard the closest. Every night, I imagine you taking me on your desk during my shift. And I’ve been in love with you for months now.
I can’t say any of that. My mission is to stop Majesty before it becomes a world wide epidemic. Majesty, the newest designer drug, is extremely addictive and dangerous. If it enters America, people will die, and their blood will be on my hands. Right now, there’s only a few small Russian cells that have access to it, but if I can’t stop its distribution from spreading, the world is doomed. No pressure. And all these cells connect back to Dimitri and the Koslov family.
I can’t get distracted, can’t allow myself to feel things for Dimitri.
Focus on the job.
I mean look what happened when I allowed myself a little indulgence to listen to Amanda Chase.
The thoughts swirl, toxic and unrelenting. I want to sit in my car and scream, but that would draw attention. Instead, I trudge toward the stairs, my boots echoing loudly in the silence and my chest tightening with each step closer to my apartment.
The door swings open before I can reach for it. My roommate, Markus, leans against the frame, a shit-eating grin plastered across his face. “Rough night?” he asks, his voice dripping with mock concern.
The light from the hallway glints off his black-rimmed glasses. At the start of this mission, he tried using contacts, but he hated touching his eye and it took him too long to put in, so went back to his classic look. I’m not sure if the black beanie he’s wearing is his new fashion statement or he just forgot to take it off when he came in. Mouse-brown hair peeks out of his hat, and coupled with his medium build, he could definitely pull off the unassuming intellectual vibe of a decent hacker if he needed to.
I shove past him, tossing Dmitri’s coat onto the couch without a second thought. Only when I see it there do I remember I’m not wearing my own. Great. Just another thing I’ve screwed up tonight.
Markus closes the door behind me, his sharp gaze following my every move. Pushing his glasses higher on his nose, he says, “Is there anything you need to say?”
I grunt, collapsing onto the couch. The tension in my shoulders hasn’t eased since the alley. “Thank you for saving me.”
He arches an eyebrow. “I’d been following Viktor for the last few hours. Didn’t think he’d circle back so quickly. You could’ve defended yourself.”
I let out a soft sigh. “If I’d noticed him sooner, maybe. But once he was up on me, there was no way I could defend myself with the cameras watching my every move. I guess I could’ve made the save sloppy as shit, but I didn’t.”
I’m rambling, desperate for anything to drown out the memory of Viktor’s knife so close to my face. “That soul-crushing bridge in ‘Rain on My Windshield,’ though? So freaking good.”
Markus blinks, caught off guard by the shift. He laughs, shaking his head. “You’re a mess. But yes, I’ve already got my picks for the next single.”
“‘Breaking Bars!’” I blurt out, my excitement bubbling up despite everything. “It’s the best song! It’s got that callback to her older catalog. And Kiki’s recurring character? Genius.”
Markus nods, raising his hand for a high five. “Hell yeah.”
We slap palms, but the moment dies as quickly as Viktor did. Markus’s expression darkens, his grin replaced by a grim line.
“Everything is moving fast,” he says, his voice low.
The chill returns, settling into my bones. The weight of tonight hasn’t left me. If anything, it’s growing heavier.
When I was first assigned, I thought I was infiltrating a hacking ring. It was supposed to be straightforward—no deep undercover work, just desk duty in the States. But here I am, across the world, neck-deep in chaos.
In a way, I’m glad. Being out of the country makes it easier to avoid my ex. And no relationships to get in the way means I can fully focus on the given task. Which is exactly what I have to keep doing, Dimitri and his sexy accent be damned.
The field office here is woefully understaffed, not a well-funded operation. We have a million different things going against us, and even going full-bore day after day, it feels like this is going to fail no matter what I do.
Markus was thrown into the mission at the last minute, too. “Did you report the attack to our handler?” I ask, leaning against the counter.
“You mean, did I report that you got distracted and almost died?” Markus lifts a brow, his tone dripping with sarcasm, and pushes his glasses up along his nose. “No. I called in the hit and said they were attacking one of the employees. Not a total lie.”
“What happened to the body?”
“Uri took care of it. As far as he’s concerned, this was his kill.”
I suppress a smile, still impressed by how Markus timed his shot within milliseconds of Uri’s. “Where’s his bullet?”
“Probably in the wall,” Markus replies, shrugging. “But honestly, with the number of bullets back there, good luck figuring it out.”
What he pulled off is nothing to scoff at, but he treats it like another day at the office. His words settle my nerves even more because I know Markus has my back more than anyone. He’s more than a coworker—he’s my brother and gay soulmate.
As he speaks, he flips open his laptop and the screen fills with grainy security footage. The video plays, and my stomach tightens. A young woman in a black hoodie and jeans enters the frame from the left—a direction that should be impossible. There’s a wall there. Stepping onto the couch first, she leaps to the kitchen table and then onto the counter in a move straight out of The Floor Is Lava. She pulls a medium-sized bottle from her pocket, and places it back where she stole it from two days ago.
I should be pissed, but the salsa verde was about to go bad. At least someone’s using it.
She pauses, winks directly into the camera—a camera that’s hidden inside a ceiling fan—waves, and jumps out of the frame again. The door peeking out of the corner of the frame never opens.
“Are you sure she’s not one of ours?” Markus asks, his voice unusually serious.
We both know the answer. We ran background reports on Alana King. She doesn’t exist before the age of nineteen. Her entire history is fake. Someone, somewhere, gave her a new identity, and whoever did it was a world-class hacker. There’s not a single discrepancy in her records.
“No one fitting her description is in any of the databases we have access to,” I say, frowning at the monitor.
Hell, I wouldn’t have even looked into her if she wasn’t constantly breaking into my apartment to steal my condiments. And all because I let her cat sit for me once. Big mistake.
Three years ago, my ex got drunk and bought a cat online from a breeder—a cat I’m highly allergic to. When he bailed on the relationship, he left me with the furball, a vet bill, and a need for a lifetime supply of Zyrtec. Since I had to pack and move to Russia, my neighbor, Alana, volunteered to watch Midge.
Now, every couple of days she sends me pictures of the cat I hate, gets my mail, and apparently breaks into my apartment ninja style to raid my pantry.
“Who do you think trained her?” Markus asks, his eyes glued to his laptop.
“Not one of ours,” I reply, shaking my head. “She’s not connected to any agency, but she definitely seems to know what she’s doing. Whoever she is, she was privately trained.”
This should set off every alarm in my head, send me spiraling into a little spy tizzy. But it doesn’t.
Maybe it’s comforting to know my cat sitter could kill a man with a straw or something.
“Someone elite,” I add, rubbing my temples, trying and failing to hold off a burgeoning headache. “Private. Translation: expensive as hell.”
Marcus’s field notes lay open next to the computer. It’s a picture of Sveti and the back of some guy’s head. My stomach knots. “Does she have a new fuck buddy?”
It’s one thing that Sveti is cheating on Dimitri, but I hate having the evidence. My partner closes the folder. “This one is different from her typical bottom-of-the-barrel guys. He’s a silver fox, and wears too much cologne, smells like a dead tree.” Markus sneers, “Not really my type. He kinda creeps me out.”
“No, you like guys with short names who have daddy issues.” I nudge him in the shoulder and he lovingly calls me a bitch under his breath. Just like the brother I never had.
The weight of the day crashes into me. My head throbs, my shoulders ache, and all I want is to sleep or watch reaction videos about Amanda’s new album.
“I’m off to bed,” I mutter, pushing the laptop away and half stumbling, half dragging myself to my bedroom.
My room is small, industrial, and, as a spy’s bedroom should, lacks all personality. No personal effects. No pictures, no knicknacks from family vacations. Nothing to connect Katya to Katie—my birth name.
I sit on my bed. It’s hard with zero bounce. No comfort for me. It leads to relaxation, which can lead to missteps, and I’m already pushing the lines of professionalism. I roll my head to loosen my stiff neck. For a second, I contemplate not washing the day away. I would lose the smell of Dimitri’s cologne in my hair.
My cell phone lights up with a notification that Amanda Chase updated her social media.
I allow myself one indulgence, one thing that will ease the emotional strain of this job. I can have either a harmless fandom obsession, or the heart and body of a Mafia crime family heir. One will make me happy, cry, and can low-key become my entire personality. The other may destroy the world.
And at least tonight I’m taking what’s behind door number one: Taking a shower and lying in bed learning the choreography from the newest video.