Chapter 12 Tony
Tony
I hold the paper to the lamp on the hotel desk and eye the pressure marks where the pen was pressed harder on certain letters.
The ink is standard blue ballpoint, probably from a cheap hotel pen. But the script tells a different story.
Whoever wrote this has training.
The letters are uniform with no natural variation. Someone taught them to write this way, probably to avoid identification.
“What are you looking at?”
Sasha’s voice makes me realize that I’ve been staring at this note for ten minutes. When I look up, she’s watching me from the bed where she’s been pretending to read something on her phone.
“The handwriting,” I explain. “It’s almost like it was done with a typewriter using script font. Whoever wrote this has been trained to avoid handwriting analysis.”
“You can tell that just by looking?”
“Pressure marks show intent. Consistent depth means the writer was focused, not rushed. The letter spacing is identical throughout, which suggests—” I stop myself. “Sorry. Old habit.”
She looks up and squints at me. “What kind of habit?”
I set down the note and turn to face her. She’s sitting cross-legged on the mattress, her hair still damp from the shower, wearing an oversized sweater that keeps slipping off one shoulder. The exposed skin is distracting, but not as distracting as the look in her eyes.
She’s not just curious; she’s suspicious.
“I told you I was military,” I remind her.
“You told me you were special operations. Then a journalist.” She tilts her head. “Journalists don’t analyze handwriting like forensic experts.”
“Some do.”
“Tony.”
“What do you want me to say, Sasha?”
“The truth would be nice.” She stands and walks toward me. “Where did you learn to read evidence like that? Why doesn’t anything ever seem to surprise you? How can you read people so well?”
Each question lands like a dart finding its target. I’ve been waiting for this conversation since the gallery attack. Part of me is surprised it took this long.
“I’ve seen a lot. Done a lot. The CIA trains you to notice things most people miss, and my uncle filled in the rest.”
Her eyes search my face for cracks in the story. I’ve been interrogated by professionals who couldn’t read me this well. Sasha sees through my defenses like they’re made of glass.
“You’re hiding something,” she declares so quietly that I almost miss it.
“Everyone hides something.”
“I’m not stupid, Tony. I know you’re not just a journalist. I’ve known as much since the beginning.”
“Then why haven’t you told Dmitri?”
Unless she has told him, and me working for him now is just a ploy.
“I want to understand you first,” she responds before I can think too hard about that possibility. “Before I decide what to do about you.”
We stand there for a long moment, neither of us moving. I could kiss her right now. Pull her against me and make her forget about questions and suspicions and threatening notes. But that would be a manipulation, and I’m tired of manipulating her.
“We should get some sleep,” I say instead. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
She doesn’t argue, but the look she gives me says this conversation isn’t over.
The next morning, we order breakfast to the room. Sasha sits across from me at the small table, picking at her eggs while I work through my third cup of coffee. The silence is loaded.
“So,” she begins casually, “what was your longest assignment? When you were in the CIA, I mean.”
“Fourteen months.”
“Where?”
“Classified.”
She takes a bite of toast and chews. “Did you have a girlfriend back then? Someone waiting for you?”
I stop chewing, and my eyes snap up to her face. “Why do you ask?”
“Just making conversation.” Her smile is innocent, but her eyes are anything but. “You know so much about me. My family, my work, my guilt about leaving London. I barely know anything about your personal life.”
“There’s not much to know.”
“I don’t believe that.” She sets down her toast. “A man doesn’t get to thirty-eight without some romantic history. Unless you’re a monk, which I seriously doubt.”
Something about the way she says my age makes me pause. There are twelve years between us. She’s young enough that my uncle would have called me a cradle robber. Old enough that it shouldn’t matter, but somehow does.
“I was engaged once,” I hear myself say, “about five years ago.”
Sasha’s eyebrows rise. “What happened?”
“She was also CIA. We met during training, started dating, and got serious faster than either of us expected. Then we were assigned to the same operation in Eastern Europe.”
“And?”
“And it turns out that spending fourteen hours a day with someone in high-stress situations is very different from dating them on weekends.” I almost smile at the memory.
“We lasted three weeks before she threw a satellite phone at my head and told me I was the most insufferable man she’d ever met. ”
Sasha laughs. The sound is genuine, surprised. “She threw a phone at you?”
“Missed by about two inches. Would have given me a concussion if her aim were better.” I shake my head. “We broke off the engagement that night. Finished the mission as professionals. Never spoke again after we got back to the States.”
“That’s tragic.”
“It was honestly a relief. We brought out the worst in each other. Some people are better as strangers.” I take a sip of coffee and add, “Her name was Rachel. Smart as hell. Could field-strip a weapon faster than anyone I’ve met.
But she had a way of making everything into a competition.
Who could run faster, shoot straighter, or stay awake longer. It was exhausting.”
“Sounds like she had something to prove.”
“We both did. That was the problem.” I set down my cup. “Two people with something to prove usually end up proving it to each other in the worst possible ways.”
“Do you believe that? That some people are just incompatible, no matter how much they want it to work?”
“I believe some people aren’t meant to be together. I also believe some people find each other at the wrong time, and that’s a different kind of tragedy.”
I swear I see water gather in her green eyes for a moment before she blinks them away and changes the subject back to safer, surface-level topics for the rest of the meal.
After breakfast, the walls of the hotel room start to close in. I suggest a walk, and Sasha agrees with relief in her voice. I think we both need air that doesn’t smell like secrets and suspicion.
St. Petersburg at night is different from Moscow. The architecture is more European, the streets are wider, and the Neva River reflects city lights like scattered diamonds. We walk along the embankment with our breath forming clouds in the cold air.
“My uncle used to say that walking helps you think,” I offer after a few minutes. “He’d take these long walks around his property when he needed to work through a problem. I went with him sometimes. We’d walk for hours without saying a word.”
“That sounds peaceful.”
“It was. One of the few peaceful things about living with him.” I shove my hands deeper into my coat pockets.
“He wasn’t an easy man. He drank too much.
Had nightmares that would wake the whole house.
But he never raised his hand to me. Never made me feel like a burden, even though I definitely was one. ”
“You weren’t a burden.”
“I was a ten-year-old kid who woke up screaming three times a week because I kept dreaming about my parents’ car accident.” I keep my eyes on the path ahead. “Trust me; I was a burden. He just never treated me like one.”
Sasha is quiet for a moment. “I used to have nightmares, too. After my parents died. Dmitri would come into my room and sit with me until I fell back asleep. He never complained or made me feel weak for being scared.”
“Sounds like a good brother.”
“The best. Even when he’s overbearing and controlling and treats me like I’m still seven years old.” She pulls her coat tighter around herself. “I know why he does it. He lost our parents. He’s terrified of losing me, too. But sometimes, I wish he could see me as capable instead of fragile.”
“He knows you’re capable. That’s why he sent you to London in the first place.”
“Maybe. Or maybe he just wanted me far away from anything that could hurt me.”
“Both things can be true.”
We round a corner, and the Winter Palace comes into view. Lit up against the night sky, it looks like something from a fairy tale. Beautiful and cold and completely untouchable.
“Have you ever been inside?” Sasha nods toward the Hermitage.
“Once. Years ago. I spent four hours looking at paintings and still only saw a fraction of the collection.”
“I could spend a week in there and not get bored. Art is the one thing that makes sense to me. Everything else in life is messy and unpredictable, but a painting is just what it is. The brushstrokes tell you everything if you know how to read them.”
“Is that why you became an authenticator? Because art makes sense?”
“Partly. Also, because I’m good at it. And because it was all mine.” She looks at me and asks, “Have you ever had something that was just yours? That nobody else could touch or take away?”
I think about the question longer than I probably should.
“My integrity,” I decide. “At least, that’s what I used to think before I started taking jobs that compromised it.
The lines get blurry when you work in the shadows long enough.
Things you swore you’d never do start feeling necessary.
Justifiable. And before you know it, you don’t recognize yourself. ”
“Do you recognize yourself now?”
“I’m starting to. Being around you makes me want to be better than I’ve been.” The admission comes out before I even realize what I’m saying. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.”
Sasha stops walking. I turn to face her, and the look in her eyes makes something behind my sternum pull tight.
“It’s a good thing,” she assures me.
Then she reaches out and takes my hand.
The gesture is achingly simple, but God damn, does it set my body on fire. Her fingers lace through mine like they belong there. Her palm is cold from the night air, but the contact sends warmth spreading up my arm and into my chest.
I’ve held her before. Touched her. Almost made love to her in her apartment before bullets interrupted us. But this feels different. More intimate. Like she’s choosing me, not just wanting me.
I know I don’t deserve it. I’m lying to her about Adrian, about the contract, about everything that matters. If she knew the truth, she’d never look at me again.
But standing here on this cold St. Petersburg night with her hand in mine, I let myself pretend—just for a moment—that I’m the man she thinks I am. That this could work. That I haven’t already destroyed any chance of a future with her.