Chapter 18 Tony
Tony
The cell is eight feet by ten feet, with a cot bolted to the wall and a bucket in the corner.
I’ve been here for three days. Maybe four.
It’s hard to tell when there’s no window, and the single bulb overhead never turns off.
Boris brings food twice a day—bread, water, and sometimes, soup that’s gone cold. He doesn’t speak; he just slides the tray through the slot at the bottom of the door and walks away.
I don’t blame him.
The concrete floor is freezing. I gave up trying to sleep on the cot after the first night, when my ribs protested every position. Now, I sit with my back against the wall and run through every moment with Sasha, trying to find a point in our time together when I could have been honest.
My uncle used to say that regret was just hindsight with teeth. I didn’t understand what he meant until now.
Every memory bites.
The first time I saw her at Alexei’s wedding, standing on the balcony alone. She was watching the celebration like an outsider, even though it was her family.
I approached with my cover story, and she saw through half of it before I finished my second sentence. I should have walked away then and told Adrian I couldn’t do it.
But I didn’t.
I stayed. I talked to her about art authentication and business practices, and all the things Adrian told me would make her trust me.
And it worked.
She opened up, telling me about London and Christie’s and building something separate from her family name.
I filed it away like a professional.
The morning after St. Petersburg, when she asked about my past relationships over breakfast. I deflected with the story about Rachel throwing a satellite phone at my head, made her laugh, and steered the conversation away from anything real about my life.
The afternoon in her apartment when gunfire shattered the windows, and I covered her body with mine. She looked up at me with trust, and I used that trust to get closer instead of warning her away.
The safehouse couch, where we had sex, and Adrian called right afterward. I saw the hurt on her face when I pulled away to answer. I should have thrown the phone across the room and chosen her right then.
But I didn’t. I kept taking Adrian’s money, feeding him lies to buy myself more time with her, and pretending I could have both.
She knows everything now, and I’ve destroyed whatever we might have had.
I wonder if she’s left Moscow. I wouldn’t blame her if she did. I’d run from me, too.
The lock clicks, and I don’t bother standing. It’s probably Boris, checking in on me or bringing me something to drink or eat. Dmitri’s had three days to verify my information about Adrian and decide my fate. My odds of survival aren’t good.
When the door opens, my heart leaps and sinks at the same time.
Sasha is standing in the doorway, wearing jeans and a gray sweater I haven’t seen before. Her hair is pulled back. She’s wearing no makeup. She looks exhausted and furious and so beautiful that it hurts to look at her.
I push myself to my feet. “Sasha—”
“Tell me which parts were real.” She cuts me off, stepping into the cell. “I need to know which moments were you, and which were the performance Adrian paid for.”
“Everything after the wedding was real. The mission fell apart the second I met you.”
“Don’t.” She closes the door behind her. “You’re a liar. You admitted that. So, give me specifics. Which exact moments weren’t part of the job?”
I lean against the wall because standing suddenly takes more effort than it should.
“The night in the safehouse when you insisted on watching that old Russian film. You told me the plot in detail before we even started it because you wanted me to appreciate the cinematography without getting lost in the subtitles. I didn’t hear half of what you said because I was too busy memorizing the way you looked when you talked about something you loved. ”
She watches me silently.
“The restaurant in St. Petersburg,” I continue. “You ordered for us in Russian, and when the waiter brought the wrong dish, you just laughed and said we’d eat it anyway because food tastes better when it’s unexpected. I’d never met anyone who could make a mistake feel like an adventure.”
“What else?”
“The morning you tried to cook in the hotel kitchenette. You couldn’t find the right spices and substituted three things that absolutely did not belong together.
The smell was terrible. You laughed so hard, and I realized I’d never wanted to record a sound more in my life.
I wanted to keep that laugh and play it back whenever Adrian called, demanding the updates that I was actively sabotaging. ”
Sasha takes a step closer. We’re three feet apart now. Close enough to see she hasn’t been sleeping well, either.
“Dmitri pulled your communications with Adrian,” she tells me. “Every message you sent for six weeks was fake intelligence. You really were destroying your investigation.”
“I told you I was.”
“Hearing you say it and seeing the proof are different things.” She reaches up and touches her necklace. It’s a nervous tell I’ve memorized. “You threw away a hundred thousand dollars. Adrian will come after you for breach of contract.”
“I don’t care about Adrian.”
“Of course you don’t. Because you never think about consequences until it’s too late.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Not fair? You took a contract to destroy me, Tony. Fair doesn’t apply here.”
“At least I’m being honest now.”
Her hand flies up and cracks across my face hard enough to snap my head sideways.
Pain blooms across my cheekbone. I don’t raise my hands to defend myself or touch where she hit me; I just turn back to face her and wait.
“I deserved that.”
“You deserve worse.” Her voice wavers. “You let me fall for you, knowing it would eventually blow up. You made me feel safe. Made me think I’d finally found someone who wanted me for me instead of my name or my family or what I could do for them. And you were lying the whole time.”
“The mission was a lie. What I felt for you wasn’t.”
“Shut up.”
She grabs my shirt and yanks me down into a kiss.
The kiss is pure fury. Her teeth catch my bottom lip hard enough to break skin. I taste copper and open my mouth anyway, letting her in. She tastes like the three days of hell we’ve both lived through.
I should push her away and tell her this is a mistake. Instead, I bury my hands in her hair and kiss her back like she’s the only thing keeping me alive.
She breaks away long enough to pull her sweater over her head and throw it across the cell. No bra. Just skin I want to taste and mark and worship.
“This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” she says.
“I know.”
“This doesn’t mean anything.”
She reaches for my belt. I grab her wrists and spin us, pressing her back against the wall. She gasps, and I swallow the sound with another kiss while I work her jeans open.
We’re frantic now.
All hands and mouths and too many clothes between us. She shoves my shirt up, and I strip it off while she kicks free of her jeans and underwear. And then, she’s standing there, bare skin that I want to memorize before she walks out of here and never speaks to me again.
I drop to my knees.
“What are you—”
I put my mouth on her before she can finish the question.
She tastes like want and anger and everything I’m about to lose. I grip her thighs, hold her against the wall, and work her with my tongue until she whimpers.
When I suck her clit between my lips, she fists her hand in my hair hard enough to hurt.
“Tony…”
I push two fingers inside her while keeping my mouth where it is. She’s soaked. I can feel it on my chin and my lips. Her thighs tremble against my hands, and I know she’s getting close.
“Don’t stop,” she orders. “Don’t you dare stop.”
I don’t. I keep the rhythm steady and add a third finger before I curl them to hit the spot that makes her cry out. She comes hard against my mouth, pulsing around my fingers, and the sound she makes is half prayer, half sob.
I stand and kiss her while she shakes. She can taste herself on my lips. The knowledge makes me hard enough to hurt.
“Inside me,” she demands breathlessly. “Right now.”
I free myself from my jeans and lift her. She wraps her legs around my waist, and I pin her against the wall with my hips. We’re both panting, staring at each other in this awful cell where everything between us has shattered.
“Tell me to stop,” I say.
“Fuck you.”
She reaches between us, takes me in her hand, and guides me to her entrance. I push inside in one stroke, both making sounds that echo off the concrete walls.
She’s so tight and hot that I have to freeze, or this will be over embarrassingly fast.
Once I’ve caught my breath, I pull almost all the way out and thrust back in hard enough to make her gasp. She digs her nails into my shoulders, and the sting just makes everything more real.
We find a rhythm that’s more battle than anything tender. Every thrust is punctuated by her nails breaking skin through my shirt, her teeth on my neck, or my name in her mouth like a curse.
“I hate you,” she whispers against my lips.
“I know.”
“I hate that I still want you.”
“I know that, too.”
I feel her tightening around me, and I adjust my angle to hit deeper as she buries her face in my neck to muffle her sounds.
“Look at me,” I tell her. “I want to see your face when you come.”
She lifts her head. Our eyes lock, and I can see everything in hers—fury and want and something that might be the beginning of forgiveness… or maybe regret. I can’t tell.
“Come for me, Solnyshko.”
She breaks with a sob, and I feel her pulse around me, watch her face as she falls apart, and the sight sends me over the edge. I empty myself inside her with a groan that I don’t try to hold back.
We stay joined for a long moment. Both panting. Neither willing to be the first to let go.
Finally, she unwraps her legs. I lower her carefully and pull out, and she lunges for her clothes.
“That didn’t mean anything,” she reminds me while pulling on her jeans.
“You already said that.”
“I’m saying it again, so we’re clear.”
I watch her dress. My release is running down her thighs, and some primitive part of me is satisfied by that. She’ll feel me for hours.
She pulls her sweater back on and finger-combs her hair into something resembling order. It won’t fool anyone who looks closely, but it’s better than the disheveled look she had thirty seconds ago.
“I hate you for making me fall for a lie,” she says once she’s dressed.
“I hate myself for the same reason.”
She tilts her head and watches me for a long moment. I can’t read her thoughts. Can’t tell if she came here for closure or something else.
“Dmitri’s planning to use you,” she finally tells me. “He wants you to maintain contact with Adrian while we figure out how to stop him. You’ll be under constant surveillance. Boris has orders to kill you if you deviate from the plan even an inch.”
“I understand.”
“You’ll be moved out of this cell and given a room in the compound. But don’t mistake it for freedom. You’re a temporarily useful prisoner.”
“I get it.”
“Good.” She turns toward the door, then pauses with her hand on the handle. “That morning in St. Petersburg. The restaurant where I ordered the wrong dish.”
“Yeah?”
“I ordered it wrong on purpose. I wanted to see how you’d react when things didn’t go according to plan. Whether you’d get frustrated or adapt.” She looks back at me. “You adapted. Didn’t complain once. Just made up a story about your uncle.”
“That story was true. He did say that.”
“I know. That’s why I believed you.” She opens the door. “Don’t make me regret it.”
Then she’s gone, and I’m alone again with the taste of her on my tongue and the knowledge that I just made everything between us infinitely more complicated.
But for the first time in four days, I don’t feel like I’m drowning.
I feel like maybe I have a chance to fix what I broke.