2. Katya
Katya
He’s on the phone discussing murder, not shipping schedules.
I pause outside Dmitri’s office door with a coffee mug halfway to my lips, listening to him speak in rapid Russian. His voice has an edge I don’t recognize; it’s harder, colder. Nothing like the gentle tone he’s used since he brought me home yesterday.
“Nyet,” he barks, and the single word carries enough menace to make me take a step back. “Tell him if he doesn’t have my money by Friday, he won’t have his kneecaps by Saturday.”
That doesn’t sound like a legitimate shipping business.
I retreat to the kitchen before he catches me eavesdropping. Still, something about it feels familiar. Like I’ve heard threats like that before.
Which is ridiculous. I’m an art curator, not a gangster.
The penthouse feels staged. Beautiful. Expensive. A museum exhibit of someone else’s life. None of it resonates.
I wandered through these rooms for an hour, touching things that supposedly belong to me, searching for some spark of recognition that never comes.
In the bedroom closet, I find clothes in my exact size. Designer dresses, silk blouses, and jeans that fit perfectly when I tried them on this morning. The fabric feels expensive but foreign. Like costumes for a role I don’t remember auditioning for.
The jewelry box on the dresser is filled with pieces that should mean something—a pearl necklace Dmitri claims was my grandmother’s, and earrings he supposedly gave me for our first anniversary.
I put on the pearls and stare at myself in the mirror, but the woman looking back at me feels like a stranger wearing someone else’s jewelry.
On the nightstand, I find books about contemporary art movements and exhibition catalogs from galleries around the world. My supposed area of expertise. I flip through one about Russian avant-garde painters, expecting some flicker of familiarity, but the words might as well be written in Latin.
Maybe this is normal. Maybe amnesia feels exactly like this—like you’re an actor who’s forgotten all her lines.
Dmitri’s voice rises from the office, switching between Russian and English with the fluidity of someone accustomed to conducting business across multiple countries.
I catch fragments about shipments and deadlines, but underneath the legitimate-sounding logistics is an undercurrent of threat that makes my skin crawl.
“If the cargo doesn’t arrive clean, someone’s going to have a very unpleasant conversation with my associates,” he declares in English, presumably for the benefit of whoever’s on the other end.
Holy shit.
I’m married to a criminal.
The realization should shock me, but instead it settles into my bones like something I’ve always known. Like my subconscious has been trying to tell me what my conscious mind refuses to accept.
I move to the living room, where those photographs document a relationship I can’t remember.
Each image is perfectly composed and professionally lit, but they feel more like marketing materials than real memories.
Us at dinner, hands intertwined across a candlelit table.
Me laughing at something he’s supposedly said.
Him looking at me with an intensity that should be romantic but somehow feels predatory.
“…and make sure the cleanup crew understands that loose ends are not acceptable,” Dmitri continues from his office.
Cleanup crew. Loose ends.
My fingers find the crescent moon tattoo on my wrist, and I trace the small symbol that’s the only thing about my body that feels truly mine. When I touch it, I get flashes of something—stars overhead, a woman’s voice humming a lullaby, and the smell of pine trees and campfire smoke.
But the images are fragmented, like trying to remember a dream after waking.
I wander into the kitchen, thinking maybe making breakfast will feel normal. Domestic. Wifely. The refrigerator is stocked with expensive food—imported cheeses, organic vegetables, and wine with multiple syllables in its name.
I grab a jar of preserves from the top shelf and open it.
The motion triggers something violent and immediate.
Hands at my throat. A knife. My body moves without thought—elbow, solar plexus, grab the wrist, twist, bones crack, pivot ? —
The flashback slams into me. I drop the jar. Glass and strawberry preserves explode across the floor.
Art curators don’t know three ways to snap a neck.
“Katya?” Dmitri’s voice comes from the doorway, making me flinch. “What happened?”
I look up at him, still crouched on the floor surrounded by broken glass, my hands frozen in what I’m pretty sure is a combat stance.
“I… I dropped the jar,” I say weakly.
But we both know that’s not what has me shaking.
He moves toward me slowly, like he’s approaching a spooked animal, and kneels beside me on the kitchen floor. His hands are gentle as he takes my wrists, and he eyes my defensive posture with eyes that miss nothing.
“You remembered something,” he says. It’s not a question.
“I don’t know what it was. Someone attacking me, maybe? But I knew how to fight back. I knew exactly how to hurt them.” I look down at my hands, horrified by what they know how to do. “Why would I know that?”
“Self-defense classes,” he explains without missing a beat. “You took them after we started dating. You said a woman in your position needed to be able to protect herself.”
“My position?”
“Working late at the gallery, walking to your car alone. Moscow can be dangerous for beautiful women.”
It’s a reasonable explanation, but something about it feels wrong. Self-defense classes teach you to escape, not to efficiently destroy your attacker. What I just experienced was something downright lethal.
“Let me clean this up,” Dmitri offers, but I shake my head.
“I can do it.”
“You’re bleeding.”
I look down and realize he’s right. There’s a small cut on my palm where I must have caught a piece of glass. Nothing serious, but Dmitri’s already pulling me to my feet and leading me to the sink.
“Hold still.” He turns on the water and starts rinsing the blood from my hand.
His touch is so careful it’s almost reverent, and I find myself watching him while he tends to my minor injury. There’s something about the way he moves that reminds me of the flashback—controlled and on alert, like violence is never far from the surface.
“You have scars.” I note the marks on his knuckles and the thin line along his jaw.
“Occupational hazard.”
I hike an eyebrow and ask, “Of the shipping business?”
His mouth quirks up, and he chuckles. “The gray areas I mentioned. Sometimes negotiations get heated.” He reaches for a Band-Aid from a drawer, then smooths it over my palm. “There. Good as new.”
He doesn’t let go. He cages my hand in both of his and presses a kiss to my knuckles. “The memories will come back. The doctors said it might be disorienting.”
“That didn’t feel like a memory. It felt like…” I search for the right word. “Like programming.”
Something flashes across his face too quickly for me to interpret, and he asks, “What do you mean?”
“Like my body knew what to do without my brain having to think about it. That’s not normal, is it?”
“Trauma affects people differently.” He brings my bandaged hand to his lips again. “Don’t try to force it. Let your mind heal at its own pace.”
The gesture should be sweet, romantic even. But something about the way he’s watching me while he does it feels like he’s testing my reaction. His thumb traces the spot his mouth just claimed, and heat jolts up my arm like a live wire.
I squeeze my thighs together, suddenly hyperaware of how close he’s standing. How his masculine scent—cedar and something darker—makes me want to lean into him and breathe deeper.
“Your phone calls,” I say, changing the subject. “They sounded intense.”
“Business is a bit messy right now. Nothing for you to worry about.”
“Are you in some kind of trouble?”
He laughs and rubs the back of his neck. “Kotyonok, I am trouble. I thought you knew that about me.”
“Should that scare me?”
“Probably.” He steps closer, backing me against the counter. “But it never has.”
Before. When I was someone else, someone who apparently found dangerous men attractive instead of terrifying.
“Maybe I was different before,” I whisper.
“Maybe.” He brings his hands up to frame my face and adds, “Or maybe this is who you really are, underneath all the pretense.”
“What pretense?”
But he doesn’t answer. Instead, he leans down and kisses me.
It’s soft at first, like he’s giving me the chance to pull away. I don’t. I lean in, and his mouth takes over with the confidence of a man who knows how to kiss his wife.
My body responds like it remembers, even if my mind doesn’t.
My heart hammers against my ribcage like it’s trying to escape, moisture gathering between my legs. I press closer to him, my hands fisting the front of his shirt, wanting more of whatever this is.
He tastes like coffee and secrets and promises and things I shouldn’t want but desperately do.
When he finally pulls back, we’re both breathing harder than we should be from a simple kiss.
“See?” he murmurs against my lips. “Your body remembers me, even if your mind doesn’t.”
And he’s right. Whatever else might be wrong with this situation, whatever my subconscious is trying to warn me about, my body knows this man. Wants this man.
Trusts him in ways my logical mind questions.
“I should clean up the glass,” I remark, though I make no move to step away from him.
“Leave it. I’ll have someone take care of it.”
“Someone?”
“The housekeeper. She comes every afternoon. She’ll be here any minute.”
Of course we have a housekeeper. Because we’re the kind of people who can afford to have someone else clean up our messes.
Staff. Imported food. A penthouse with perfect views. None of it feels like my life. I’m playing house in someone else’s fantasy, wearing designer clothes that fit too well, and trapped in a world too polished to be real.
But Dmitri’s hands on my face feel real. The way he looks at me like I’m something precious and dangerous at the same time. That feels real, too.
Even if nothing else does.
Either my body is lying to me, or my husband is.