25. Katya
Katya
Walking into the penthouse feels like stepping back into a lie.
“Home sweet home,” I mutter as Dmitri sets our bags down in the foyer.
“You seem tense.” He moves behind me to rest his hands on my shoulders.
“Just adjusting to being back in civilization after our peaceful retreat.”
But that’s not what’s bothering me.
Every corner triggers flashes of familiarity that don’t align with the story I’ve been told about my life here.
The kitchen where I supposedly made breakfast as his wife. The living room where we watched movies together. The bedroom where we made love. Something about this place feels wrong in a way I can't articulate.
Like I'm an actor returning to a set where I never learned my lines.
“I need some coffee.” I head toward the kitchen to give myself space to think.
“I’ll make it. You should rest after the drive.”
“I’m fine.” But even as I say it, my hands shake as I reach for the coffee maker. “Just need a minute to settle in.”
Dmitri studies my face. “Are you sure you’re alright? You’ve been quiet since we left the estate.”
“I’m just working through the change of scenery.”
“Maybe you should call Dr. Sokolova,” Dmitri suggests. “The stress of traveling might have triggered something.”
I scrunch my nose and ask, “Why would I need to call her?”
“Because you’re acting like someone who’s remembered something they wish they hadn’t.”
The observation is too accurate for comfort. I focus on measuring coffee grounds to avoid looking at him.
“I haven’t remembered anything specific. Just… impressions.”
“What kind of impressions?”
Before I can answer, his phone rings with a tone I recognize as one of his business associates. He glances at the screen and frowns.
“I need to take this. Viktor’s been calling all morning.”
Viktor. Another name that makes my stomach clench with unidentified dread.
“Take your call. I’ll be fine.”
Dmitri retreats to his office, and I hear him speaking in rapid Russian with someone who’s agitated about something. While he’s distracted, I move through the apartment with growing unease.
The photos that are supposed to prove our marriage look staged. I pick up one of the framed pictures that shows me at a gallery opening.
The woman in the photo is wearing an elegant black dress, and she’s smiling at the camera, but something about her posture bothers me.
She’s standing like someone aware of being watched, not like someone enjoying a social event.
“Target assessed,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
Where the hell did that come from?
I set the photograph down and move to the window that overlooks the city. Moscow spreads out below me, and suddenly, I’m not seeing it as a tourist or even as a resident. I’m seeing it as an operational environment.
Sight lines. Escape routes. Surveillance positions.
“FSB Domestic Operations Center. Forty degrees northeast.” I murmur, pointing toward a building I somehow know contains classified government operations.
The knowledge exists in my brain without explanation, like someone uploaded a tactical database directly into my subconscious.
I know where the major intelligence facilities are located. I know which streets provide the best surveillance positions. I know how to navigate this city like someone who’s been trained to operate here.
Art curators don’t have that kind of knowledge.
But intelligence operatives do.
The realization hits me like a freight train carrying everything I’ve been trying not to understand. The combat reflexes, the tactical awareness, and the automatic responses to authority figures like Pavel. None of it was developed from random talent or movie watching.
I’m a trained FSB agent.
“No,” I breathe, gripping the window frame for support as more pieces click into place.
The dreams about weapons training weren’t nightmares.
They were memories.
The facility with the shooting range and the tactical scenarios was real. I was there. I lived it.
Agent Sidorov. That’s what the voice called me in my dreams.
My real name isn’t Katya Kozlov.
It’s Agent Katya Sidorov.
Sent undercover as Alexandra Volkova to infiltrate Dmitri’s organization.
The coffee mug slips from my hands and shatters, but I barely notice. My identity is piecing itself back together, and every shard makes me sick.
Dmitri discovered my real identity. He found out I was FSB, and instead of killing me, he decided to play a much more twisted game.
The explosion at the gallery wasn’t random violence. It was either an assassination gone wrong or the perfect cover for implementing a psychological operation that would make me forget who I am.
“Katya?” Dmitri calls from his office. “Everything okay?”
“Fine,” I call back, though my voice sounds strange even to me. “Just dropped something.”
I need to keep pretending while I figure out how much I remember and what it means for my current situation.
If Dmitri realizes I’m recovering my memory, he might decide that keeping me alive is no longer worth the risk.
But the memories keep coming in waves that make me grip the counter for support.
Viktor Petrov isn’t an intelligence broker who helps various criminal families. He’s my handler. My FSB superior, who assigned me to this mission and monitored my progress for over a year.
Why would my handler need to negotiate for my return? The FSB knows where I am. Unless they wanted me to disappear.
My legs go weak. What if the gallery blast wasn’t Dmitri? What if Viktor set it up to erase me once I’d served my purpose?
More memories rise, and bile comes with them. Viktor pushing me past intel. Ordering me to seduce Dmitri for deeper access. Threatening me if I didn’t deliver enough to justify a takedown.
I began questioning his orders in the weeks before the explosion. Started wondering if what he was asking me to do crossed lines that intelligence work shouldn’t cross.
The romantic manipulation felt wrong, and I’d begun to suspect that Viktor had motivations beyond standard FSB objectives.
“Agent Sokolova will continue monitoring your progress,” Viktor told me during our last meeting. “Complete psychological evaluation to ensure operational readiness.”
Agent Sokolova. Not Dr. Sokolova.
My supposed therapist is another FSB operative who’s been evaluating my mental state while I’ve been Dmitri’s prisoner.
But she’s not just another agent assigned to monitor me.
Anya Sokolova is my best friend. For seven years, we shared missions, covered each other’s backs, and traded secrets that could kill us.
She was the one person in the FSB I thought I could trust.
And she sold me out.
She’s been sitting across from me in therapy sessions, pretending to help me recover my memory while secretly evaluating my mental state for Viktor.
Every personal confession I made to her, every moment of vulnerability I shared about my confusion and fear, has been documented and reported back to our handler.
The betrayal cuts deeper than Dmitri’s. I expected it from him; he’s a criminal. But Anya? She was supposed to care about me, not my operational value.
Instead, she’s been playing therapist while I’ve been drowning in confusion about my identity.
And Pavel. Pavel Romanov. The name that seemed familiar when I met him.
Agent Romanov. My partner in deep cover operations. The man I’ve worked with on various assignments for three years.
They’re all here. My handler, my partner, and my psychological evaluator. All operating under false identities while I’ve been living as Dmitri’s wife.
But none of them extracted me. None of them revealed my identity or attempted a rescue operation.
They’ve been watching me, testing me, and evaluating me like a lab rat in an experiment I don’t understand.
The bathroom door slams behind me, and I barely make it to the toilet before losing what little breakfast I ate this morning.
The physical reaction to remembering my real identity leaves me shaking and empty, but at least the nausea gives me an excuse for the sounds Dmitri might have heard.
When I emerge from the bathroom, he’s standing in the hallway, looking concerned.
“You look terrible. Maybe we should call Dr. Sokolova.”
“No.” The response comes out too fast, too violent. “I mean, I’m just tired from the trip. Some rest will help.”
“Are you sure? You seem…”
“I seem what?”
“I don’t know. Different.”
The accuracy of his observation terrifies me.
He’s been watching me closely enough to recognize the signs of memory recovery, which means he knows this moment would eventually come.
“I’m the same person I was yesterday.”
He narrows his eyes at my phrasing and asks, “Are you?”
Shit. He knows. Somehow, he knows that I’m remembering things I’m not supposed to remember.
“What kind of question is that?”
“The kind a husband asks when his wife starts looking at him like she’s trying to figure out whether to trust him.”
“Should I trust you?”
“That’s up to you.”
The non-answer confirms everything I’ve been piecing together. Everything between us is built on lies and half-truths, and I’m starting to see how deep it goes.
“I need some time alone,” I tell him.
“Of course. I have business to attend to anyway.”
He kisses my forehead with the same tenderness as always, but now, I know it’s an act. Every touch and gesture was meant to make me forget who I am.
What guts me most is that it worked. I fell in love with him…
Dmitri disappears into his office to handle whatever crisis demands his attention.
My hands shake as I trace the crescent moon tattoo on my wrist. I got it after my parents died, one of the darkest nights of my life.
We used to go stargazing when I was little. Mom would point out constellations, and Dad would tell stories about the moon. “No matter how dark it gets,” he’d say, “the moon always comes back.”
It was my reminder of that. Before the FSB. Before I learned to kill. Before I became someone my parents wouldn’t recognize.
I’m not Katya Kozlov, the wife he invented.
I’m Katya Sidorov, FSB agent. His prisoner.
And I love my captor.