21. Nataliya
TWENTY-ONE
Don’t panic, I told myself. Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t?—
I jumped when a door slammed somewhere in the house. I drew my knees up to my chest and locked my arms around my legs, trying to make myself the smallest ball possible. Being small wouldn’t protect me—I knew that, logically—but I couldn’t fight the instinct. Not when any minute now, they would come for me.
We’d driven north of Atlanta the night before, into the Blue Ridge Mountains, and as we climbed the summit, my heart began to squeeze in my chest. We eventually stopped at a manor masquerading as a cabin—all the wood trappings and folksy exterior but four times the size of any normal house—and the thug who grabbed me from the hotel dragged me from the car and inside.
I had been in this room ever since, and the fear that sat, heavy and sludge-like, on my chest was slowly suffocating me. If only there was something in this room, I thought, not for the first time. The only furniture was a mattress on the floor. There wasn’t a window or a closet; there wasn’t anything I could pull apart to fashion a weapon.
I’m going to die here. That thought kept playing in my head, over and over again. I tried to push it away by telling myself that Adrian would come for me, but it was hard to believe it after I’d been on my own for so very long.
There was another slammed door, and I heard thudding footsteps coming closer to me. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. This was it. I squeezed myself into a ball to stop the trembling, and I bit my tongue to hold back a scream when the door swung open.
“Get up,” a voice boomed. I didn’t move. Screw that, I thought and hugged my knees all the tighter. The man attached to that voice crossed the room. “I said get up.”
I refused again, and a hand clamped down on my arm. I yelped as he yanked me to my feet and half-dragged me out of the room. I tried to get my legs under me so I could walk without stumbling, but the man never slowed. We walked down the hall and up a flight of stairs before he opened a door and shoved me inside. My knees hit solid oak floors, and I winced.
“I’m so sorry for the rough treatment,” said a voice, silky in way that made my skin crawl. I looked up, and knew exactly who I was facing, even though Ian Hayes did not look like I’d imagined. He was younger, for one, though his dark hair had a slight peppering of gray. Distinguished, my mother would have said. He had dark eyes to match his hair. He looked good in the suit he was wearing. “But I think Peter is still a little upset over your last meeting in St. Francisville.”
“I wasn’t the one who beat him silly.”
Hayes considered me for a moment, then dipped his head in acknowledgment. “That’s true,” he said. “You let your little FBI pet do it for you.”
I gritted my teeth. “Adrian isn’t a dog.”
“Let’s agree to disagree about that,” he said and gestured for me to get up. “Come,” he said. “Sit with me. We need to talk.” I climbed to my feet and toddled on shaky legs to the armchair that he was pointing me to. “Do you need anything?” he asked. “Are you hungry? Do you need a drink?”
I shook my head. “I just want to go home.”
“Yes, to your son. Elias, right?”
I went cold. “Please don’t bring my son into this.”
Again, Hayes dipped his head. It was like we were in some kind of negotiation, but he was the only one who knew the terms. “You’ve been creating identities for yourself, haven’t you? Since you left the custody of the US Marshals.”
I nodded. There was no point in trying to deny it. “I’m good with computers.”
“I know. I looked up your records.” He reached over and held up a folder. “You have some impressive credentials. It’s a shame you ended up in a diner in the middle of a swamp.” He opened the folder and flicked through the pages. “And before that, you were a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas.” He glanced at me and clicked his tongue against his teeth. “You’ve wasted so much of your potential since you moved to the United States, Nataliya. It really is a shame.”
“Thank you,” I said. The words felt misshapen and wrong in my mouth—making nice with the man who was responsible for my brother’s death felt like a betrayal of the worst sort—but if playing polite kept me alive long enough for Adrian to find me, I would do it with a smile. “I hope to go back to working in my field someday when things are more settled.”
“Why wait?” Hayes asked. “I could always use someone on my team with skills like yours.”
Here we go, I thought. I had been waiting for the sales pitch. “I’ve seen what you do, Mr. Hayes,” I said. “I’m not impressed.”
“Oh, I think you’d find me very impressive, Nataliya. What evidence did you really get against me, huh? A handful of damning emails with no context, maybe? A voicemail?”
He has no idea what we have, I thought. He’s guessing so I’ll tell him. “My brother is dead because of you,” I said instead of answering his question.
Anger cracked through his charming, neutral mask. It was only for an instant, but I saw the man beneath the designer clothes and veneer-bright smile. “Your brother is dead because he didn’t stick to what he did best: follow orders. Instead, he ran to Interpol with his tail tucked between his legs.”
“He was trying to do right by his nephew.”
Hayes chuckled, and it was a mean sound. “He could have done so much more if he’d come to me,” he said. “Do you know the resources I could have gotten for you? Instead, you’re allowing a researcher to run experiments on your son.”
My hands clenched into fists. “I asked you not to bring him up.”
Hayes sighed. “I just want you to be aware of what I could do for you. I could get you a job in the field you love; I could set you and Elias up in a good home in any part of the country you’d like. I could make sure that he has the best medical care.”
I crossed my arms across my chest. “Why would you do all of that for me?”
“I take care of my people.”
I snorted. “Do you regularly take care of your people by setting them up to be killed?”
His mask slipped again, and his dark eyes turned searing. “I do what needs to be done to maintain what I’ve built. I’m sure that you can understand the need to protect one’s own creation, yes?” I clutched at the arms of the chair, digging my fingers into the fabric. “That being said, I’ll need you to return what you took from my system, along with anything else your brother might have left for you.”
“No.”
“Just ‘no’?” Hayes asked in such a perverse mirror of the conversation Adrian and I had earlier that I actually laughed. “You don’t think you should make the smart choice and negotiate?”
I shook my head. I knew it wasn’t the smart choice, knew that I should play along until someone came to find me, but there were some things I just couldn’t stomach. And agreeing to work for this man—even as a ruse—was a line I couldn’t bring myself to cross. “No, Mr. Hayes. This isn’t a negotiation; it’s just a no.”
Hayes stood, and I pressed myself back in the chair, trying to get away from him as subtly as possible. “You’ve struggled so much as a single parent, Nataliya,” he said, circling now. It was like every cliché movie villain ever, and there was a hysterical part of me that wanted to laugh…but that would probably end up getting me killed. “Don’t you want to make your life easier? Don’t you think you deserve it?”
“Of course, I deserve it,” I said. “No one deserves hardships or suffering.”
“Return what you took from me, and you can have whatever you want.” He shrugged, as if to say it was just that easy. “I’ll even leave your guard dog alone.”
I wouldn’t believe anything he told me even if he said the sky was blue or water was wet. But shutting down the conversation completely wouldn’t do me any favors. I had to keep him talking, try to stall. “Why do you do it?” I asked.
There was a pop of annoyance on his face. “Why do I do what?”
I kept my eyes on him as best as I could. “Any of it,” I said, not bothering to elaborate. “Your company has one of the longest-sustained contracts with the government, and you have private clients all over the world. You make more money legitimately in a week than most do in their whole lives. Why isn’t that enough? Why do you need more?”
Surprisingly, Hayes took his time to think about it. I watched him pour whiskey into a glass from the bar tucked neatly to the side, not bothering with ice or a garnish. He brought it back and sat down across from me again. “Why would anyone limit their ability to gain power?” he asked. “I have the ability to influence governments. Why wouldn’t I?”
“So, it’s just about the money, then?”
“It does make the world go ’round, Nataliya.”
You disgust me, I thought as he sipped his drink. “Some people might lie,” I said, “to make themselves look more altruistic.”
His eyebrow cocked upward. “Do I seem like an altruistic type of man?” He threw the rest of his drink back. “I’ve never cared for playing games.”
I motioned around us. “So, what’s all this, then? If you don’t like games, why are you doing this with me?”
“This isn’t a game,” he assured me. “It’s a business meeting. You’re an obstacle to my professional future. I looked into you the first time you gave my men the slip. You have an impressive educational background.”
“So?”
“So, I think I can solve several problems all at once. Come work for me, and I won’t have to worry about you any longer. I would make sure that you and your son had a comfortable life.”
“But I’d have to look the other way when you dealt in human trafficking or sold secrets that got people killed.”
He shrugged. It was a delicate movement that made my stomach roll in on itself. “Think of it as the price of admission,” he said.
The way he shrugged everything off, as if it were just another day, was disgusting. “I don’t know what world you live in, but it’s not the real one,” I said. “I could never do what you’re asking.”
Hayes sighed. “I thought that might be your answer,” he said. “You are going to give me back what you stole, or I am going to kill you. Do you understand? There’s nowhere for you to run—no way out of this if you continue to defy me. This house is the only one for miles. It’s up to you whether you walk out of here with a brand-new job or are carried out in a body bag.”
A shiver ran down my spine, but I forced myself to sit up straight and look at him as if his words didn’t absolutely terrify me. “I won’t cooperate, no matter what you say.”
“You’re truly not afraid?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter if I am or not,” I said. “I’m still not doing it.”
“Should I send Peter after Elias then?” he asked. “Or your FBI pet?”
My hands balled into fists again. “Leave them alone.”
He laughed, flat and emotionless, and that was more terrifying than anything. “You’re one of those sentimental types. I should have started with that.” He picked up his phone. “Peter, come collect Nataliya for me, will you? Then, I have an errand for you to run.”
I was screaming the whole time Peter dragged me back to my cell. Don’t panic, I told myself again. Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic. Adrian was coming. He wouldn’t leave me here like this.