Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Katya
“Chyort voz’mi,” I muttered, rubbing the crust from my eyes.
I hadn’t slept this well since I’d left Rome, maybe not even before that. The nightmares that usually stalked me—flashing lights, slamming doors, the icy walls of a detention cell—were nowhere to be found. Just warmth. Just her.
Charlotte.
Last night was… amazing. I let out a breath and flopped back against the pillows, a crooked smile tugging at my lips.
Being with her felt electric, like I’d been walking around soaked in gasoline and someone had finally struck a match.
Everything had caught fire in the best possible way.
Her mouth on mine, her body pressed against me, the low, hungry sounds she made when I touched her… I could have drowned in that.
But the smile faded. I stared up at the ceiling, the weight of reality creeping in.
Why would she sleep with me if she wasn’t proud enough to admit it to the world?
I didn’t understand women like Charlotte—women who lived in the closet when they didn’t have to.
Back home, secrecy was survival. We hid who we were, or we disappeared.
But here? In the West? She was rich, powerful, with a fucking plantation, a refrigerator full of fine wines, and a closet full of designer suits.
She didn’t need approval from anyone. Or at least, that’s how it looked to me.
But then… maybe I was being unfair.
She was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
She wasn’t just any closeted woman—she was someone whose entire career was built on diplomacy, perception, and playing a very delicate political game.
And I wasn’t just anyone, either. I was a Russian defector.
A thorn in the side of the Kremlin. A public nuisance to authoritarian regimes.
If it came out that she’d slept with me?
Yeah. It would probably be a PR nightmare.
Still. I didn’t care. Not about her job, not about diplomacy, not about appearances. All I wanted was to taste her again. To feel her body beneath mine, her skin under my hands, my tongue on those perfect, perky—
My phone buzzed angrily on the nightstand. I swore under my breath in Russian and grabbed it.
A message from Alexei Sharapov, the man I’d met from Amnesty International.
Alexei: Hey Katya, any chance you’re free this afternoon? We’d love to interview you on camera for the documentary. Nothing too formal, just you telling your story. Think you can swing it?
Right. The interview. I’d said yes to it days ago, though it had completely slipped my mind.
I sat up and typed out a quick reply:
Me: Sure. Where and when?
As I waited for his response, I tossed off the covers and swung my legs over the side of the bed. My body was still humming from last night—sore in the best ways. I stretched, stood, and headed to the bathroom, glancing at myself in the mirror.
Hair a mess. Lips still slightly swollen. A shadow of fingernail marks on my hips.
I grinned.
Charlotte Jason Tyler may have been too afraid to shout it from the rooftops, but my body still sang with the memory of her. And no matter what happened next, no one could take that away from me.
The SUV came to a stop outside a red-brick townhouse on a quiet street in Manhattan. I opened the door before the driver could get out and stepped onto the curb.
John was out a second later, slamming his door harder than necessary.
“You could wait to be cleared before exiting the vehicle,” he snapped, already annoyed.
I turned to him, arms crossed. “What’s the point? You already scoped the building five times with your eyes.”
“I’m responsible for your safety.”
“No, you’re responsible for hovering and pretending like I’m some fragile flower that might be kidnapped off the sidewalk.”
His jaw tightened. “You’re not taking this seriously.”
“And you’re taking it too seriously.”
He stepped in front of me, blocking the path to the front door. “You don’t get it, Katya. Last night, you had me waiting outside for hours while you—”
“While I was not under threat,” I cut in sharply. “Unless you think Charlotte’s pillow could be a Russian asset.”
Now he knew what me and Charlotte were really up to, and I loved how his lips pursed before flatlining again.
His ears flushed red, and he glanced toward the townhouse, maybe to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “This isn’t a game. You’ve been on state television in Russia. They still run hit pieces on you. You think they’ve stopped looking?”
“I know they haven’t stopped. But I didn’t defect just to be babysat by some overpaid ex-cop who thinks his badge gives him the right to control my time.”
He scowled, but didn’t say more.
I brushed past him, climbing the steps to the Amnesty International office. A small brass plaque beside the door was the only thing marking it, understated and clean. I liked that.
Inside, the air was cooler, smelling faintly of paper, printer ink, and someone’s too-strong jasmine tea. A few desks lined the open space inside the lobby, separated by cheap dividers. Fliers in multiple languages lined the walls.
Alexei Sharapov stood up the moment I stepped inside, all tall limbs and soft brown eyes. He broke into a grin.
“Katya Romanova in the flesh,” he said warmly, stepping forward with both hands out like he couldn’t decide whether to hug me or shake my hand.
I let him hug me.
“Good to see you, Alexei,” I said into his shoulder. “You look camera ready.”
“You lie like a Russian,” he said with a laugh, pulling back. “Come, everyone’s excited to meet you.”
Behind him, a few heads had popped up from behind monitors. A woman in a Pride flag hoodie gave me a thumbs-up. Another man with wireframe glasses and a camera slung around his neck actually looked star struck. I gave them a small wave.
“Is it weird being famous in exile?” one of them asked.
“Yes,” I said honestly, smiling. “But the coffee here is better, so it balances out.”
Laughter rippled through the group.
Then I turned toward John, who was still standing inside the door like a stiff piece of furniture. “You can wait outside,” I said.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“I’m not asking, John. I’m telling you.”
His eyes narrowed. “What is this?”
“Just a meeting. Some people want to hear my story. You know, the one I lived.” I smiled, all saccharine. “If you’re bored, maybe find a coffee shop. Get something decaf. You can’t handle the hard stuff.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but thought better of it. “Fine. I’ll be in the hallway.”
He stepped outside, and the moment the door shut, I let out a breath.
Alexei raised an eyebrow. “Friendly.”
“Government babysitter,” I muttered. “I’m this close to giving him a fake schedule and ditching him in Jersey.”
He chuckled. “Come on. Let’s get you mic’d up.”
He led me through a narrow corridor, past offices stacked with human rights reports and old protest signs, until we reached a small room at the back.
It was dim, with blackout curtains drawn tight.
Light stands were already in place, two cameras set up on tripods.
A chair sat in front of a neutral background screen.
One of the crew, a quiet girl in a Nirvana t-shirt, stepped up and clipped a small mic onto the collar of my blouse, adjusting the wire so it was hidden.
“You look good,” Alexei said, as I took my seat.
“Liar,” I muttered. “I rolled out of bed forty minutes ago.”
“Then bed agrees with you.”
The lights were hotter than they needed to be, and the room smelled faintly of dust and camera equipment. I sat in the folding chair they’d placed in front of the neutral backdrop. Then someone behind the camera counted us in silently with their fingers.
Alexei’s voice came from just beyond the light stand. “Ready?”
I nodded, even though my pulse was tapping against my neck like a snare drum.
“Okay. Let’s start with the basics. State your name and a little about why you’re here today.”
I looked into the lens and let a small smirk touch my lips.
“My name is Ekaterina Romanova. Most people back home just call me Katya. I’m a singer, songwriter, and professional pain in the ass to authoritarian regimes. I’m here because I used my voice too loudly for too long—and now I’m free to keep doing it without getting disappeared.”
There was a faint laugh from behind the camera. Alexei, I guessed.
He followed up. “You’re known across Eastern Europe, especially among younger protest movements, as more than a musician. How did that happen?”
“Accidentally,” I said, though that wasn’t quite true. “I started playing punk clubs when I was eighteen—half the songs were angry love ballads, the other half were screaming about police brutality and rigged elections. Being political wasn’t part of my original plan. I just… sang what was real.”
“And people listened.”
“Not the right people,” I said dryly. “Or maybe exactly the right people. That’s when the trouble started.”
He leaned forward a little, eyes serious now. “The Ministry of Culture blacklisted your band. You were pulled from festivals. Your albums were scrubbed from Russian streaming platforms.”
“All true,” I said. “Plus they froze my accounts, and revoked my travel privileges. We started getting followed. The last tour I played, we had plainclothes agents at most of our shows. They decided I was dangerous.”
“You were.”
That pulled a laugh from me. “A queer girl with a guitar singing about corruption and queerness and the church not having the answers? I was radioactive.”
Alexei let a pause stretch before asking, “What finally pushed you to defect?”
I hesitated, fingers curling slightly in my lap.
This part… this wasn’t rehearsed. It wasn’t something I wanted to say on camera.
Because the truth wasn’t just about the threats or the canceled gigs or the arrests.
It was about the exhaustion. About feeling like I was singing into the void while waiting for the knock on the door that would end everything.
So instead I said, “It was never one thing. It was all of it. The censorship, the fear, the weight of knowing that nothing was going to get better until people started taking genuine risks. I realized I could be more dangerous from the outside.”
“But you lost a lot.”
I gave a half-shrug. “I lost a lot before I left. This just made it official.”
The camera’s red light stared at me, unblinking. I felt its pull—how easy it would be to say the things that would make people cry, go viral, add hashtags to their bios. But I wasn’t here to perform a tragedy.
“I didn’t come to the West to be a sob story,” I added. “I came to keep shouting. Louder.”
Alexei’s tone gentled a little. “You know there are kids in Saint Petersburg and Tbilisi and Kyiv who have your lyrics tattooed on their skin.”
I smiled, surprised he knew that. “Yeah. I’ve seen some of them. My handwriting in their Instagram DMs, inked forever next to a rib cage or collarbone. It’s surreal.”
“What would you say to them now?”
I leaned forward slightly, resting my elbows on my knees, looking directly into the lens.
“I’d say keep screaming. Even when they threaten you. Even when they erase your posts and follow your friends home from school. You are not alone. Your voice is your weapon. And the world is watching, whether they admit it or not.”
I let the silence land for a beat.
“And if you’re queer,” I added, softer but not gentler, “don’t let them turn your love into something shameful. There’s nothing more dangerous to them than a person who’s not afraid to be exactly who they are.”
The rest of the interview went well, and then the red light on the camera finally blinked off. The room felt smaller suddenly, like I could breathe again.
Alexei stepped around the lights, his expression unreadable. “That was incredible.”
I stood, rolling the tension out of my shoulders. “I’ve been saying that shit into microphones for years. You just gave me nicer lighting.”
He offered a smile, but I could tell he wanted to say more. I didn’t let him. A crew member unpinned the mic and handed it to someone else with a quick “thank you.”
As I walked toward the door, I found John standing just inside the hallway, arms crossed, his expression tight.
“Everything okay?” he asked, clearly trying not to sound pissed.
“Peachy,” I said again, brushing past him.
John held the door for me without a word, and we stepped out into the bright afternoon.
The city was alive—honking taxis, food carts, hissing steam, a toddler crying somewhere across the street.
It was all so ordinary, and yet I felt energized.
Like I’d said something that mattered. Like I still mattered.
“I take it that went well,” John said, finally breaking the silence.
I smirked. “You could say that.”
He gave a grunt that might’ve been disapproval, or maybe just indigestion. Hard to tell with John.
We walked a few steps before I added, “Relax, no one died. I didn’t name names.”
“Didn’t need to,” he muttered.
I didn’t respond. I was still riding the high of it—of being seen, heard, understood. It wasn’t a stadium full of screaming fans, but it scratched the same itch. And it was important.
But then, like a shadow slipping over the sun, the thought came:
This is the opposite of keeping a low profile. What would Charlotte say when she found out?