20. Wren
WREN
Istood at the sink in the large kitchen, rinsing out my coffee mug, and had a fleeting sense of déjà vu hit me so hard that I went still.
The water ran over my hand as I held the mug. Warm and soothing, it lulled me and relaxed my fingers. I had been typing so much—a common issue for anyone who worked at a computer all day long—and I relished the slight massage.
I’d done this before, too. Many times. My mom used to rinse her coffee mugs out to re-use for the inevitable next cup of caffeine that she’d want.
She was always drinking it to keep going through the days.
I had inherited that love of caffeine from her, and her habit of rinsing out the same mug to re-use had passed on to me too.
At the office or at home, I would rinse and dry out my mug and set it out to use again. When I was at the office, I would linger to relax my hand under the warm water. And I was doing it here, too.
Because I was putting long hours in, helping Elena try to sleuth more of what was going on with all the bribes to law enforcement agencies.
There was still a gap of information between Gregori and the people he contacted on the regular, like Smithson, but we were on it.
So was Igor. And Trojan. A couple of other hackers were under the Volkovs’ employ, too.
But it wasn’t until this strange little quirky habit of something as simple as rinsing off a coffee mug that I could fully understand how much my life had shifted.
This was my job, yet it wasn’t. No discussions about payments were held.
No checks were deposited into my account like with a traditional job.
And no meetings about benefits, health insurance coverage, and retirement savings funds were going on like what I should have anticipated at the Las Vegas department of the agency.
Viktor had more money than he could ever spend in a lifetime, so I wasn’t worried about not having anything.
He fed me, he clothed me. Since Lev and Mila found my apartment trashed, they’d let that fall to nothing.
All those normal obligations of day-to-day life didn’t apply to me here. And I’d be a liar if I said it wasn’t nice to be free of those common burdens. I supposed Viktor was paying for my help by protecting me, but that seemed like a very gray and complicated arrangement too.
Or am I his… girlfriend?
It was too twisted and confusing to figure out.
I was working here, though. Long and hard hours. Stymied by the layers of deception, I was getting more and more invested in exposing those who were being bribed or bribing others.
It wasn’t for the point of being a whistleblower. No one would be championing me as the underdog who exposed horrible corruption and crimes. The Volkovs would no doubt handle these issues with Gregori as they saw fit, and on that note, I wanted to share Elena’s “no details” request.
But there was no confusion about how much my life had changed.
All the way down to this simple act of rinsing my coffee mug.
This huge house in the desert with state-of-the-art appliances and elegant décor was feeling more like a home than any other apartment I’d lived in by myself.
Not being solo was a massive shift, too.
Paul no longer seemed like Lurch but a friendly helper.
Viktor was less of a kidnapper and more like a live-in significant other-slash-manager for Adrik.
The rest of them were starting to seem more like colleagues than former targets on a list.
I set the mug down and dried off my hands. Rubbing the towel over them, I rested my butt against the counter.
“Did you try that cream?” Paul asked as he came into the room, bringing a plate to set in the sink.
See?
It’s like I’ve entered another universe.
A butler asking if the painkiller cream he’d purchased for me worked was not a figment of my past. I’d never had anyone to care like that or to look out for me like that.
“A little,” I admitted. “It’ll feel good when I can take a break from these many hours at the keyboard, though.”
A break seemed like a joke. This wasn’t a “normal” job where I could plan vacations.
I left all those musings aside when I was driven to Adrik and Elena’s home. Even though I had the laptop here, I still would go to the large mansion and work alongside her. We would get on video calls with Trojan too. The call we had scheduled for this morning took a turn for the worse, though.
“I checked your phone,” he said as a greeting once we were all in place and facing our screens. Luka napped in his portable crib behind me and Elena, stationed at our computers side by side.
“Yeah? Any activity?” I asked. My phone had fallen out of my pocket that first night I’d been with Viktor.
When he tackled me to the ground, it dropped and cracked.
It hadn’t survived the damage, but a week ago, Trojan was able to hack into the number and transfer it to another device that he could monitor it from.
It went hand-in-hand with my being “missing”.
So far, the texts, voicemails, and emails were all of the expected nature.
After a week or so of my capture, Smithson reached out with vague messages, asking where I was, who had this phone, and if someone had located this device to return it to the police station. He seemed to realize that my number was still active.
Then when those all went unanswered, and when that car tried to hit me, it seemed like he had upped his game, asking where I was, why I was hiding, and warning that I better be careful and watch out.
I supposed it would’ve been more helpful if those messages could’ve been found before Viktor took me out to eat for that “work” meeting.
A couple of days ago, he’d ramped up the messaging again, asking where I was and why I had gone AWOL on the agency.
“Yeah, there’s activity.” Trojan cleared his throat. “I’ll send it to you both now. But to sum it up, he’s threatening you, warning that you’ll be killed if you don’t report to the agency. Or killed if you do.”
“Both?” Elena asked with an incredulous huff.
“Damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” I muttered.
She put her hand on mine. “You’re safe here.”
I knew I was, and I smiled at her as thanks for her commiseration. Viktor had shown me how safe I was with him and his family, and I didn’t take that for granted.
“He’s been making more threats about your not coming in,” Trojan added. “And he’s officially declaring you a double agent now. He’s saying that you’re officially fired and wanted.”
“Wanted?” I snorted, shaking my head as I opened the emails he’d just sent to me and Elena with this “team meetup”.
The irony practically killed me. My being on a wanted list when I had dedicated so much of my life trying to bring down those with such a designation.
“He can join the club, then,” I said bitterly.
I didn’t want to dwell on how I’d changed my tactics in fighting crime.
It still gnawed at me that I was siding with the Volkovs.
I often wondered what my mom and dad would think of me, being here with Viktor and his family like this.
When I pondered it, I knew that they’d be just as mad that Smithson and countless others were prone to being bought off, though.
In fact, they would’ve been more incensed that their fellow members of law enforcement could turn traitor to their own.
“Officially wanted?” Elena asked. “Like they’re looking for her?”
“I’m still looking into how far they’re searching for her, but these messages make it clear that they see her as someone to bring in.” He sighed, sounding annoyed. “Even if they aren’t sending out anyone to hunt you down, they’re trying to needle at you with direct messages.”
I skimmed through them, my anger igniting into pure fury.
How dare you!
How dare you imply that I’m a deceitful person?
I hadn’t ever taken a bribe. I had never wanted to play the system or lie under oath.
Seething at this new information, I tried not to let my emotions get to me.
Assess. Ascertain. And act.
I had to keep my cool and know that I was ultimately doing the right thing.
That I wasn’t in the wrong. They could call me a criminal all they wanted and it wouldn’t change a thing.
Because I was still doing the right thing—stopping bad people from doing bad things.
I was picking and choosing by trying to bring down the bribed officials while siding with the Volkovs, but evil was evil and I’d stand by what seemed like the lesser one.
I read through all that Trojan had sent me and Elena. The update unnerved me, but it wasn’t going to shake me off this goal of helping the Bratva.
“What this tells me is that he’s getting nervous,” Elena said later. “Smithson—and whoever he’s listening to—are getting nervous to escalate their attacks on your character and to say you’re wanted now.”
I nodded. “What it tells me is that there’s no going back.”
She faced me, raising her brows. “Was that something you considered?”
I sighed, setting my elbow on the desk and dropping my face into my hand.
“I don’t know. No. Yes? No.” I sat up and shook my head.
“Nothing about my being here is conventional. Viktor kidnapped me. And it’s been a confusing mess of getting to this point of wanting to stop this corruption from the other side of the fence. ”
“Being unconventional isn’t a bad thing, though.” She smiled slightly. “I didn’t come to be in this family in any conventional way either, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
I took her words to heart for the rest of the day. Of course, she wouldn’t want to change anything. She was married and in love and happy and a new mom and had a wonderful baby and a solid job and—
I could too, though.
The realization hit me hard, and I struggled not to be overwhelmed by it.
Later that night, though, when Carina had her baby—a girl they named Isabel—I couldn’t stop all the thoughts about how much my life was changing.
This Bratva was a family first. They weren’t a lawless gang of deviants and devils.
Being included to the point that I had been so far showed me that the Volkovs could offer me an existence I never could have had if I were working for the agency, either back in Oregon with the desk job or here as the field agent I never fully became.
Can I truly open my heart and know that I have a place in their family, though?
Will they ever be able to fully invite me to be one of them?
Before, those questions made me uneasy.
Now, I had to have the courage to truly test myself and understand the meaning behind having a real purpose in life. And if it could be one I would commit to with Viktor at my side.