Page 3 of Savage Lies

The painting crashes somewhere nearby, its frame splintering, but the sound feels distant and unimportant.

Dmitri covers me, shielding my body with his. Debris rains down, but I barely feel it over the ringing in my head.

“Car bomb.” His voice is distant through the ringing in my head. “They found you.”

They found me.

Not him. Me.

What the hell is he talking about?

“We need to go,” I say, the words coming out slurred and broken.

Dmitri’s face swims in and out of focus above me. There’s blood on his forehead, and his perfect suit is torn and dusty.

“Stay with me, kitten.” I’m lying on the floor, my head in his lap.

The sirens are getting closer.

My vision blurs. Snippets of the last year flicker like a broken reel. Our first meeting, the almost-kiss outside the Bolshoi, the way he always watched me like he already knew.

I should have kissed him.

The thought comes from nowhere, but now that I’ve had it, it won’t stay away.

My memory feels strange, like someone’s shuffling through files in my head and losing important pieces. What was I doing here? Why does everything feel so far away?

“Dmitri?” His name feels foreign on my tongue, like I’m not sure I have the right to say it.

“I’m here.”

“I can’t… I don’t remember…”

He pulls me against his chest and asks, “Remember what, kitten?”

I can’t answer because the world is going dark around the edges, and the only thing that feels real is the weight of his hand against my cheek.

The sirens wail closer.

Blood pools beneath my head.

Dmitri’s green eyes are the last thing I see before everything goes black. The look on his face makes me think he’s deciding something that will change our lives forever.

I wish I could remember why that terrifies me.

1

Dmitri

The woman in the hospital bed doesn’t remember trying to ruin me. It almost makes this too easy.

Two weeks ago, FSB Agent Katya “Kotyonok” Sidorov was “Alexandra Volkova” and one step away from dismantling everything I built.

Today, she’s staring at me like I’m a stranger who’s walked into the wrong room, which isn’t far from the truth.

“Mr. Kozlov?” Dr. Novikov approaches with a clipboard and the kind of rueful smile medical professionals use when delivering tough news. “Your wife is ready to be discharged.”

My wife. Not the worst lie I’ve told.