Page 74 of Savage Lies

What I’m saying is true, but it scares the shit out of me. I’m losing myself in him more each day, and I don’t know if that's healing or just another form of forgetting.

Dmitri tilts my chin up so I’m looking directly at him. “And who are you right now?”

“Someone who’s falling for her husband.”

Even as I say it, I wonder if I’m making a terrible mistake. Some mistakes are worth making. Whatever brought us here, what exists between us now feels real.

Even if everything else in my life is a lie, this moment is mine.

20

Dmitri

The heavy bag rattles with every strike, but it’s not enough to quiet the thoughts clawing at my head.

Not when all I can think about is her.

Katya finds me an hour into my workout, appearing in the doorway wearing jeans and one of my T-shirts that settles just below her perfect ass.

“I wondered where you’d disappeared to,” she comments as she leans against the doorframe.

“Couldn’t sleep.” I land another combination on the heavy bag as sweat drips down my back. “Figured I’d put the time to good use.”

“Nightmares?”

“Business concerns. Territory disputes don’t resolve themselves just because I’m playing house in the countryside.”

She walks into the gym, examining the equipment. “This is where you learned to fight.”

I unwrap my hands and reach for a towel. “One of them. You pick up skills wherever you can in this line of work.”

“Show me.”

I pause in drying my face. “Show you what?”

“How to throw a proper punch. How to defend myself if someone grabs me.”

“You handled yourself fine during the kidnapping.”

“I got lucky. I want to know what I’m doing instead of relying on instincts I don’t understand.”

Something in her tone makes me look at her more carefully. This isn’t just curiosity about self-defense. This is someone asking for combat training.

“Basic defensive moves or actual fighting techniques?”

“Whatever you think I need to know.”

I drop the towel and move to the center of the mat. “Come here. Stand behind me.”

She positions herself as instructed, and I grab her arm to demonstrate a basic wrist escape. “If someone grabs you like this, you twist toward the thumb. It’s the weakest part of the grip.”

Katya nods and tries the technique when I grab her wrist. Her execution is flawless, textbook perfect, like she’s done this a thousand times.

“Good. Now let me grab you from behind and see how you react.”

I wrap my arm around her throat in a loose demonstration hold. Instead of struggling or showing confusion that I expect from someone with limited training, Katya drops her weight and executes a counter that would have broken my hold if I hadn’t been ready for it.

“Where did you learn that?”