Page 60 of Twisted Fate

“No.” She interrupts me. “ Kane wanted you dead. Your… ideas…” She says the word as if it hurts her, and when she looks up at me, I see a flicker of regret in her expression.

“You could destabilize the criminal network in Miami. Shake things up. Destabilize what makes Kane money. He wants the status quo to stay the same, so…” Her lips press together again. “You had to go.”

It’s less shocking than I expected. “Wanting someone dead for their ideas is nothing new,” I say evenly. “I’m not surprised. And you didn’t think anything of taking the job?”

Her eyes flash with resentment. “Why should I?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Nothing in you rebelled at the idea of killing a man because he wants to make changes? Killing a man over his ideals?”

“I’m an assassin, Konstantin,” Valentina spits out, but it’s not the whole truth. I can see the small tells—the way her fingers twitch against the chair, the way her eyes dart away from mine for a fraction of a second.

I step away from the fireplace, walking toward her. I see her flinch ever so slightly, but she doesn’t shrink back. I stop just in front of her, sinking down onto my heels as I look into her defiant green eyes.

“You didn’t want to kill me,” I say it with as much conviction as I can muster, forcing any lingering doubt out of my voice.

“You weren’t sure about the kill. You put it off for as long as possible.

You couldn’t bring yourself to do it earlier tonight, even though you must know what a man like Kane will do to someone who fails him so thoroughly.

” I hear her small hitch of breath as I continue, “So where do you fit into all of this, Valentina? Why did you take the job?”

Her jaw works. “I told you. He raised me. Trained me. Took me on jobs when I was younger.”

I narrow my eyes. “You said your father did that.”

Another twitch. “He’s the closest thing to a father that I have.”

Those last words come out on a rush of breath, and she looks away, her lips pressed into a thin, tight line. I see a glimmer in her eyes, a mist that might be approaching tears, and something wrenches in my chest despite everything that’s happened tonight.

“Valentina.” She flinches back when I say her name, and I reach up, grasping her chin in my fingers as I turn her back to face me. “Why did you take this job? What happened to your family?”

It’s a shot in the dark. But from the way her eyes widen, her lips parting ever so slightly as her gaze locks onto mine, it hit its target.

She shakes her head, a quick, tight motion. “Valentina.” I tighten my grip on her chin. “Tell me. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

“Why would you help me?” she hisses. “I was meant to kill you. I tried to kill you earlier tonight. Why would you help me with anything at all?”

My chest contracts. I stare into her eyes, my heart thudding behind my ribs, and I know this is the moment when telling her how I feel could change the trajectory of how this goes. But if I do…

I can’t force the words past my lips. Neither can she. We stare at each other for a long moment, our breath mingling in the space between us, and I feel the movement of her jaw under my fingers as she tries to wrestle her emotions back under control.

“My family was killed when I was eight. I—” Valentina swallows and draws in a shaky breath.

“I managed to hide while it was happening. But I saw it all.” Her voice is uncharacteristically flat, devoid of all emotion, but I know that for what it is.

A defense mechanism, so that she doesn’t break down in front of me.

One that she’s probably been employing for most of her life, to make sure that she doesn’t break down in front of anyone .

The confession hits me like a sledgehammer to the chest. It’s not a new story, or even a particularly unique one.

My father has put out hits on plenty of men who crossed him.

They had wives; children. But, right or wrong, I didn’t know them.

I know Valentina. Been intimate with her. Felt things with her that I’ve never?—

“I ended up in foster care,” she continues. “Kane was the one who found me there and took me in. When I turned ten, he told me that he knew who had killed my family. That if I helped him, if I was a—” She swallows hard, “a good girl, he could help me get revenge.”

My jaw tightens. “You were ten.”

“I was angry.” Her gaze meets mine evenly. “I asked him if I could start that day. I’d been angry since that night. I cried while it was happening. I cried when the police found me and took me to the station. And then… I don’t think I’ve ever cried again.”

Her eyes dart quickly away from mine. “I’ve never talked about this. I’ve never?—”

Before I can stop myself, before I even fully realize what I’m doing, my grip on her jaw changes to my fingers brushing along her cheek. “And you believed him?”

She laughs bitterly. “I was a traumatized child with no family. Of course I believed him. He gave me a place to live—a place that seemed like something out of a dream, at that age. And he gave me a purpose, a direction. I probably would have ended up on the streets if he hadn’t taken me in, or in juvy.

Prison eventually, maybe. I was angry, and all that anger had to go somewhere. ”

My mind clicks through all of the information, all of the pieces of the puzzle as I speak. “So the price of this revenge was your loyalty to him. Your service. You worked for him, and?—”

Valentina nods. “Eventually, he would give me the name.”

“And killing me was the price?”

She presses her lips together, her fingers curling in against the seat.

“Yes and no. I tried to get out, before this job. I came back from a sniper mission in Moscow and told him I was done. It had been ten years, and I wanted the name. He told me one more job, and he would give it to me. That—” Her throat constricts.

“That he couldn’t trust the job to anyone else. ”

"That job was me."

"You," she confirms.

I take a deep breath, rocking back on my heels as she watches me warily. I look at her, trying to imagine her as that child—scared, alone, manipulated by a man like Nicholas Kane. Shaped into a weapon, pointed at targets of his choosing. Used.

“Do you regret it?” I ask her, and she lets out a sharp breath.

“No.” She looks at me sideways. “I just told you. Without Kane, my life would have taken a bad path. I wouldn’t have been better off. But I do regret taking this job.”

For some reason, her admission feels like a lancing pain through my chest.

She regrets me.

“It wasn’t worth it,” she clarifies. “I took this job because he promised me the name, once I was done. But I failed. So I won’t get the name, and I have no idea what he’ll do to me if he finds me, but it won’t be good.

It won’t be what I needed, that’s for sure.

That’s if you don’t kill me first.” Her voice cracks, ever so slightly, on the last sentence.

“I failed, and I won’t get what I came here for, and I opened myself up to?—”

My gaze locks onto hers again. “Up to what?”

Her face shutters. “I think you know.”

The words hang between us, fraught with everything that implies, with everything that neither of us is willing to say, filled with all the moments that we’ve shared that have made this a thousand times more complicated.

I think of sitting on the beach with her, of the things I’ve told her, and that lancing pain cramps my chest again.

Was that all an illusion? Or was there something genuine buried beneath the lies?

"I would have helped you," I say finally, surprising myself with the realization that it's true. "If you'd told me about your parents, about Kane's hold over you—I would have helped you find the truth. I would have helped you get free of him and found out what information it is that he has."

The shock on her face is so abrupt and clear that it can’t be anything but genuine—it mirrors, I think, the shock I feel at my admission. She stares at me for a long moment, her eyes round. “Why on earth would you have done that?”

Why, indeed ? Why would I have helped her, if she’d come to me and come clean?

“Because I know what it’s like to not be able to be your own person,” I say finally. “To be burdened with expectation. To feel sometimes like there’s no way out to find your own path.”

She studies me, as if trying to determine if I'm lying. Whatever she sees in my face must convince her, because she gives a small nod.

“And now?” she asks softly. “Is it too late, now?”

I know what she’s asking. “Are you going to try to kill me again?”

She shakes her head, a quick, sharp movement.

“Are you going to try to escape, and run back to Kane?”

“Are you going to help me?” she counters. “If I go back to Kane, he’ll indenture me for years before I’ll have another shot, if I’m lucky. But with your help?—”

I can feel her waiting for my response. A thousand possibilities run through my head. I could tell her that she owes me, if I help her. Demand her submission, her obedience, her servitude to me, as my wife. Demand that she fulfill the role that she vowed she would, ‘til death do us part .

But as soon as I think it, I know it’s not possible. I don’t want her like that. I want her . And if it’s a lie, I don’t want it at all.

“I’ll help you,” I say finally. “If you’ll promise me that there will be no more attempts on my life—from you, at least—and that you won’t try to escape.

We’ll need to stay here, for the time being.

I have contacts, but it may take them some time to dig into your past. I’ll need your full name—your maiden name—and any information you can give me about your parents. Their names, etcetera.”

“You—” She tilts her head slightly, that surprise still written across her face. “You really mean it.”

“I do.” I stand up, taking a step back, as much for me as for her. The smell of her sugared violet perfume is becoming heady, making me respond to her in ways that aren’t productive right now.