A FEW DAYS LATER
“Two visits back-to-back,” I remark. “Should I be worried?”
Jennifer winks. “Always. Where’s Demyan?”
“I sent him off to see to some business interests elsewhere.” I pour myself another helping of my strongest whiskey. It was a sleepless night and I need something to take the edge off. “I didn’t want to deal with the two of you again.”
She laughs. “Are you jealous that I’m not flirting with you instead?”
“No, I just have a vested interest in not puking up my breakfast every time Demy tries to be smooth.” I take a sip and sigh as the whiskey burns down my throat.
“I think he’s cute. But agree to disagree. What have you done with the information I gave you the last time I was here?”
“Nothing.”
Her eyes go wide. “Nothing?”
“That’s right.”
“But… why?”
“Because there’s more at play here, and I need to know what before I decide how to respond.”
Jennifer frowns, looking skeptical. But she’s smart enough not to push. She leans back on the sofa and curls her bare feet underneath her.
She’s wearing cashmere sweats and a matching crop top that reveals her flat, toned belly. Her hair hangs loose around her shoulders. And even though it’s midday and she’s not planning on going anywhere, she’s wearing a little bit of make-up. It’s subtle, but I notice.
Probably more so because Olivia doesn’t wear anything at all.
“You don’t mind me spending a few days here?” she asks.
“This is your home as much as mine.”
“Do you say the same to all your other assets?”
“Just you.”
“Well, then consider me flattered.”
She fidgets with the hem of her sweats. I can tell she wants to bring up the topic, but she’s nervous about where it’ll lead. She’s been careful to avoid it whenever we speak. So far, I’ve respected her boundaries.
I’ve never been a spy. I’ve got too high a profile to be effective at it. Spies have to come from nowhere. They have to disappear once they’ve gotten what they set out to achieve, bide their time, and resurface as another person entirely. You kill yourself again and again and are then reborn.
It’s a brutal line of work.
Jennifer has been in the game for years now. She’s successful because she commits. She changes her personality as easily as she changes her hair color.
But she’s never forgotten who she is or where she came from.
“How is she?” she asks, losing the battle.
“She’s been sick the last few days.”
Jennifer raises her eyebrows. “Is she okay?”
“She refused to get out of her wet clothes and caught a cold. Just like I told her she would. She’s confined to her room now.”
“So you haven’t actually seen her?”
“Not for almost a week. It’s been peaceful.”
She gives me a pointed smile. “I’ve heard that you two fight like an old married couple.”
I roll my eyes. “Christ. For all his macho masculinity, Demyan is a gossipy old crone.”
She throws her head back and laughs. “Cut him some slack. He loves you.”
“It’s the only reason I don’t kick his ass on a regular basis.”
“He thinks there’s something going on between the two of you.”
“Jesus,” I groan. “Not you, too.”
She raises her hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m not saying I agree with him. I haven’t actually seen the two of you together. So until then, I’m going to reserve judgment.”
“Consider me flattered,” I drawl, throwing her own words back at her.
“But since that might not happen anytime soon,” she says, “I’m asking you directly: is there something there?”
“No,” I say firmly.
That irritating voice in my head is roaring in protest again. It only knows one word, it seems: Liar. Liar. Liar.
I drink more whiskey to drown it out.
Jennifer nods, but I can see she isn’t convinced. “You married her.”
“It was a strategic play.”
She arches her brow. “Indeed. How is that working out for you?”
“These things take time,” I say. “And her brother is a lot more stubborn than I gave him credit for.”
She tenses. “He’s a lot like you in that way, you know.”
I glare at her. “Unfortunately for him, he’s on the wrong damn side.”
“It’s all relative.”
“Is it? Whose side are you on, Jen?”
She glares at me. “Don’t you dare disrespect my loyalty like that, Aleks. You know that I’m on your side. Always have been, always will be.”
I nod. It’s true enough. “It might be time to stop hiding.”
“And blow my cover?” she asks. “No shot. I’ve got too many irons in the fire. I’m not willing to compromise all the work I’ve done in the last year.”
“Forget him, then,” I say. “But Olivia might need to find out the truth.”
“Why?” Jennifer asks. “So that you can prove you’re not the villain she thinks you are?”
“You forget, Jennifer: I know you.”
“And…?”
“And I know why you want to maintain your identity. You don’t want to deal with explanations.”
She wrinkles her nose, but doesn’t deny it.
“You know they call you the blonde vixen,” I remark. “Can’t say that I see it.”
“That’s because I’m not playing the part of the blonde vixen right now,” she says. “I’m just… Jennifer.”
“And what about Isabella?”
She stops short. A muscle in her jaw twitches with tension. “Isabella is dead,” she snarls. “Let’s leave it at that, got it?”
I’ve kept silent on this for long enough. She’s had more than enough time to reconcile with her past.
“You loved her.”
She looks down like she doesn’t want to be having this conversation. But she wants to argue, too. She wants to fight about it—because she never really put the loss behind her. She never mourned.
“She was… special,” Jennifer says quietly. “She was everything I wanted to be. And losing her…”
“It was necessary.”
“I know that,” she snaps. “But it still hurts.”
“Is that why you never talk about her? Is that why you kept the scarf?”
She gets off the sofa and starts pacing in front of me. I sip my whiskey and watch as she tries to work out the pain that she’s been carrying around ever since I told her to pull the trigger on Isabella.
At last, she grinds to a halt and turns to me, her eyes wild but sad at the same time. “I know I shouldn’t have,” she says with a sigh. “You told me to get rid of any trace of her. And I did… mostly. But that scarf was so much a part of her.”
“I know.”
“Do you know?” she asks. “Do you really?”
“Jennifer,” I say slowly, “what are you trying to tell me?”
She meets my eyes for a moment before she looks away. Her body sags with fatigue.
“Nothing,” she murmurs. “I’m not saying anything at all.”
“You have to move on,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says. “I’ve spent the last year trying.”
“Any progress?”
“Some,” she admits. “Mostly, it depends on the day. There’s good and there’s bad.”
“Today’s a bad day, huh?”
She nods.
I pick up my glass of whiskey and offer it to her. “Then drink.”
She takes the glass and knocks it back, emptying it one gulp. Her nose scrunches. “Fuck! That’s strong.”
“You’re supposed to sip it, you know. That’s three grand you just chugged.”
“I think we just established I’m having a bad day. You don’t sip on a bad day.” She shivers. “But sweet Jesus, that burns.”
She gets up, taking my glass with her. Then she walks over to the bar and pours herself another.
“You’re not getting this back, just so you know,” she informs me. She sinks onto the couch, takes a sip—slightly smaller this time—and sighs. “Do you ever feel guilty about the men you’ve killed? The families you’ve broken up?”
“No,” I say immediately.
“I wish I could say the same.”
“It’s my fault. I should have pulled you out sooner.”
“You tried,” she points out. “I’m the one who told you I had things under control. It was one year. Who knew it would go that far?”
“You were too good at your job.”
She takes another sip, her eyes softening with memories that I know she hasn’t shared with me. She probably never will, either.
And that’s okay. The games we play in this life are lethal. If they don’t kill us entirely, they at least kill a piece of our souls.
I’m starting to see all the pieces Jennifer has lost.
She’s not going to be able to do this for much longer. I know that now. Another few years, tops. It’ll be a knives-out fight to get her to see that reality—but then again, I’ve always loved a good fight.
“I just need a few days here,” she tells me. “Then I’ll be back in the field.”
“I know.”
“I’ll make sure to avoid her.”
I shrug. “That’s up to you.”
She fixes me with a haunted gaze. “I’ll have to explain, Aleks. If I meet her, I’ll have to explain. I’ll have to tell her what I did… to Isabella. And I can’t do that.”
“You can. You just don’t want to.”
She closes her eyes for a moment. “Who would have thought, huh? All the shit I’ve been through, and this is what fucking breaks me. I thought I was immune to emotion.”
“All of us succumb to it.”
She lifts her head and raises her eyebrows at me. “Even you?”
I scoff. “I’m the exception.”
Once again, the voice in my head tolls out ominously.
Liar.
Liar.
Liar.
Jennifer arches her brow once more, as if she can hear that damn voice ringing in my head like a bell. “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”
The silence stretches on for a few minutes. I watch her carefully. I see the way her jaw stays locked tight like a steel trap. The way her knee bounces frenetically. The way she adjusts the rings on one finger again and again and again.
She is suffering.
Maybe she doesn’t have a few years left in this world after all.
“Do you love what you do, Jennifer?” I ask suddenly. She opens her mouth to reply right away, but I hold up a finger to make her pause. “Think about it before you answer.”
Her frown deepens and she is quiet for a long moment. Then: “It… it’s all I’ve ever known.”
“We’ll find something else for you to do.”
“Like what?” she asks defensively.
“Live, Jen,” I tell her softly. “You’ll finally get to live.”
She tilts the glass to her lips, drains it once more, and then unwinds off the couch to head for the bar again.
“How about this?” she says over her shoulder. “I’ll start living my life when you do.”
