“Isabella?”
She looks different than I remember. Her hair is a little longer, a little more styled. She’s more toned, too. Hardened. Her cheekbones are sharper, her jaw more angled.
But it’s definitely her.
“Am I hallucinating?” I whisper out loud.
Isabella stares at me as though she’s taking me in, too. For a moment, she doesn’t look like she knows how to react. Then she shakes it off.
“No, Liv, you’re not hallucinating,” she whispers back.
I’m shocked, but the undeniable feeling rushing through me is, of all things, relief. Pure, unadulterated relief.
“Oh my God.” I dash forward, wrap Isabella up in a hug, and squeeze her as tight as I can. “Rob was right. You’re alive.”
She hugs me back, but she’s also the first to let go. “Hey, kid. Yeah, I am. Alive and well.”
“You’re okay?”
She nods. “Yes.”
I drop my arms and back away a little, just to get some perspective. She’s wearing loungy knitted sweatpants and a matching crop top. She’s got a belly button piercing. That’s new.
Slowly, as the relief wears off, other questions start rattling around in my head. Especially once Aleks walks over to stand beside Isabella.
They’re not even touching, but there’s a familiarity between them. Comfort. Rapport.
“Wait… what’s going on here?” I ask, looking between them.
“I told you,” he says. “I had nothing to do with Isabella’s disappearance.”
“That’s not totally true,” Isabella points out.
He throws her an impatient glare. “It was for your own good.”
“I know,” she sighs. “I know.”
“Well, I don’t!” I say, furiously trying to control the burgeoning panic inside me. “What the hell is going on? And why am I getting the feeling the two of you know each other way too fucking well?”
“Because we do,” Isabella tells me gently. “We have known each other for years.”
“Almost a decade, in fact,” Aleks says.
A decade? So the two of them knew each other long before Isabella ever met Rob.
“Isabella…?”
She winces. “That’s not my name, Liv. I’m sorry.”
I shake my head like that’ll make everything fall into place. Shockingly, it doesn’t work. “Who are you?”
“She was mine from the beginning,” Aleks says. “A Bratva spy.”
“Spy?” I repeat, as if the word is brand new to me. “I… I don’t understand…”
“The FBI received a tip about the Makarova Bratva,” the woman who isn’t Isabella says, sending my brain spinning in a hundred different directions at once. “About two and a half years ago. No one paid any attention to it. But the tips kept coming, and coming, and coming. And finally, an ambitious young agent decided to make it his mission.”
I know who it is immediately. “My brother.”
She nods, confirming my guess. “He didn’t have much to go on. But he was smart. Persistent. Righteous.”
“So I found out everything I needed to know about him,” Aleks explains, taking over the narrative. “And then sent my best asset in: Jennifer.”
“Jennifer,” I say, repeating her name. “You don’t look like a Jennifer.”
She gives me a sad smile. “That’s who I am, Liv. You only ever knew me as Isabella. But Isabella died the minute I walked away from my role.”
Anger is starting to take root in my chest. “Oh, you mean when you disappeared and broke my brother’s heart?”
“I never meant to hurt him.”
“That’s bullshit!” I say as my fury finally explodes outward. “That’s complete bullshit! You came crashing into our lives and made sure everyone fell in love with you. What did you think would happen when you disappeared?”
“I had to deceive him. All of you, actually. I had to play my part.”
“All for a fucking inside scoop.”
“That was the goal,” she admits. “But no matter how close we got, no matter how deeply he fell for me, he refused to talk about his work in detail. It became apparent that being with him was not getting me anywhere.”
“So you just said, Fuck this and got yourself ‘kidnapped.’”
“It was more complicated than that.”
“Uncomplicate it for me then,” I demand. “I’m all ears.”
She takes my anger in stride, like she knows she deserves it. She glances towards Aleks, who nods in approval. I hate the shorthand they have with each other. It makes me feel like the black sheep in the room, whining and bleating for attention.
“My job isn’t easy,” she begins, “but it is simple. I become who I’m meant to be. Who I need to be. My identities don’t overlap, and when the work is done, I sever ties completely and move on. I kill who I was and become someone new. But I was involved in another mission years ago, and the man I spied on… he was looking for me.”
I frown. “Okay, and…?”
“I knew that if I stayed, he would find me. I didn’t want him connecting me with Rob or any of you.”
“So you were playing the hero then?” I ask sarcastically. “How noble. I guess I should be throwing myself at your feet in gratitude.”
“I would never claim to be anything of the sort,” she says calmly. “But I knew that my time with your family was coming to a close.”
“One way or another,” Aleks adds.
I turn to him. “What does that mean?”
He glances towards the spy who I thought would one day be my sister-in-law. His look says, This isn’t my story to tell.
“I’m good at my job, Liv,” Jennifer says. “I seduce men and convince them I love them. It’s easier than you would imagine. But this was the first time that I got emotionally involved.”
My frown deepens. This is sounding more and more like bullshit. “Are you telling me that you fell in love with Rob?”
“Falling in love,” she whispers as if tasting it. “I don’t know what that means. I just know that I didn’t want to hurt him.”
“Well, you did a bang-up job of that,” I snap. “Your disappearance nearly destroyed him.”
“She had no choice,” Aleks cuts in smoothly. “It was my call to make. I pulled her out.”
She gives him a grateful smile. “He’s being generous. I was the one who made the ultimate choice, Liv. I knew I was in over my head. Leaving was the only way to guarantee my safety as well as his. And yours by association.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you?” I ask coldly.
“That’s up to you. What I’m telling you, though? It’s the truth.”
“Do you even recognize the truth?” I scoff. “I mean, Jesus! What kind of person comes home to meet her boyfriend’s mother and his sisters, knowing it’s all a lie? We spent Christmas together, Isabella—Jennifer—whatever the fuck your name is. We were still hurting from losing our dad, and we welcomed you into our family. Rob proposed to you and thought it was going to be forever. You know why? Because you fucking said yes.”
Tears are pooling in her eyes as she nods. “I know. I did say yes. It was the one thing I did for me… because in the moment, it felt like the right answer.”
“In the moment,” I scowl. “And what about afterwards?”
“Afterwards, I knew I’d made a mistake. Rob is a federal agent, Liv. And me? The farthest thing from it. We’re just too damned different. He fell in love with the version of me that I gave him. But if he knew the real me, he’d never have looked twice.”
“Am I supposed to feel bad for you? You’re not the victim here.”
“I’m not claiming to be a victim, just like I’m not claiming to be a hero. To be honest, I don’t believe in either one of those things. But I do want you to understand why I did what I did. He was a job at first. Then, as the months slipped by, I lost myself in the dream of him. For a moment, it even seemed… possible.”
I glance towards Aleks to see what he thinks of this. His expression is impassive. His body language gives nothing away. But he stays close to Jennifer, like he’s ready to catch her if she falls.
Jealousy rages through me. It’s burning hot. And no matter what I do to push it back, it keeps coming up.
I turn away from both of them.
“Liv—”
“Don’t!” I yell. “Don’t talk to me like you know me. You’re an imposter and a fraud.”
“I’m all those things and worse,” she says gently. “But that doesn’t mean I’m lying now. Your brother may have started out as a job, but he became something more to me.”
“What does it even matter?” I ask. “You broke his heart all the same. Ripped it right out of his damn chest.”
“I—”
“If it weren’t for you, he might have dropped the case. But after you disappeared, that’s when his obsession with the Bratva really doubled down.”
“Because the FBI’s anonymous tipper told him that my disappearance had something to do with Aleks,” she explains patiently. “The case was dying, and he was desperate to jumpstart it again. And desperate to find me. It gave him a second wind.”
“Rob,” I whisper. “He… he has to know about this. I have to tell him.”
She looks frightened suddenly for maybe the first time. “Liv, please… I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”
“Why not?”
“For one, I’m still undercover on a mission. For another, it just wouldn’t be the closure you think it would be. Some things are better left buried.”
“We all wrote you off as dead, you know?” I seethe. “All except Rob. He kept saying it over and over again, even when no one else believed him. She’s alive. She’s out there somewhere. If she were dead, I would feel it in my bones. That’s how much he loved you. He still does.”
A tear slips down her cheek. My heart tugs, but I shush it. It’s just an act. Pure fiction. Another facet of her role. Another part of her miserable, life-ruining job.
“He loves Isabella,” she corrects. “But Isabella was only ever a creation. She never really existed, not in any way that matters. And she’s gone now.”
“No! No. You exist. You have a name and likes and dislikes and a home. You have to take up space somewhere! Where do you live?”
“Between missions, Jennifer lives here,” Aleks tells me. “In the room you found upstairs.”
My jaw drops. “You knew I found the room?”
“The room, the scarf, all of it.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“I didn’t need to. I knew you’d find out about Jennifer eventually.”
I want to storm out of here so I don’t have to look at either one of them, but I still have more questions. “I thought you were kidnapping women and murdering them. Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“I did tell you,” he reminds me. “I told you again and again. You just weren’t listening.”
I roll my eyes. “Forgive me for not taking you at your word. It’s a little hard to build a trusting relationship, seeing as how you abducted me from my home.”
“And you know why,” he counters. “Plus, you’ve been treated well. Taken care of.”
“Yeah, I feel really fucking loved,” I spit. “If this is your love, Aleks, I don’t want a single goddamn drop of it. That goes for you, too,” I add, jerking my chin towards Jennifer.
Aleks sighs. “I think it’s time for you to get to your room,” he says. “You’re looking a little pale.”
I shake my head. “I’m not a child. You can’t just send me away when it’s convenient for you.”
“No, moya zhena, you are not a child anymore. But neither are you Bratva. Jennifer and I have things we need to discuss. Business things.”
I glance between them and feel my stomach turn sour.
Jennifer is the epitome of everything I’m not. She’s more experienced, more calculating. She’s stronger and more confident. She knows how to manipulate men and women alike. She’s the kind of woman who doesn’t look out of place standing next to Aleks.
Not the way I do.
And God, that enrages me.
I don’t think about what I’m doing before I do it—I just close my hand around the first thing I touch. In this case, it’s an ornate vase sitting on the circular desk next to me.
I grab it and fling it forward. I don’t know if I’m trying to hit her or him or both of them. Whatever the case, I scream and hurl the vase forward.
I just want to hear something crash.
I want to see it break.
I want to see the beautiful, broken pieces on the floor and have the satisfaction of knowing that for once in my life, I’m the one who did the damage.
Aleks throws himself in front of Jennifer and turns a shoulder. The vase shatters against his broad back and erupts everywhere.
And then he rises amongst the carnage, tall and terrifying.
“Aleks, leave her alone!” Jennifer is yelling.
But he ignores her. He scoops me up and throws me over his shoulder, carrying me out of the room.
I want to yell for him to put me down. To let me go.
But at this point, I know better than to ask for things I know I won’t get.
