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I’d never be able to talk to Konstantin about my real past. I’d have to lie to him every day.
But it was worth it, to be with him. My new life started now.
The bedroom door suddenly opened and Konstantin marched in. “I couldn’t wait,” he told me, his voice thick with lust. He put one hand under my ass and scooped me up, being careful of my injured leg. “I’m going to take you downstairs,” he muttered, “and I’m going to give you exactly what you asked for, you dirty little shlyukha.”
I flushed scarlet. I was distracted, half-worried and half-curious about what Christina had set me up for, and just so happy that we were finally together, I did what I always did when I was embarrassed. I pushed my glasses up my nose. And when my finger didn’t find any glasses, I realized what I’d done and froze... which made it way worse.
I stared at him, my finger still against the bridge of my nose.
He was staring right back at me and his face was turning pale.
No. No, he can’t remember. No! It’s such a small thing! No, NO! Not when we were so close! I finally managed to whip my finger away. But it was too late. That one tiny slip had opened a crack in the dam and behind it was the pressure of all his suspicions: every way I’d been different to her, since the very beginning. I watched his face fall, his happiness turning to shock and disbelief as the truth broke free.
He knew.
53
Hailey
THE FLOOR seemed to drop away from under me. This was the nightmare scenario I’d lived in fear of since day one, but the reality was so much worse than I’d imagined. I stood there staring up at him, my mouth moving but no words coming out. If he’d had any doubts, the guilt on my face ended them.
He grabbed me by the shoulders and twisted me, searching in my ears just as Christina had. But when he found the earpiece, he pulled it roughly out, flung it on the floor and—
His heel crushed my only link to the outside world, grinding it into plastic shards against the floorboards. I drew in a horrified, shuddering breath and then his hands were on my shoulders, slamming me up against the wall. “Hailey?!” he hissed.
I swallowed, panting in fear... and nodded.
He stared at me, stunned, looking at my face, my eyes. Shock made his Russian accent thicken. “How?! How do you look like her?”
“Pl—Plastic surgery,” I said. I felt as if I was drowning, had to choke the words up through thick, cold dread. But the fear of what he’d do to me wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the horror in his eyes, the shattering of all the trust he’d put in me.
He was shaking his head, barely able to speak. I’d grabbed hold of his forearms and I could feel his muscles going rock hard with rage. “Is she—Is Christina dead?!”
“No! No, she’s fine. That was her, in the bedroom, a few minutes ago. We had her in custody, but she escaped. We let her go, she’s fine!”
“You’re... FBI?” He spat the letters.
I nodded. The horror, the disgust in his eyes made it feel as if my heart was crumpling in on itself, imploding into a tiny, icy little nugget of black.
He pushed away from me and staggered back across the room. He ran one hand through his hair, slowly shaking his head. “You—Jesus, since the accident! The shoes! That’s why the shoes didn’t fit. God, in my office. The pregnancy test.”
He opened the drawer of his bedside table and stared at something inside. His body blocked my view as he picked it up. Then he slowly turned around.
A handgun, blunt and angular, huge even in his big hand.
“Konstantin,” I said, my voice shaky, “Please—”
He looked at me and my words died in my throat, my legs going rubbery under me. His eyes were so cold, a cold without hope. I’d seen that look before, when he was going to throw Ralavich’s man off the roof. I reached out towards him, trying to calm him, but I didn’t get past the first letter of his name. “K—”
“I trusted you!” he roared. His voice shook the room and I flinched and went silent. He started to advance, the gun raised.
I backed away, unable to take my eyes off the gun’s gaping, inky-black muzzle. Konstantin never used a gun. I hadn’t even known he owned one. He always used his fists, like with Ralavich’s man on the rooftop. I tried to force words out of a throat gone sandpaper-dry. “K—Konstantin,” I managed. “Just let me—”
“Suka! Traitorous blya´d'!”
“Please!” My back hit the wall and my stomach lurched. There was nowhere left to run. I threw up my hands as if that could stop him, my eyes welling with tears. “Please!”
