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His features twist with pain, and his head falls into his hands. “No…” he mumbles to himself. “That’s not fair…that’s not…she’d already been through too much.”
“I need the Volkov brothers dead, Jake. And so do you. You won’t have to worry about anything. It’s my job to kill people. No one ever needs to know any of us were involved.”
He stays silent but nods. I don’t have to add anything else. I know I’ve got him on my side.
Even though he hates me, I know we can be allies to save the girl we both love.
When I’m about to pass the front door, he calls out, “I need the model and serial number.”
I grab a pen on his kitchen table and scribble the number of one of my encrypted phones.
“Get yourself a burner phone and contact me on this number. I’ll let you know the details.”
Lik is on his laptop at a desk while Rach is on a single bed, on her front with her feet in the air, reading the first book of theIliad. I recommended it to her so I wouldn’t be the only one obsessed with Greek mythology anymore. We stopped at a hotel on the way back. I told them I was tired and wanted to rest. But honestly, I don’t want to go back home after what Jake said. Not before we get the truth out of Rose.
Rose is outside smoking a cigarette, and I use the opportunity to share my thoughts. I sit on the bed next to Rachel and put a hand on her lower back, grabbing her attention. She looks up from her book and to me.
“Rose admitted to me that she had feelings for Viktor Volkov.” This also gets Lik’s attention, and he turns in his chair to face us.
“Yes,” Rachel says. “I believe she more or less wanted me to know this too. I went to her house to apologize, and she mentioned something like that.”
“Does this mean Jake is right?” Lik asks. “Is she using us to go back to him?”
I stay silent while we all stare at each other.
“She told me that since us, things have changed. That we were…enough.” It’s ever so difficult to find words and express myself in a situation where I want to keep to my safe silence.
I rub Rachel’s lower back and ask her, “Was she lying?”
We met Rose at different stages of her life, and while I knew the little girl from her dark past, she knows the woman she grew into. Right now, I need her insight.
“Rose always lies,” she answers me.
“And you just accept it?” Lik wonders out loud.
Rachel shrugs and puts her book to the side before sitting up. “How can you love someone if you don’t love them wholly? She has her qualities and her flaws, just like we all do. I know she tries not to lie for me, but it’s hard when it’s the one thing that always got her out of trouble.”
“What about now?” I insist. “Is she lying to us?”
“Two truths and a lie. We just have to figure out what is what. If she is lying, it’s not to hurt us, I’m sure of it. It’s because she’s stuck and doesn’t know how to solve whatever problem she’s encountered.”
My knuckles come to rub against my jaw.
“If she’s protecting Viktor,” I sigh. “We—”
“We’ll help her,” she cuts me off. “Because you can’t put the blame on the victim.”
I nod.
“Sam,” she insists, piercing her baby-blue eyes into mine. “She was a victim in all this. She is a survivor.Promise methat you won’t blame her.”
“I promise,” I mumble reluctantly.
But the anger and jealousy simmering in my veins beg for a different outcome.
18
ROSE
