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I take a stand in front of him. “You know nothing about me.” Turning in a circle, I look at the three men. “You’re unbelievable.” I’m shivering with indignation and anger. “You better get your act together and your testosterone under control. We have one shot at taking Dimitrov out.” I poke Anton’s chest with a finger. “Try to focus on that.”
Marching into Yan’s bedroom, I close the door. Let them fight it out, as Ilya suggested. For all I care, they can kill each other. At least then, I’ll be free. And without the shortfall to pay for Hanna’s lifelong stay in the clinic.
I walk to the window and peer through the burglar bars, looking at the quiet street below but seeing nothing. I feel like a hamster in a cage. Trapped and beyond frustrated. There’s no way out of this for me. I keep on telling myself it doesn’t matter. In a few months, I’ll be dead. But it does matter. It matters because I don’t want it to be this way. I’ve been lying to myself all these weeks.
I do care. Way too much.
My body isn’t the only part of me Yan brought back to life.
The door opens and closes. For a moment, the room is as quiet as if no one has entered, but I can feel him standing there. Yan. I can feel him watching me.
I don’t turn to look at him. I don’t want him to see the truth in my eyes.
The floor creaks as he advances. He stops close but doesn’t touch me. The heat from his body folds around me, offering make-belief comfort, momentary happiness.
“Mina,” he says at long last, his voice gentle. “Look at me.”
When I don’t react, he takes my shoulders and turns me to face him. The expression on his face is as soft as his voice. It holds an apology, but not remorse. He doesn’t feel bad about what he’s doing. He’s not going to let me go.
He studies me for a long time before he speaks again. “Anton and Ilya are jumpy. We’re all tense.”
“Are you justifying their behavior?”
“Just putting it in perspective.”
I suppose it’s noble of him to try and patch things up, especially seeing how possessive he is. “Why does he hate me so much? How many times do I have to apologize for the job I did?”
“Anton doesn’t hate you. It’s me. I’m not behaving like myself. It worries him, especially before a job.”
“What do you mean you’re not behaving like yourself?”
“I’ve never been attached to anyone except Ilya. This…” He waves between us. “Anton doesn’t understand what’s happening. We’ve worked together for a long time. He knows what I’m like. He believes I’m incapable of caring for anyone who’s not family, so he thinks you’re leading me around by my dick. We’ve already had one team leader—Peter—bow out because of a woman; he doesn’t want the same thing to happen with me.”
It’s the caring part I latch on to. “You care for me?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“I thought you hated me.”
He doesn’t reply.
My heart shrivels. “So you do hate me.”
“I hate what you did.”
“It’s the same thing.”
His gaze homes in on me as if he’s drinking in my very thoughts. “There’s always been chemistry between us, Mina. We’ve wanted each other from the start. And I hoped to take a chance with you, to see where it would lead…” He lets me go to drag a hand over his face.
“But you couldn’t because I framed you,” I finish for him, my chest squeezing agonizingly. I can’t believe Yan is telling me this much, letting me glimpse the man under the cool, distant mask he presents to the world.
A man who can be vulnerable. Who can feel.
His mouth twists. “Put yourself in my shoes. Knowing how easily you threw me under the bus, how would you have felt?”
Every part of me aches to come clean, but I can’t be honest without risking Gergo’s life. There’s no choice but to accept the consequences of my lie and live with them. “So you’re never going to stop punishing me.”
“I’m not punishing you.”
“Then let me go.”
He stares at me as if I’ve slapped him. “You want to leave? After everything we’ve shared, this is how little I mean to you? Just like when you sold me out?”
I clench my jaw in frustration. “No, Yan. That’s not what I meant. I don’t want to leave. But how can we have anything without freedom and trust?”
“Do I have reason to trust you?”
Tears burn behind my eyes. “I’m not going to run.”
Uncertainty plays on his face. He looks at me like he wants to believe but is incapable. “That’s what you said before you ran.”
“I didn’t run. I went to see my grandmother.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
My answer disappoints him, I can see that. “Maybe trust isn’t in the cards for us.”
