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Oh God. I swallowed and went quiet. I hadn’t thought of that. The shock of it, that I might have helped kill two of our own people, knocked me right out of the warm certainty I’d been living in and into a cold, black void. “But…but—”
Danny sat down next to me on the hood of the car. “Mate, what’s more likely: that our boss at the CIA is conspiring with a Serbian war criminal and China to destroy our country…or that a Russian spy who’s desperate to escape is lying?”
That was the final straw. I felt hot shame flood my body. Fuck. They’re right.
JD’s voice softened. “Colton, it’s okay. There’s no shame in getting duped, not when she’s that good. This is what spies do. Hell, it’s happened to me.”
It was a beautiful day and the sun was beating down on us. But suddenly, I couldn’t feel its warmth at all. I looked towards the bar and it took me a while to get any words out. “What happens now?” I asked.
“I already called Steward and he’s coming with some guys to collect her,” said JD. “Should be here in less than an hour.”
“Maybe it’s best if you don’t see her again,” said Danny gently. “We can handle her until Steward gets here.”
I glowered at the cracked concrete of the parking lot until I could speak again. “No,” I managed at last. “I want to talk to her before she goes.”
I felt JD and Danny exchange looks. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” asked JD.
But I was already up and marching towards the bar. They hurried along behind me.
The bar’s dim lighting wasn’t quite dim enough to hide the peeling wallpaper and cracked vinyl seats. This early in the afternoon, it was deserted, just a few hardcore drinkers huddled at the bar. Tanya was sitting in a booth, wedged between Bradan and the wall with Gabriel and Cal glowering at her from the other side of the booth. “Can we get a minute alone?” I asked.
The guys hesitated. Then I guess JD must have given them the nod from behind me because they mutely stood up and shuffled out. I sidled over to the booth where Tanya sat but my eyes dropped to the threadbare carpet. I couldn’t look at her.
“What happened out there?” asked Tanya. When I didn’t answer, her voice became pained. “Okay, I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
I drew in a long breath and prepared myself. I was going to tell her that I knew how she’d played me and how it wasn’t right. How maybe shit like this was normal for her and her friends and everyone else in this fucking spy game but it wasn’t normal for me. How I knew I was just a big dumb idiot but I’d actually felt something for her: damnit, it was real for me. How she’d led me away from the team, from everything that was important to me, from my best friends in the world, and thank God I’d realized in time and—
I looked at her and everything changed. I could see pain in those frozen-sky eyes and not the old, familiar pain she’d been carrying for years, the Lev pain. This was something fresh and raw, so raw her eyes were shining.
She knew what had happened, out there. She knew that I’d believed them and not her and—
Oh shit.
It hurt because for once, she had been telling the truth.
I drew in one last angry breath and scowled at her, willing her to drop her gaze, praying I was wrong because hating her would be so much simpler. But she just stared back at me, open and vulnerable, and I felt my scowl crumble and fade. And that started a chain reaction in her: it was like layer after layer of ice was breaking and I was falling steadily through them. She pressed her lips tight together, as if trying to control herself—
She really did like me.
“Fuck,” I plopped down on the bench seat beside her, suddenly exhausted. “It’s real, isn’t it?”
She didn’t ask if I meant the conspiracy, or what we had together, or both. She just nodded sadly.
“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I rubbed at the back of my neck. I’d been in the bar all of two minutes and somehow, everything had flipped on its head.
Something cool touched my back, between my shoulder blades, and I jerked. I looked up to see Tanya awkwardly rubbing my back, her mouth twisted in doubt: am I doing this right?
She could dance with an ambassador, seduce a prime minister, but when it came to showing actual affection for someone she cared about, she was clunky and uncertain. My chest ached and a hot surge of protective welled up inside me. I hated this whole spy game for what it had done to her.
