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Thirty-Two
JESSIE
My eyelids flutter open as Shane stirs beside me. “Hey, Hacker,” he says in the low, smooth tone he has that turns my internal organs to melted chocolate.
“Hey. What time is it?” I purr as I stretch like a cat.
“Four a.m. You were talking in your sleep,” he says as he raises one eyebrow at me. “Who is Volk?”
That name is like a knife through my heart. I realize I’m staring at him with my mouth open when his face pulls into a frown.
“Who is it?” he snaps.
“Volk is Russian for Wolf,” I reply before drawing in a long, shaky breath. I don’t remember dreaming about him. Why was I calling his name?
“Are you okay?” he asks as he reaches out and dusts the back of his knuckles across my cheek.
“I’m fine. I’m sorry if I woke you.”
“I’m used to people shouting in their sleep around here,” he says softly. “I’ve never heard you do it before, though. You sure everything is okay?” he stares at me with such concern in his eyes that it makes me want to cry.
“I’ve been thinking about things since the day at the bar,” I say with a shrug.
He sits up and looks down at me. “What things?”
“My family. The Wolf,” I shake my head. “I saw something on Dmitriy’s computer. It was a file titled Romanov. When I opened it, there was a marriage certificate.”
“Was is something to do with your family?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think so anyway. The names were unfamiliar. I didn’t recognize them. Alexei Ivanov and Nataliya Vasiliev. But Nataliya had the same birthday as my mother. A different year, but same month and day.”
Shane narrows his eyes at me. “Was it a recent document?”
“No. It was from twenty-eight years ago.”
“So, you didn’t think it was anything to do with your family? But now you do?”
“I’m not sure.” I look at him and swallow. “Why was it kept in a file marked Romanov?”
“Romanov is a common name, right”’ he asks.
I nod. “Yeah. But there’s something else. When that guy came into the room… he was about to make a grab for me, but then he stopped. And then he called me Nataliya. Like he recognized me. So, maybe I’m related to this Nataliya in some way?”
“Did your parents have any siblings?”
I shake my head. “Not that I know of, anyway. They told me they were only children.”
“Perhaps it’s their marriage certificate? And they changed their names?”
“But my parents married when I was three. I was there. That document is dated two years before I was born.”
“Why didn’t you tell us any of this before?”
“With everything else that happened, I didn’t get the chance. Besides, I was still trying to work it out myself. It could be a coincidence, couldn’t it? That I see that on Dmitriy’s computer right before one of his men calls me Nataliya?” I look up into his beautiful green eyes, hoping that he’ll tell me that of course it is, because if it’s not that I might not know who my parents were at all.
“Do you look like your mother?” he asks instead.
“Yes,” I swallow. “Who is Dmitriy, Shane?”
