The twins.
It’s Yan and Ilya, and yet it’s not. I recognize the Delta Force men’s features underneath the skillfully applied disguises.
Is that what Ilya meant by “our doppelgängers?” Was the FBI bombing in Chicago—the terrorist act Sokolov was to be arrested for—a frame job by Henderson? Did the general use the Delta Force team I gave him to carry out the bombing and then pin the blame on Sokolov and his team? A team that includes Yan and his brother?
I want to throw up at the thought.
I don’t watch the news much, but even I couldn’t miss that story—especially since my target, the man I was supposed to get killed during his arrest, was the main suspect behind the bombing. His and his wife’s faces were all over the news. I watched the coverage at first, but after a couple of days, I’d had enough.
It was repetitive, and I didn’t need constant reminders of how much I fucked up by getting involved in this mess.
Now, though, I have to wonder if that was yet another mistake of mine. Were Yan and Ilya’s faces—or rather, those of their doppelgängers—eventually broadcast as well?
If I’d kept watching, would I have known of their involvement?
Wait, those disguises… I catch another glimpse of the photos on the phone, and my mouth goes painfully dry.
Those disguises, they carry a signature trademark, one I know well. I know the style, because I used it myself on many occasions. It’s a style the master himself had taught me.
Only one person in the world could’ve created that effect.
A man known as The Chameleon.
Gergo Nagy.
My mentor, savior, and friend. The man I owe my life, and more.
He, too, must’ve been involved in this. Which makes sense. Gergo’s worked with the Delta Force men before. Many times. And he’s the one who gave my name to Henderson.
I start shivering in the tropical heat. If this comes to light, Gergo is dead.
I know what the man with Yan and Ilya is going to ask even before he turns back to me and says, “Who did their makeup and disguises?”
The light of the phone screen illuminates his harsh features, and I recognize him from the pictures on the news.
It’s Peter Sokolov, the Russian assassin I was hired to indirectly kill—and apparently, the twins’ teammate.
This can’t end well for me.
He walks into the circle of light and stops right in front of me, staring down at my face with cold calculation. “It looks like it was someone very skilled.”
Yan and Ilya follow on his heel, Yan a little too closely. The twins’ faces are stark and forbidding as they scrutinize me, but it’s Yan’s stare I feel viscerally, as if he’s cutting me open and looking right inside.
I dampen my dry lips. I can’t betray Gergo. Everything I am, I owe to him. I won’t repay him by ratting him out. Anyway, I’m dead. We all know it, all four of us in this room. There’s only one solution with a dreadful implication, something that intensifies the nausea in my empty stomach.
The men regard me silently. They’re not going to let the question about the disguises go unanswered. They want whoever has done it too badly. Eventually, they will find out. There’s no other way.
A part of me dies even before I gather the words and form the lie. It’s Sokolov who poses the biggest threat, hovering over me like the brutal killer I sense him to be, but it’s on Yan’s face I focus as I say softly, “Me. I did it.”
The declaration is huge. I’ve just admitted to framing Yan and his team in the dirtiest way possible. The mere idea burns like a ball of fire in my stomach, and it’s not even the truth. Yet there’s no reaction in Yan’s frosty gaze. Nothing in his expression. Not even a twitch.
Whatever magic we so unconventionally shared in the dark hours of the night is as dead as his flat, green eyes.
10
Yan
It feels as if flocks of vultures are at war in my chest, picking the meat clean off my bones, but on the outside, I show nothing. I won’t give the pretty little bitch that pleasure. She framed me. As a terrorist, no less.
What we shared meant less than shit to her.
I don’t pause to dissect why that thought guts me. It just does. Perhaps because while I searched the streets for her like a crazed lunatic, she didn’t give a damn. While the delirious intimacy we’ve shared has been playing in a loop in my memory, she’s easily forgotten all about me, maybe the very second she escaped from my room.
No matter. I’m planning on reminding her. Thoroughly.
Sokolov regards her skeptically. “Is that right?” He seems to have a hard time believing she’s done the disguises.
The nostrils of her dainty nose flare, as if his doubt insults her honesty when we’ve already established her honesty is questionable at best.
“Why would I lie?” The anger that shows on her elfin face carries on her voice, but it doesn’t make it less musical. “I’ve already given you all those names. What’s one more in the grand scheme of things?”
An idea settles in my frayed mind. Call it hope. Call it stupidity. Call it raving fucking madness. “This will be easy to verify.” Not liking how close Sokolov stands to her, I impose myself in his space. If what she says is true—and that stupid part of me I can’t fully suppress still hopes she’s lying—I’ll be doling out the punishment she deserves. It’s my right, and mine alone. “She can show off her skill on me tonight.”
“And on me,” Ilya adds like an insolent child.
Like hell. Nobody touches her but me. She had a choice. She chose my bed. It’s me she fucked over when she gave me everything and nothing at all.
Sokolov asks more questions. She answers them all. During the exchange, I watch Sokolov closely. Because of Mina—or rather, my deceiving little Mink—Sokolov’s in-laws are dead.
