The Dark Duet (20 page)

“There now, Alestasia,” Katerina says, bringing me into her strong embrace. “I have a plan to end this nightmare for good.” She pulls slightly away from me, tilts my chin up so I’m staring into her eyes, and says, “Go to him. Nikolai needs you much more than he realizes.”

“Does he?” I inhale and lower my eyes, preparing to ask the question I’ve been avoiding. Exhaling, I look up at Katerina. “Did he kill Aaron Jeffers—my husband—last year?”

“It’s possible,” she answers, holding my gaze. Katerina Dostovsky doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who dabbles in possibilities and doubts. I suspect she knows the real answer. As though she can hear my silent plea for more, she continues, “He sometimes disappears for days. I have my driver follow him, always watching. I was the one who hired Rudolph to heal him, to make him forget the horrid things that happened to him back in Moscow and also what he did to save my daughter. Ten years is a long time to live with deception and lies.” Her gaze takes on a faraway look.

“You mean the night he killed his brother for your daughter, Adriana?” I ask.

“He told you the truth, I see.”

“Don’t you think he has suffered enough without you adding to his burdens?” Anger begins flowing off me in waves as the image of a frightened little boy sitting in a corner, his clothes stripped off his frail body, waiting to be violated by a madman, surges through my mind. “You claim to love him, but you might as well have shoved the damn syringe into his arms yourself.”

“I did what I had to do. To make him forget,” she says to me, her gray eyes hard and cold suddenly.

“To make him forget? Or you?”

Sighing deeply, she narrows her eyes. “What? You think spreading your legs means you own him now? You haven’t been there throughout the years, and therefore have no idea what it was like to raise a child created by violence. I raised him as I did my own, with all of the privileges. On the outside he was a lovely child, but his mind was shrouded in darkness. The cruel acts he sometimes committed against Alek’s friends, without understanding it wasn’t all right to do so, made me worry for my children’s safety as well as Nikolai’s. He was expelled from several dance companies until the day I formed my own troupe. My husband’s family had dealt with Rudolph Burkenstein and his neurological techniques for many decades. I thought he could be trusted. And I had to do something to save such a beautiful child.”

“So you decided to fix him?” I ask.

I get an emotionless chuckle. “I don’t have to answer you.”

“No. Just to yourself ... and Nikolai,” I retort. Blinking rapidly, she lowers her eyes. The only sound in the room is the swish of Lake Como behind her house.

Burkenstein’s memory-wipe procedure has to be sustained by a neurological stimulant, and Nikolai isn’t the type to allow someone to sneak into his house and inject him. I almost hate to ask, but I need to understand the man I’ve fallen for isn’t the heartless assassin Burkenstein wants me to believe he could be. Katerina’s story would explain his involvement without making him turn out to be a complete monster. “There’s a serum that was used on me. It somehow enhances the results of the procedure. How did Nikolai—”

“My doctor gives him a subscription for his migraines. Pills he takes whenever he has them,” she answers, and then turns to the table set up beside her bed and begins pouring a drink.

“So, it’s true. He killed my husband, threatened my grandparents. And you didn’t do anything to stop him?” I ask, anger brewing inside me.

“If he did do this, then I’m certain he felt justified in his reasoning. I have heard this Aaron Jeffers was brutal both in the field and the bedroom.”

“Really? And how would you know?”

“I hired someone to watch over my son, Alek, and soon to be daughter-in-law, Erin. This man is also from a prominent law enforcement agency based in the UK. He knew your husband. Feared him.” Her face softens and my anger melts into confusion. I still can’t recall large chunks of time between my 21st and 23rd birthday, the period when I would’ve been married to the man in my vision-dreams, my fake husband as Burkenstein said.

“Why can’t I remember any of this?” I ask, turning away, my mind reeling. Burkenstein’s restoration serum didn’t bring back all of my memories the way it should’ve done. My mind seems to be blocking chunks of time. I recall the bloody shower vision, the one memory that wasn’t all sweet and lovely, and think to myself it’s probably for the best I can’t fully grasp what happened.

Katerina places a hand on my arm. “Sometimes it’s best to leave the past blowing in the winds of memory. Consider it a blessing and move on.”

“I’m lost,” I whisper.

“Then go back to the one who can find you. I’ll handle things from this point on,” she assures me. “I’m going to leave. Burkenstein won’t know you didn’t fulfill your part of the bargain. Not right away. This buys me some time,” she suggests.

“What will you do?” I ask.

A sad look crosses her face. “Something I should’ve done long ago.”

I stand, pull my mask back down over my eyes, and leave Katerina’s house, taking a moment to stare at Lake Como situated directly behind her garden in the backyard. Can Nikolai save me? Perhaps the better question should be: can I do anything for a man who lives and breathes the essence of complication? I’m afraid the answer won’t come to me unless I find Nikolai and destroy the one last thing standing in both our paths to freedom ... Rudolph Burkenstein.

I inhale the cool spring air until doing so makes me shiver. Eventually, I return to my apartment and pick up the cell phone I left behind on purpose. I shoot off a text for Nikolai, asking him to meet me inside the place where this all of this began—the training room underneath the theater.

Chapter 23

~Nikolai~

“Wow. That was fast,” Alese says as soon as I walk into our training room. She’s standing, propped against the edge of the music table, a blasé expression on her face. Wearing jeans and a white T-shirt underneath a leather jacket, her trademark outfit, the faint aroma of her Asian-scented body spray fills the room around me, ripping my mind back to the night when we made love a couple of weeks ago. She’s standing beside a suitcase and a couple of handbags.

“I was just around the corner,” I lie.

Scoffing and rolling her eyes a bit, she stands, walks toward me, and opens her hand. A silver chip sits on her palm. “Or maybe you cheated. A tracking device, Nikolai? I’m former CIA, not a librarian.”

Tension whirls between us. I want to know where she’s been since obviously she fooled me by removing the device I planted in her phone. “Impressive,” I reply, because I don’t know a thing about starting a conversation like this one. Instead, I use a diversion tactic, and motion toward her bags. “What’s all of this?”

“I called you here so I could say good-bye.” She lifts her chin in the air and crosses her arms. “Didn’t want to leave things unsaid between us.”

“Where will you go?” I ask, pretending her news doesn’t bother me.

“Back home. Maybe to London, dig up whatever info I can on my dead husband. Who knows?”

“Right. And you’ll simply waltz back up to your grandparents’ house? I’m sure the CIA will love to have them explain your reappearance. Oh, and don’t forget to mention the spies we took out.”

“You mean the people you killed after promising me you’d let them live?” She’s raising her voice now, and closing the distance between us. “Or maybe you’re talking about the way you threatened my grandparents ... or ordered the hit on my husband. But wait! You wouldn’t know about that. Why? Because your psycho family took care of those memories.”

Her words shock the shit out of me. I have no comeback. “What?” I ask.

“So she was telling the truth. You don’t know. Your mother, Katerina, had Rudolph Burkenstein put one of his mind-wipes on you, too. It was some time after your family left Moscow eight years ago. The medicine you take for your headaches has Rudolph Burkenstein written all over it. He owns you. Both of us.”

“You are lying,” I say in short, clipped words.

“Why would I do that?” she chides.

“You are a puppet. A fucking dolly to Rudolph Burkenstein. A gullible little girl who believes a madman’s words. You blame the Dostovskys for everything that has happened to you. You hate us,” I spit, closing the distance between us as I do so. With each hateful statement tossed her way, Alese flinches, yet still holds her ground. I should stop now, but the anger rising in me has taken a firm hold on my sanity. “Does he touch you the way I did? Kiss you between your legs in that secret spot? Make you scream his name like his little bitch.”

Alese’s hand flies out and my face rips to the side, the sting from her slap yanking me back to reality. “Fuck you, Nikolai Belikov.”

Massaging my cheek, I turn to back to her. “You. Wish.”

“I don’t think so. I’ve spent enough time in the devil’s hands. Might wind up dead in a ditch if I keep
fucking
around with his people.” She stares me down, her chest heaving.

I scoff and turn around, my mind reeling as I think about what I’ve heard. Katerina has always gone out of her way to protect us from our past, even if obviously it means selling her soul and mine to the devil. Past events in my life start to click into place. Chunks of missing time that occurred shortly after we moved to Italy make more sense, but it doesn’t calm the anger rising inside of me. It wasn’t enough when Katerina interfered with her daughter and son’s lives to the point of almost losing them both a few months ago, now she has added me to her games as well. I know Alese is telling the truth; it’s not her style to lie and manipulate people. No, that’s Katerina’s way ... and mine.

“Damn her!” I stare at my BlackBerry, the one given to me by Katerina. Did she put a tracking device in it? Tossing it across the room, I watch it explode into a thousand pieces.

“Look. You’re pissed. I hate it for you,” Alese begins, “but insulting me isn’t going to change anything. You need to focus that anger on the man responsible for bringing us all down to this level. So get over it, and get even.”

I pull my hands through my hair. When will this fucking nightmare end? Katerina and Alese, all of the people I love are simply victims of the man who started it: Vladimir. My body starts convulsing as I work hard to control my anger. Gasping, I rein in my heaving breath and prop my elbows on the music table.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you by telling you this.” Alese touches my arm, the small gesture sending jolts of electricity through me even after all we’ve said and done to each other. “We’re all victims here.”

One thing I do know for certain—I need to come completely clean with Alese. She deserves to know the truth.

“It’s tempting to blame my actions on a madman, but I cannot.” I turn to her, my chest aching with the weight of what I’m about to tell her. “Eight months ago, I traveled to Lafayette and met with your husband. Told him to drop the case he’d begun pursuing, something against Burkenstein and Vladimir, I’m sure. I didn’t care or ask questions. However, I did see the pictures of things Jeffers had done to a few of his last girlfriends. Rudolph’s little way of ensuring my loyalty. I despise abuse. He was abusive with all of them, Alese.” I pause, giving her time to take in the news that the man in her bed was a bondage junkie who took his fetishes a little too far in the past, and used his political influence to thwart any investigations he might have been subjected to. She appears to be fighting some thought in her head.

“Jeffers refused my offer, of course. Then he threw me out. I sent the word to Burkenstein, telling him the negotiation failed. I had no idea what Burkenstein was planning. He also neglected to tell me the man had a wife. I only knew I had two goals: earning the funds for Inamorata and revenge.”

“Yes. And failure wasn’t an option, right?” she asks.

“Two months later, he sent me back to Lafayette with a clean-up crew. I was told to deliver the details of your new identity to your grandparents. To explain what would happen if they ever told anyone about you being alive.”

“Congratulations. Your mission succeeded,” Alese confirms, her eyes filled with questions and pain. She turns away, and I can’t stand this distance between us anymore.

Grabbing her shoulders, I pull her up against me. “I had no idea they were your family. Had I known, I ...” My voice trails off. Alese rotates her body toward me and places her fingers on my lips, her gesture giving me hope.

“We can’t turn back time, Nikolai.” She sighs deeply. “But we can sure as hell change the future.”

“I’ll abandon all of this for you.”

“And then you’d hate me forever.”

Yes, I love her. I can no longer deny what I’m feeling, but I’m not sure I can give her anything when I’m not entirely whole myself. “Please forgive me for what I’ve done.”

She releases a sarcastic laugh and turns her amused gaze on me. I frown, confused by this sudden change in her behavior. “Forgive him, he says. I am fucking crazy in love with you, Nikolai Belikov. Somehow, in the middle of this screwed to hell, crazy-sadistic situation, I found that missing part of me. Did you hear what I said? I.
Love.
You.”

I’m struggling to repeat the words for her. How can three little words be so hard to say out loud? I place my lips against hers, kissing her gently, the effect of our kiss filling me with a unique kind of energy. If I’m too much of a coward to say the words, then the least I can do is show her in the only other way I know to express myself. Music. I stroll over to the player and hit the power button. A Muse song called “Time is Running Out” fills the air.

“Come. Dance with me, my love.” The disappointment storming across her face fades after I say those last words and hold out my hand for her to join me. Clasping our hands together, I pull her up against me and begin rocking our bodies to the beat of the music, a tune by one of her favorite bands.

I move my lips down to her ear. “I am Frankenstein and you, my dear, are my bride.”

I carry her over to the section of the room where I’ve set up my makeshift bed on those nights when I couldn’t sleep and dancing until the point of exhaustion was the only thing that could successfully ease my mind. With our lips locked together the entire time, I place her down gently on the bed, fighting the urge to rip every piece of clothing off her body. I need to show her how much I have missed her sweet body and the scent of her when she wakes up first thing in the morning, especially the wetness between her legs as I bring her to an orgasm using my fingers first.