A hot flush crawls up my neck and spreads over my face. I don’t remember everything from that night, but I remember enough. Bits and pieces from my drugged confession surface in my mind at random times when I’m awake and pop into my dreams at night.
Into my most twisted dreams, the ones I try not to think about.
“I see you do remember.” His voice turns low and husky, his lids lowering halfway as his large, warm hand settles over my trembling palm. “I’ve been wondering what would’ve happened if I’d stayed that night… if I’d taken you up on your offer.”
His touch burns through me before I yank my hand away, clenching it into a fist under the table. “There was no offer.” My heart is pounding in my ears, my voice tight with mortification. “I was high. I didn’t know what I was saying.”
“I know. Drugs that lower inhibitions tend to have that effect.” He leans back, freeing me from the potent effect of his nearness, and my lungs drag in a full breath for the first time in two minutes. “You didn’t know who I was or what I was doing. You would’ve reacted similarly to any other reasonably attractive man who had you in that position.”
“That’s… that’s right.” My face is still blazing hot, but the rational explanation steadies me a little. “You could’ve been anyone. It wasn’t directed at you.”
“Yes. But you see, Sara”—he leans in again, his gaze filled with dark intensity—“my reaction was directed at you. I wasn’t drugged, and when you came on to me, I wanted you. I still want you.”
Horror ices my blood even as my sex clenches in response. He can’t be saying what I think he’s saying. “You’re—you’re insane.” I feel like I’ve been dropped from a plane with no parachute. “I’m not… This is just sick.” I want to jump up and run, but I press on, pushing through the panic. I have to make this clear to him, put a stop to this insanity once and for all. “I don’t care what you want, or what your reaction was. I’m not going to sleep with you after you killed my husband and God knows how many others. After you tortured me and—”
“I know, Sara.” His hand finds my knee under the table and rests on it. “I wish I could go back, because I would’ve found a different way.”
Startled, I push my chair to the side, scooting out of his reach. “You wouldn’t have killed George?”
“I wouldn’t have tortured you,” he clarifies, placing his hand back on the table. “I could’ve located that sookin syn some other way. It would’ve taken longer, but it would’ve been worth it not to hurt you.”
My freefall from the plane resumes, the air whooshing past my ears. What planet is this man from? “You think torturing me is a problem, but killing my husband would’ve been okay?”
“The husband who lied to you? The one you said you didn’t really know?” Rage ignites in his eyes again. “You can tell yourself whatever you want, Sara, but I did you a favor. I did the whole fucking world a favor by getting rid of him.”
“A favor?” An answering fury blazes to life inside me, burning away all caution. “He was a good man, you… you psycho! I don’t know what you think he did, but—”
“He massacred my wife and son.”
Shock paralyzes my vocal cords. “What?” I gasp out when I can finally speak.
A muscle pulses in Peter’s jaw. “Do you know what your husband did for a living, Sara? What he really did?”
A sick sensation spreads through me. “He was a… a foreign correspondent.”
“That was his cover, yes.” The Russian’s upper lip curls as he straightens in his seat. “I figured you didn’t know. The spouses rarely know, even when they sense the lies.”
My world tilts off its axis. “What do you mean, cover? He was a journalist. He wrote stories for—”
“Yes, he did. And in the process of getting those stories, he gathered information for the CIA and carried out covert missions for them.”
“What? No.” I frantically shake my head. “You’re wrong. You made a mistake. You had the wrong man. I knew you must’ve had the wrong man. George wasn’t a spy. That’s impossible. He didn’t even know how to change a tire. He—”
“He was recruited in college,” Peter says flatly. “University of Chicago, which you both attended. They often do that, hit up college campuses to round up the best and the brightest. They look for certain things: few family ties, a patriotic bent, smart and ambitious but lacking focus… Any of that sound like your husband?”
I stare at him, my chest squeezing tighter and tighter. George’s mother died in a car accident during his last year of high school, and his father, a Marine, had been killed in Afghanistan when George was just a baby. His elderly uncle helped put him through college, but he died too, several years back, leaving only distant cousins to attend George’s funeral six months ago.