Page 24 of Vicious Doll

"She's safe," Killion said but gave nothing else. "Forget about Vahyna, Volkov."

"Fuck you." Volkov spat, the animosity between the two men glowing like an ember from a campfire. "I don't believe anything you say." To me, he gestured with disgust, "Did he tell you whole story or only his convenient version of Budapest?"

I see it now—the connective tissue between these men. Vahnya. Me. Budapest. Whatever happened there destroyed us all in different ways. Volkov's rage isn't just professional; it's personal. The scars Killion left on him aren't just physical. And I'm the ghost in their machine, the variable that everyone wanted to use for their own purposes.

"If you knew who I was...why didn't you tell me?" I swivel to Volkov, directing my ire his direction. As far as I'm concerned, both Killion and Volkov are equally guilty — liars using different strategies, manipulators with different techniques. "Thosenights in the safehouse, when we fucked, when you had every opportunity—why keep up the charade?"

"Wasn't right time," he answers reluctantly. "The truth would come out with Vahyna."

Right. Because nothing says "trust me" like withholding fundamental truths about my existence.

I'm fucking tired of being jerked around. What they're saying sounds like spy-movie bullshit but my mind is already connecting dots—how quickly I adapted to training, my photographic memory, my unnatural comfort with violence. The way kill shots felt like muscle memory. The way I read people like they were books printed specifically for my eyes.

Memories start surfacing like corpses in a flood—fragments of missions I never ran, faces I've never seen but recognize bone-deep, languages I shouldn't understand flowing through my mind. Nova. Vixen-09. A codename, a classification, an identity buried beneath layers of carefully constructed fiction.

"Where's Mikhail?" I demand of Volkov, needing to account for all players on this fucked-up chessboard. If he was part of this too—if that night of brutal intimacy was just another layer of manipulation—I'll put a bullet in him myself.

Before he can answer, the first shots crack through the winter air. Harlow's privatized hit squad has arrived—not to capture but to clean up. Professional in black tactical gear, moving with military precision through the chaos. Civilians scatter, screaming, as bullets chip ancient stonework around us.

Shit.

"All three targets acquired," crackles over a militant's radio, loud enough for me to catch. Three targets. Me, Killion, Volkov. A neat solution to Harlow's problem—eliminate everyone who knows about the Vahnya Initiative in one fell swoop.

"Enough," Killion growls, "that's Harlow. We have to leave. Now."

"Like I would leave anywhere with either of you," I shoot back, but if I truly am the formerly-presumed dead Nova Cross, I didn't want to try my luck with a second rise from the grave. "Maybe I'll take my chances with Harlow. At least he hasn't lied to me yet."

"Jesus, Nova, get your head out of your ass. Harlow is the one who wants you dead," Killion says, irritated as fuck, like I'm the one being a problem and not the liar twins both wanting me to choose them. "I'm trying to save your life."

"Sure you are." I didn't believe him. At this point, I don't believe anyone. Hell, I'm not even sure the voice on the phone was anything more than an elaborate part of this fucked up play.

For all I know, they're all in on it together—an elaborate game of cat and mouse with me as the mouse who thinks it's a cat.

A flash of movement on a rooftop catches my eye—Mikhail, positioning himself with a sniper rifle. His massive frame silhouetted against the winter sky, scope gleaming in the firelight.

Within seconds, the first shot drops one of Harlow's mercenaries with surgical precision. The others scatter, looking for cover, suddenly realizing they're caught in crossfire.

Volkov reaches for me but I whip my gun out, pointing it straight at his face. "Don't fucking touch me. I'd rather take my chances with a crocodile that hasn't been fed in days than either of you."

His hand freezes mid-reach, those calculating eyes assessing my seriousness. He must see something in my expression that convinces him, because he doesn't push it. Smart man.

"This is your fault," Volkov spats at Killion. "Everything you do is for you only." To me he said, "If you want to stay alive, don't trust this fucker no matter what he tells you."

I don't need Volkov's advice on that score. I look between them—two predators who've stalked the same territory too long. Two men who've each held pieces of my fractured reality, doling out truths and lies like dealers cutting marked cards.

Vienna's ancient streets become a battlefield around us—bullets pinging off cobblestones, civilians screaming, smoke clogging the winter air. It's a perfect metaphor for my mind—chaos, destruction, the present colliding violently with a past I can't fully recall but can't entirely deny.

Who am I? Landry James, shitty housewife with a taste for danger? Nova Cross, deep-cover operative presumed dead? Or something new entirely—a chimera patched together from fragments of both, greater and more dangerous than either?

I've spent my life—both lives—being defined by others. Controlled. Directed. Manipulated. Isaac, Killion, Volkov, Harlow—different masters pulling the same strings. Even my rebellion as Landry—the club hookups, the lies, the thrill-seeking—was just programming reasserting itself through the cracks in my false identity.

Well, fuck that.

"I'm going to find Vahnya," I tell them both, backing away. "Then I'm burning your whole fucking world down."

I don't wait for their response. Using the cover Mikhail provides, I slip away into Vienna's chaotic streets, instinct guiding me through unfamiliar terrain. Behind me, Killion shouts something that's swallowed by gunfire. Volkov doesn't waste breath on words—he knows me better than that.

Or maybe he knows Nova better than that.

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