Page 87 of Twisted Fate

“I’m an assassin, Konstantin,” Valentina spits out, but it’s not the whole truth. I can see the small tells—the way her fingers twitch against the chair, the way her eyes dart away from mine for a fraction of a second.

I step away from the fireplace, walking toward her. I see her flinch ever so slightly, but she doesn’t shrink back. I stop just in front of her, sinking down onto my heels as I look into her defiant green eyes.

“You didn’t want to kill me,” I say it with as much conviction as I can muster, forcing any lingering doubt out of my voice. “You weren’t sure about the kill. You put it off for as long as possible. You couldn’t bring yourself to do it earlier tonight, even though you must know what a man like Kane will do to someone who fails him so thoroughly.” I hear her small hitch of breath as I continue, “So where do you fit into all of this, Valentina? Why did you take the job?”

Her jaw works. “I told you. He raised me. Trained me. Took me on jobs when I was younger.”

I narrow my eyes. “You said your father did that.”

Another twitch. “He’s the closest thing to a father that I have.”

Those last words come out on a rush of breath, and she looks away, her lips pressed into a thin, tight line. I see a glimmer in her eyes, a mist that might be approaching tears, and something wrenches in my chest despite everything that’s happened tonight.

“Valentina.” She flinches back when I say her name, and I reach up, grasping her chin in my fingers as I turn her back to face me. “Why did you take this job? What happened to your family?”

It’s a shot in the dark. But from the way her eyes widen, her lips parting ever so slightly as her gaze locks onto mine, it hit its target.

She shakes her head, a quick, tight motion. “Valentina.” I tighten my grip on her chin. “Tell me. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

“Why would you help me?” she hisses. “I was meant to kill you. Itriedto kill you earlier tonight. Why would you help me with anything at all?”

My chest contracts. I stare into her eyes, my heart thudding behind my ribs, and I know this is the moment when telling her how I feel could change the trajectory of how this goes. But if I do…

I can’t force the words past my lips. Neither can she. We stare at each other for a long moment, our breath mingling in the space between us, and I feel the movement of her jaw under my fingers as she tries to wrestle her emotions back under control.

“My family was killed when I was eight. I—” Valentina swallows and draws in a shaky breath. “I managed to hide while it was happening. But I saw it all.” Her voice is uncharacteristically flat, devoid of all emotion, but I know that for what it is. A defense mechanism, so that she doesn’t breakdown in front of me. One that she’s probably been employing for most of her life, to make sure that she doesn’t break down in front ofanyone.

The confession hits me like a sledgehammer to the chest. It’s not a new story, or even a particularly unique one. My father has put out hits on plenty of men who crossed him. They had wives; children. But, right or wrong, I didn’tknowthem. I know Valentina. Been intimate with her. Felt things with her that I’ve never?—

“I ended up in foster care,” she continues. “Kane was the one who found me there and took me in. When I turned ten, he told me that he knew who had killed my family. That if I helped him, if I was a—” She swallows hard, “a good girl, he could help me get revenge.”

My jaw tightens. “You were ten.”

“I was angry.” Her gaze meets mine evenly. “I asked him if I could start that day. I’dbeenangry since that night. I cried while it was happening. I cried when the police found me and took me to the station. And then… I don’t think I’ve ever cried again.”

Her eyes dart quickly away from mine. “I’ve never talked about this. I’ve never?—”

Before I can stop myself, before I even fully realize what I’m doing, my grip on her jaw changes to my fingers brushing along her cheek. “And you believed him?”

She laughs bitterly. “I was a traumatized child with no family. Of course I believed him. He gave me a place to live—a place that seemed like something out of a dream, at that age. And he gave me a purpose, a direction. I probably would have ended up on the streets if he hadn’t taken me in, or in juvy. Prison eventually, maybe. I was angry, and all that anger had to go somewhere.”

My mind clicks through all of the information, all of the pieces of the puzzle as I speak. “So the price of this revenge was your loyalty to him. Your service. You worked for him, and?—”

Valentina nods. “Eventually, he would give me the name.”

“And killing me was the price?”

She presses her lips together, her fingers curling in against the seat. “Yes and no. I tried to get out, before this job. I came back from a sniper mission in Moscow and told him I was done. It had been ten years, and I wanted the name. He told me one more job, and he would give it to me. That—” Her throat constricts. “That he couldn’t trust the job to anyone else.”

"That job was me."

"You," she confirms.

I take a deep breath, rocking back on my heels as she watches me warily. I look at her, trying to imagine her as that child—scared, alone, manipulated by a man like Nicholas Kane. Shaped into a weapon, pointed at targets of his choosing. Used.

“Do you regret it?” I ask her, and she lets out a sharp breath.

“No.” She looks at me sideways. “I just told you. Without Kane, my life would have taken a bad path. I wouldn’t have been better off. But I do regret taking this job.”

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