Page 105 of One For my Enemy

She wanted to scream.

She wanted to be sick.

In a rush, voices from memories flooded her mind.

Masha, don’t do this—

Twelve years ago, her mother had asked her to choose.

Masha, please. Please!

Twelve years ago, she had looked her lover in the eye and told her most terrible lie; she told him she felt nothing.

You can’t mean that, Masha. I know you don’t mean that!

Twelve years ago, she had torn her own heart out, cast it aside, buried it somewhere deep.

Masha, you are the sun, the moon, and the stars—

Masha, if you go, you take my whole heart with you—

Marya Antonova, I will love you until the day I die—

“Dima,” she let out in a whisper, breath ragged, and fell back against her bed.

If you would only choose me, Masha, I would save you from this life.

She stared at the lines of her palms, waiting for clarity that didn’t come. Even with Dimitri’s voice fading from her thoughts, the sting of her enmity failed to ease.

I am just a weapon aimed at the man who caused me pain.

Just a weapon, she thought.

Just a weapon.

A knife doesn’t wield itself.

Come back to me, Masha—

Just a weapon, aimed at a man.

And who, she wondered angrily, had aimed her?

Marya looked up coldly, curling her fingers around the edge of the blade that she was.

Baba Yaga was going soft.

But Marya Antonova could not be broken.

IV. 19

(Dirty Money, Bad Blood.)

Eric Taylor looked up, catching the knock at his door and lifting his head from the tablets he’d been counting and arranging. “How’d you get in here?” he demanded, and then frowned. “Wait a minute. Don’t I know you?”

“You do, actually,” Lev confirmed, leaning against the frame and gesturing over his shoulder. “Door was unlocked. Nice to see your face healed up,” he added.

Eric’s smile faltered.

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