Page 69 of Vasily the Hammer

There's no way for me to know if it's real, but it looks real.

"That's... a lot," I mutter, not sure of what else to say.

"When I said Vasily's a friend, I meant friend with benefits and nothing more. In fact, he's being kind of a dickhead right now. You know he banned me from the office while you were there? Like he thought I'd pull some jealous girlfriend crap if I met you?"

I take a sip of my Dr. Pepper to keep myself from responding, but the moment the straw leaves my mouth, I mutter, "Maybe he was worried I'd pull some jealous wife crap."

Maria's mouth twitches once, twice, and then she snorts. Her shoulders start to shake.

"He told me I was his wife!" I cry out, and now everyone is staring at me. "Do you think I wouldn't have been upset about a mistress?"

"Mistressis a strong word," she says. "I know you're not going to like hearing this, but no matter what we did, his heart was always for you."

My own heart swells at that, only for me to remember myself. Remember everything he did to me. Remember the lies and thatvideo. "No, not him," I say quietly. "I promise, whatever you think is a heart, it's just manipulation. He's a bad man."

"He is a bad man," she agrees, "and your brother is a worse man. Tony might have told you the truth. It might have made sense and explained whatever you were doubting. But if it convinced you to come back here, I promise you Tony was manipulating the story far worse."

I desperately want to believe that, but it wasn't anything that Tony said that convinced me. “Vasily lied about my name, do you know that? When I was rescued— did you know what happened to me? How I got a concussion, where the amnesia came from?— when they checked me out afterward, my doctor told me there was no guaranteed way to get my memories back, but going back to the life I was living before would be the biggest help. But Vasily took me to an apartment I've never been to in a city I've never been to before, and he told me this is where I lived. He stocked it with brand-new clothing and said it was mine." And soap that did smell right. "He invented this whole life that had never existed, and he gave me a fake name."

"Ana?" she asks. "Is that the name he gave you? Ana Baranov because you're his wife?"

"I'm Lacey Lombardo."

"Right. Short for Analiese. I heard once that he called you Ana because he thought Lacey was a disrespectful name. A stripper name." She shrugs. "Not sure of the truth of it."

Analiese.That's my name. I knew that. It's on all the certificates stuck to my bedroom walls. I don't know why it didn't click that Ana was simply another nickname for Analiese, but it makes sense.

I swear I can even hear Vasily complaining about Lacey sounding inappropriate, although I doubt he would have said itwas a stripper name. That's not the word he would have used. It would have been far gruffer.

And as much as that already sells the story better than the assumptions I made when Artom said my name was Lacey, I can't look past the hardest truth. The incontrovertible evidence of Vasily's cruelty. It's hard to say it, knowing what I'm admitting to and knowing what Maria will also have to admit to, but I go for it anyway.

"I've seen the video."

Without missing a beat, Maria says, "Which one?"

It’s a small comfort that it takes Maria several minutes and even more apologies before she finds the video, but it does little to ease the bubbles brewing in my gut.

The opening frame hits hard. It’s not me, it’s Vasily, but a slightly younger version. He manages to look both mildly stressed and sleepy, and it takes a second to remember he did a lot of drugs back then— and another second for it to hit that no one else would notice either of these things in this flash as he’s reaching for a camera.

My heart pounds. If Maria is wrong about how I’ll react to this video, I don’t know if I’ll survive cutting the final string of the love I thought I had for him.

His hand covers the lens, and when he once again releases it, the camera is facing the opposite direction, facing me.

A younger me. I’ve changed a lot more in the past six years than Vasily has. No wonder, since I had a kid and reinvented myself on the opposite side of the country, but of course I have to wonder what Vasily thought of me when he saw me at the Consummate building. Self-doubt threatens to hurl the McNuggets from mybody, but then I see why Maria thought this video would change my perception of the events that happened six years ago. I’m not terrified in this video like I was in the other one.

I’m in love.

In this moment, in this frame, in this second in time that’s been forever preserved, literally the entire world can see that I am in love with Vasily Baranov.

He tells me to smile for the camera, and he calls me that name he called me the last night we were together, and I hear the love in his voice.

He asks me if I love being on my knees for him, and he says my full name, Analiese, as though to confirm that whether the viewer knows me as Ana or as Lacey, they know it’s me and not a lookalike.

I don’t answer his question. Nope, I grab right for him, reaching down his pants like I own him. Like there’s not a chance in the world that I’m doing the wrong thing here because I know I can do no wrong in his eyes.

In the video, I pull his pants down, and the angle of his camera has his cock slashing across my face.

I blush, acutely aware that I’m now sitting in a McDonald’s with my son and a bunch of random kids not twenty feet away. I should stop watching. The video has done what Maria wanted it to do, I’m sure of it.

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