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a shiver up my spine.
    “How long?” I ask.
    “A few days. What was that asshole Green doing here? And why in the fuck did you kiss him?” he growls.
    “First, I did not kiss him. He practically assaulted me. I kneed him in the nuts for it. I can’t stand that asshole. Second, he has a hard-on for you. He’s had a hard-on for you for a decade. He thinks he can get to you through me,” I offer with a shrug.
    I’m not hiding anything from Kirill, not really. He said I would tell him what he wanted to know, and I will. There is no reason to hide anything from him. I figured out early on that Agent Ryan Green is certifiable, I was just too scared to try and find Kirill after I left.
    “How do you know him then?” he asks. I sigh.
    This conversation needs to happen. I wish it didn’t, but it does. He needs the truth. He deserves the absolute truth, and then I want my own answers from him. I want to know if Agent Green lied to me all of these years, or if what he’s been telling me is indeed true.
    “I’ll tell you everything, but will you do the same? I have questions of my own. Will you answer them?” I ask.
     
     

     
    Tatyana looks tired— still beautiful, but I know she did not sleep last night. I didn’t either. I couldn’t. I stayed in the empty shithole across from her apartment and I watched her.
    I watched as she paced, as she cleaned and made Kiska breakfast.
    I watched as she told our daughter about me, about meeting me.
    I saw how happy Kiska was and how worried Tati looked. I don’t blame her . I would be worried, too; she should be worried.
    Very worried.
    I ponder her question as I walk over to her shitty futon and sit down. Will I answer all of her questions? Fuck no, I won’t.
    So I lie.
    “Yes, I’ll answer your questions,” I offer, indulging her.
    I won’t answer them truthfully, but I’ll give her an answer if she so desires one.
    “Are you in the Russian mafia?” she asks. I arch my brow.
    “Is that what he told you?”
    She pulls her full lips in, pressing them together, and then she flashes her green eyes at me. I see hesitation in them before she nods once.
    “He scared me. He told me you were in the mafia and that you were dangerous,” she admits.
    I can feel the rage bubbling to the surface. I’m so fucking angry . Not that he told her, but that she believed him and that it scared her. She knew me, the real me, the me that nobody else on earth has ever seen.
    If anybody could trust me, it was Tati.
    I have never loved like I loved her, and she shit on that.
    “I am Russian Bratva . I was born into this life, Tatyana.” I say the words and watch as she nods once before her eyes look down at her twisted hands.
    “I was only eighteen, Kirill. I was young and scared and I believed everything he said. He was the FBI. He knew things. He knew about me being pregnant. I was terrified,” she rambles. I can sympathize with her, but I still call bullshit on her decision.
    “So you left and you pretended to kill yourself? That’s some major fucking strings you pulled, Tati,” I growl.
    “ What ?” she breathes.
    I don’t respond to her.
    I wait.
    Then I watch as her face scrunches up.
    “You thought I constructed some elaborate suicide?” she asks. I must give her credit, she looks genuinely surprised. “Oh, my god. Never . Kirill, I didn’t do that. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t,” she says, shaking her head as her eyes fill with tears.
    Then, to my fucking astonishment, she launches herself into my lap. Her arms wrap around me and she buries her face in my neck. I feel the wetness slide onto my skin from her eyes. Tears . I remember this about her. My Tati cried . She felt deeply, and when she did, she cried.
    It has been so long, I had forgotten.
    Without thinking, I wrap my arms around her and bury my fingers in her hair. Its soft, as it always was, and she feels good here in my arms. She shouldn’t. I should push her off, but having her here—it feels too