Hidden Truths (Perfectly Imperfect #3)

“That’s okay. I like you just the way you are.” I close my eyes and nuzzle his back with my nose. “Who’s Dasha?”

His body goes still, but the heartbeat under my palm picks up. For a long time, he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move a muscle, and I’m certain my question will stay unanswered.

But then, he starts talking. “Dasha was my wife,” he whispers, and my eyes snap open.

“We met by accident,” he continues, “or that’s what I believed at the time. Six years ago. She was a few years older than me, a waitress in a coffee shop I frequented. Shy. Slightly unsure of herself. She was Russian. Here on a work visa, trying to get her papers.” He scoffs. “I was young. Stupid. I believed the farce. And, I liked her. Felix checked her background, of course. It seemed solid. When I told him I was going to marry her so she could get her green card, he went ballistic. At least at first, but then he said it might be good for me to have someone. I wasn’t in a good place then.”

“So, you married her?”

“Yes. She moved in with me. It was nice for the first few months.” He squeezes my fingers. “Then, she started asking me about work. Small things, at first. Where I’ve been. What did I do exactly. I told her that I worked for the government, and I couldn’t share any work-related information. She started pressing more and more, and got frustrated when I didn’t say anything.”

He takes a deep breath. “One night, I came home from a long mission. I was tired and sleep deprived. We were together for six months at that time, but I’d stopped sleeping in our bed two weeks earlier, and I planned on asking her to move out. I crashed on the sofa. Something woke me up later. It wasn’t a noise or anything like that. Dasha was too well trained to let herself get noticed. Maybe it was an instinct. One second, I was deep asleep, and the next, my eyes snapped open to find her looming over me with one of my knives at my throat.”

He raises his hand and places it on the right side of his neck, over the horizontal scar I noticed while we were showering.

“I hesitated only for a moment, enough for her to start slicing my skin, but then my training kicked in. I grabbed her and snapped her neck.” He shakes his head. “The next morning, Felix pulled some strings and managed to run her prints throughthe international database. She was an operative for the Russian government. We found a secret email account on her phone where she was receiving her orders. The last communication thread showed her reporting that I wouldn’t talk, and asking for permission to pull out. The reply said to kill me so I don’t blow her cover.”

Dear God. “Did you love her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” He looks up toward the door. He hasn’t looked at me even once since he started telling me about his wife. “Do you understand what could have happened earlier?”

I kiss his back. “Yes.”

“Good.”

He nods and starts getting up, but I squeeze my arms and wrap my legs around him. “It doesn’t mean that you’re going to the other room.”

“Baby . . .”

“You are”—I kiss his left shoulder—“staying here”—another kiss on his arm—“with me.”

I let my hands travel upward, hooking him under the arms, then shift my entire weight to the side. He leans with me until we’re both lying on the bed.

“Your demons don’t scare me,” I whisper in his ear. “You forget, I was raised in a hyena’s den, Sergei. I might be cultured. My father made sure I got the best education, but I still spent most of my life surrounded by men who were either bad or crazy.”

I take his hand and place his palm on the side of my thigh, over the scar he once asked me about. “I didn’t fall off a tree. I was kidnapped when I was seven. A bullet caught me when my father’s man was carrying me out of a shed where my kidnapper kept me for ransom.”

He sucks in a breath, and I place a kiss on his nape. Then, I lift my right hand, spreading my fingers in front of his face to show him the long faded scar across my palm. “One of the men at the compound tried raping me when I was thirteen. I cut my hand as I was trying to take his knife from him.”

“Did he?” Sergei asks, his voice barely audible. “Did he rape you?”

“Nope. He was too drunk. I took his gun, which he left on the nightstand, and shot him in his filthy penis. He screamed like a pig being slaughtered.”

Sergei turns around so he’s facing me, and buries his hand in my hair, amazement evident in his eyes. “You know how to shoot a gun?”

I chuckle. “Everybody at the compound knows how to use a gun.”

“Aren’t you full of surprises, Miss Sandoval?”

“It’s survival, I guess.” I shrug. “Even my nana knows how to shoot.”

I smile, but it’s sad. It hurts to think about her, to wonder if she’s still alive. “Can you remind your pakhan about his promise?”

“What promise?”

“He said he’ll try to get some info about her. I’m not sure if Diego hurt her when he found out she helped me escape.”

“I will, baby.” He leans forward and places a kiss on my forehead. “Go back to sleep.”