Bound by the Blood

HER SECRET

POV: Marco

---

Three weeks.

That's how long I'd known her. Three weeks of dinners and mornings and nights that blurred together. Three weeks of feeling something I'd thought was dead.

And still, she was lying to me.

I knew it. Felt it in the way she hesitated before answering simple questions. In the way she checked her phone when she thought I wasn't looking. In the way she never talked about her past – not really – just enough to sound honest.

But I couldn't walk away.

That was the problem. That was always the problem.

---

Dominic found me at the warehouse, files in hand.

"I've been digging," he said. "Like you asked."

"And?"

"Sasha Volkov. No record before six years ago. No family. No history. It's like she appeared out of nowhere."

"What about her husband? Alexei?"

"Also a ghost." Dominic spread photographs across the table. "I found one person who remembered him. Said he was Russian, quiet, kept to himself. Died about a year ago. No police report. No body."

"Convenient."

"Very."

I stared at the photographs. Sasha at the gym. Sasha at the cafe. Sasha walking alone at night, always looking over her shoulder.

"Keep digging," I said.

"Marco—"

"I know." I met his eyes. "I know she's hiding something. I need to know what."

He nodded, gathered the files, left.

I stood alone in the empty warehouse and wondered if I was making the biggest mistake of my life.

---

She came over that night.

I'd asked her to. Told myself it was to watch her, to look for cracks in her story. But when she walked through the door, all of that disappeared.

"Rough day?" she asked.

"You could say that."

She crossed to me, stood on her toes, kissed my cheek.

"I brought wine," she said. "The expensive kind. Figured you could use it."

"You figured right."

We sat on the couch. She poured. I watched her hands – steady, graceful, the hands of someone who'd held weapons.

"Sasha."

"Hmm?"

"My family. You told me I wasn't responsible for what happened to them."

"You're not."

"Who was?"

She set down her glass. "Viktor Petrov. His men. The people who gave the orders."

"And now Viktor is dead. Antonio killed him."

"Yes."

"Does that make you feel better? Knowing he's gone?"

She was quiet for a long moment. "I thought it would. When I heard he died, I thought – finally. Finally, he can't hurt anyone else."

"But?"

"But it didn't change anything. The people who helped him are still out there. The ones who gave the orders, who pulled the triggers – they're still alive."

"Dmitri."

She nodded. "Dmitri."

I reached for her hand. She let me take it.

"I'm going to help you," I said. "Whatever you need. Whatever it takes. We'll find him together."

"Why?" Her voice was barely a whisper. "Why would you do that for me?"

"Because you're not alone anymore."

She looked at me then – really looked – and I saw something in her eyes I'd never seen before.

Fear.

Not of Dmitri. Not of the Russians.

Of me. Of what I was making her feel.

"Sasha—"

She kissed me. Hard. Desperate. Like she was trying to say something she couldn't put into words.

I kissed her back.

And when we fell into bed together, tangled in sheets and lies, I told myself the truth could wait.

One more night.

Just one more night.

---

She left before dawn.

I pretended to be asleep, listened to her dress, heard her pause at the bedroom door.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Then she was gone.

I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, and wondered what she was sorry for.