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"I want out."
"No."
"We are making deal, Inspector. I give you information you want, you give me what I want. That is how deal works, you know."
"I can't give you that."
"You think I am afraid of being kept here in this cushy little room? This is fucking vacation compared to solitary."
"I doubt there will be any vacation time if I have to hand you over to the FSB. They'll put you somewhere that will make the Lubyanka look like Disneyland."
"Yeah, yeah. N-240 all over again. So why I should tell you anything if you plan to give me to Russians anyway?"
"Tell me what I want to know and you won't have to go back. I'll pass whatever information they deserve on to them, keep the rest for a rainy day, and you can stay here and work for me. I'll protect you."
"Not good enough, Inspector. I want to walk out door and never look at your ugly face again."
"And you think your comrades in Moscow will allow that?"
"They do not need know."
"For Christ's sake, Nikolai. It's too late for that."
"I want my freedom."
"You don't know how to be a civilian."
"Will be like deep cover. Piece of cake for man of my skills."
"You're a marked man, Luzhin. A freak show. Look at yourself in the mirror some time. You think you can disappear? How? Where?"
"Is not secret if I tell you."
Secrets. They are my only friends.
I have no illusions. It is not for her. I am not making deal to impress the girl. She is not waiting for me in some secret cottage in the countryside, ready to begin romantic fairytale life in hiding after I wash away my sins with a confession. I do not even want to wash my sins away.
But she made me think. Clarify thoughts and options. Analyse data. Get shit together.
Scotland Yard, MI6 - they will not send anyone after me. Not after I tell them what I know, and of the precautions I have taken with the information. Some things go high on both sides of equation. They don't mind me discovering secrets of my own government officials, but when their high-ranking members of the establishment are involved, when I even hint about what I know, they will pay me what I want to keep quiet.
And all I want is OUT. Very good deal for them. I am like ultimate cheap date.
"You've got something, Nikki," Lydia had said before leaving. She'd pointed around the little room. "You're too clever for this. You would never dig that deep without a morning after plan. I understand the need for a slow reveal, but you're cutting it too close."
Slow reveal. Like the slide of her t-shirt up when I touched her waist. I only wanted to touch her skin one more time. Her forehead against mine, I breathed in her breath, I tasted the air between us and she was not faking that gasp when my fingers brushed the bottom of her breast, when her hand tightened on my arm.
"Surveillance," she whispered. I assured her I knew the angles. It would look as if we were having private conversation. Which we were.
"You drugged your own wine," I whispered. "You let them abduct you."
"It was the only way," she said. "You were never supposed to know about me."
"You could have served it as soon as we got into apartment."
"And miss my only chance?"
Only chance. Because touching foreheads and my hand up her top is all we could manage in this godforfuckingsaken hole in the ground.
"You are right," I said. "It was your only chance, because now I hate you for your betrayal." I hated her for her skill and her deception and her part in this thing. I hated her for being so clever, and for letting them use her like that, to get to me. For coming into this prison and bringing with her all the things she used to capture him in the first place, because the clothes and the contact lens and the background story were not what made him vulnerable him, not really. Her skin was so soft, and her breath quickened when I rubbed my fingertips over her nipple. I wished I could see it, taste it. I told her so. "I wish that is my mouth instead of my fingers."
"I wish your fingers were somewhere else," she answered, and then so did I, too.
There have been women. I would not say more than my share, but there have been plenty of women. There have been men. And I always have enjoyed good, hard fucking. But she was not them and this was not about fucking.
"Nikki, please, don't," when I rolled her nipple between my finger and thumb. "The camera… the guards…" She shook her head and our foreheads rubbed together and I swear there was electricity.
"Lydia," I said, but this time I was not spitting it out. I actually like the sound of it.
I could say nothing more. If I did, I knew I would end up on floor, on my knees. Just for one more taste. To hear those noises once more. I could feel the softness of her curls on my lips and the hardness of her little clit and the satin of her lips, so wet and delicious, and her inner thigh pressing against my ear, the slippingslide of my fingers inside her, and the sound of her voice begging me to get up on the bed with her.
"Damn you," I said.
"I know," she said. "I'm sorry."
I still don't know what she was sorry for.
"There is a card up your sleeve, Nikki, and I know it's an ace. I have faith in that. But believe me, they are getting impatient. Do not wait too long to play it."
Then she left, taking her soft skin and her teasing scent and her goddamn ruined face with her.
But she was right.
I will play my ace.
Now.
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