Claim Me

Chapter 8

8

Yulia

The familiar smell of car exhaust and lilacs fills my nostrils as the car weaves through the busy Kiev streets. The man Obenko sent to pick me up at the airport is someone I’ve never seen before, and he doesn’t talk much, leaving me free to take in the sights of the city where I lived and trained for five years.

“We’re not going to the Institute?” I ask the driver when the car makes an unfamiliar turn.

“No,” the man replies. “I’m taking you to a safe house.”

“Is Obenko there?”

The driver nods. “He’s waiting for you.”

“Great.” I take a steadying breath. I should be relieved to be here, but instead, I feel tense and anxious. And it’s not just because I screwed up and compromised the organization. Obenko doesn’t deal kindly with failure, but the fact that he extracted me from Colombia instead of killing me eases my worry in that regard.

No, the main source of my anxiety is the empty feeling inside me, an ache that’s growing more acute with every hour without Lucas. I feel like I’m going through a withdrawal—except that would make Lucas my drug, and I refuse to accept that.

Whatever I had begun to feel for my captor will pass. It has to, because there’s no other alternative.

Lucas and I are over for good.

“We’re here,” the driver says, stopping in front of an unassuming four-story apartment building. It looks just like every other building in this neighborhood: old and rundown, the outside covered with a dull yellowish plaster from the Soviet era. The scent of lilacs is stronger here; it’s coming from a park across the street. Under any other circumstances, I would’ve enjoyed the fragrance that I associate with spring, but today it reminds me of the jungle I left behind—and, by extension, the man who held me there.

The driver leaves the car by the curb and leads me into the building. It’s a walk-up, and the stairwell is as rundown as the building’s exterior. When we walk past the first floor, I hear raised voices and catch a whiff of urine and vomit.

“Who are those people on the first floor?” I ask as we stop in front of an apartment on the second floor. “Are they civilians?”

“Yes.” The driver knocks on the door. “They’re too busy getting drunk to pay us much attention.”

I don’t have a chance to ask more questions because the door swings open, and I see a dark-haired man standing there. His wide forehead is creased, and lines of tension bracket his thin mouth.

“Come in, Yulia,” Vasiliy Obenko says, stepping back to let me enter. “We have a lot to discuss.”

Over the next two hours, I go through an interrogation as grueling as anything I’d experienced in the Russian prison. In addition to Obenko, there are two senior UUR agents, Sokov and Mateyenko. Like my boss, they’re in their forties, their trim bodies honed into deadly weapons over decades of training. The three of them sit across from me at the kitchen table and take turns asking questions. They want to know everything from the details of my escape to the exact information I gave Lucas about UUR.

“I still don’t understand how he broke you,” Obenko says when I’m done recounting that story. “How did he know about that incident with Kirill?”

My face burns with shame. “He learned about it as a result of a nightmare I had.” And because I had confided in Lucas afterwards, but I don’t say that. I don’t want my boss to know that he had been right about me all along—that when it mattered, I couldn’t control my emotions.

“And in this nightmare, you what… spoke about your trainer?” It’s Sokov who asks me this, his stern expression making it clear that he doubts my story. “Do you usually talk in your sleep, Yulia Borisovna?”

“No, but these weren’t exactly usual circumstances.” I do my best not to sound defensive. “I was held prisoner and placed in situations that were triggers for me—that would be triggers for any woman who’d undergone an assault.”

“What exactly were those situations?” Mateyenko cuts in. “You don’t look particularly maltreated.”

I bite back an angry response. “I wasn’t physically tortured or starved, I already told you that,” I say evenly. “Kent’s methods of interrogation were more psychological in nature. And yes, that was in large part due to the fact that he found me attractive. Hence the triggers.”

The two agents exchange looks, and Obenko frowns at me. “So he raped you, and that triggered your nightmares?”

“He…” My throat tightens as I recall my body’s helpless response to Lucas. “It was the overall situation. I didn’t handle it well.”

The agents look at each other again, and then Mateyenko says, “Tell us more about the woman who helped you escape. What did you say her name was?”

Calling on every bit of patience I possess, I recount my encounters with Rosa for the third time. After that, Sokov asks me to go through my escape again, minute by minute, and then Mateyenko interrogates me about the security logistics of Esguerra’s compound.

“Look,” I say after another hour of nonstop questions, “I’ve told you everything I know. Whatever you may think of me, the threat to the agency is real. Esguerra’s organization has taken down entire terrorist networks, and they’re coming after us. If you have any contingency measures in place, now is the time to implement them. Get yourselves and your families to safety.”

Obenko studies me for a moment, then nods. “We’re done for today,” he says, turning toward the two agents. “Yulia is tired after her long journey. We’ll resume this tomorrow.”

The two men depart, and I slump in my chair, feeling even emptier than before.