Summary:Along the way of figuring out his past, Jason Bourne discovers more about himself then he may have been prepared to know. When the sister of a fallen foe enters his life, Jason must learn to forgive and forget the sins of others before he can earn the same forgiveness for his own sins... can love overcome hate? Can trust exist between enemies, or is the thirst for revenge too strong to overlook? (post Ultimatum) Bourne/OFC
Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, own Jason Bourne or anything relating to him - I have simply borrowed him to subject and twist him to my own whims. Any character not related to the Bourne books or movies, however, do belong to me. Yay.
'An Open Heart'
prologue
Miloslave Kalinnikov hummed the tune to a lullaby she could not remember the words to as the first flakes of that evenings snow began to fall down around her. But by now, after so long, the words didn't seem to really matter anymore - all that mattered was the memories the tune carried with it. Grief settled heavily in her heart as she closed her eyes, ignoring the cold and its bite against her skin; she could remember far too vividly for her liking how his voice rumbled in his chest when he hummed the same tune to her as a child and on into adulthood. It hurt to remember these things, as could only be expected when remembering a unique detail about a loved one who had passed on from this world.
A loved one who had been murdered.
Blinking hard, feeling the tears freeze into drops of ice against her flushed cheeks, her brow twisted into something hard and hateful. She remembered that day six weeks ago so clearly, that day when her cab came to a screeching halt near the end of the 'Garden Ring', a tunnel that split between Zubovsky and Taganskaya. Through her window she had been able to see the sickening, mangled mess of twisted metal and shattered glass and what was left of a once impressive Mercedes. Her insides had instantly gone ice cold within her body. She would never know how, but in that moment she had known the terrible truth. She had somehow known who the driver of the nearly severed vehicle was. And despite the words of warning from the cab driver, Miloslava had flung her door open and all out sprinted to the scene of the crash, seeing the other man involved limping hurriedly away from the tunnel as she went, but she had not thought to say something about him as she slipped and stumbled over the glass littering the road.
Standing still and silent in the snow flooded street, Miloslava loosely wrapped her thin fingers around the base of her throat. She recalled the earth shattering wail that had been torn from it when her fears had been confirmed and she had looked into the smashed window to see the broken body of her brother slumped and pinned against the wheel. She had never felt such a strong flare of pain before in all her life as she had then. She had had to be dragged away from the crash site by two men three times her size after that; she had been hysterical. Drowning in her tears, clawing and fighting to get back to the destroyed car, she had screamed the man's name until her throat was raw and her voice lost.
He never answered her, and now he never would.
Lost in her own haunted memories, she did not notice the man approaching her from behind until he reached out, placing his heavy hand on her small shoulders. She spun around with a startled gasp, brown eyes wide when they met his.
"Calm down..." he instructed, a hand covered in a leather glove lifted, palm up to her. His hair, certainly once black and thick, was thinning on top and greying along the temples; he wore thin metal frames with wide, rectangular lenses that balanced on the bridge of his nose. They made his eyes look hollow. A black wool coat was buttoned up to his collar, a blood red tie peeking out from the folds of the garment and he held a briefcase in his right hand down by his side. The light from the nearby street lamp reflected brightly off the toes of his freshly shined shoes as he spoke, "Noah Vosen. You asked to meet me here... Miss Kalinnikov?"
Breathing a sigh of relief, Milo nodded and Vosen watched as the wind pulled a strand of long, wispy dark hair free from the band that held it back and across her smooth, flushed face. The young woman he had agreed to meet with was beautiful, to say the very least - her features were sharp and pronounced, graceful and very young. She was beyond petite, but still healthy looking, with pale lips and eyes as dark as her hair. The arch of her brow and the swoop of her nose gave her away for the Russian she was; Vosen didn't need to hear the accent on her tongue to know her nationality.
"Yes. Yes I did." She nodded once again, voice heavy with the accent Vosen had already known he would hear. "Thank you for agreeing on such short notice... I trust your flight was well enough?"
He shrugged one shoulder in response, not really interested in her polite, 'ice-breaking' small chat. It had been short notice though - very short notice. Just last night she had called him, catching him up late in his office, dangling a rather delicious proposition in front of his nose. Turning his attention to his briefcase, Vosen managed to pop the case open enough to slide a thick folder out and lock the thing back up without much struggle. He held the item out to her in offering, amused when she did not immediately grab it up - he could tell from the way her eyes narrowed in on it that she had so badly wanted to do just that.
"You can imagine how reluctant I am to just hand over all this information to you when I've no guarantee that you wont simply sell it off to the highest bidder the moment I turn my back on you..." He drawled out to her, eyes watching her's carefully. His dark brow jumped above his glasses, "But then again, you've made me an offer I can't, in my right mind, just pass up."
Her brow furrowed softly, gaze dropping off his, and once again he was drawn to the heat of her eyes. In their dark depths a sadness pooled, hot and boiling just beneath the surface, like a deceptively beautiful cobra ready to strike. They made her dangerous, he knew, but vulnerable as well to anyone that could pen point the source of that raw emotion inside of her.
"Tell me," he squinted at her, intrigued by her beauty and by the heat in her eyes, "Why would you be so willing to do this? What's in it for you, Miss Kalinnikov? What could you possibly gain from his death?"
That molten coil of sleeping hell fire in her eyes seemed to erupt before him then, melting the falling snow around them. His brows lifted, arching curiously at it and he watched as she lifted her chin to him. It was a prideful action. It was an aggressive movement and one he was careful to recognize with a bow of his own chin.
"Little more then six week ago," she spoke for the first time in what seemed like ages to Vosen, "there was a massive accident in a tunnel in Moscow. Two men were involved in the crash, one Russian and the other American; the Russian was taken to a hospital less then fifteen minutes away from the tunnel and was pronounced dead upon arrival." She hesitated, voice clipped and thin at the end, and Vosen recognized the pause as an attempt to collect herself before continuing. "There were witnesses, myself among them, who saw the case, and the crash, and the American involved who fled from the scene... but not before he made sure the other man was dead."
Another momentary silence passed between them, during which Vosen took a moment for himself to recall the accident his companion spoke of. He adjusted the metal frame glasses on his nose, patiently waiting for the young woman to continue.
"That man, the Russian who was killed..." Those dangerous eyes narrowed, "He was an FSB special agent operating out of Moscow. His name was Kirill Kalinnikov. He was my brother."
The pieces came together then and Vosen felt the perpetual tension in his jaw loosen, his fixed gaze slipping out of focus for that split second. He could see that Milo was jittery now, shaken by the strength of her own internal anger. "And you want to avenge your brother's death..."
"I want to look into the eyes of the man that killed my brother, the eyes of Jason Bourne, and I want to watch them as he dies by my own hand."
Vosen once again fell silent before this young woman, not in respect or awe or any number of things that can render a man silent for any length of time. He was at a loss for words, stunned by the power behind her voice, the emotion that flowed from her lips. He could feel the raw hatred for the mysterious man she spoke of rolling off her small body in thick waves.
"Very well, Miss Kalinnikov." Vosen lifted the folder to the woman once more, watching her thin fingers finally wrap around the edge and pull it from his gloved grasp. He had no doubt this woman's story would end on a tragic note; she was too young, to inexperienced, but... those eyes. The heat in those eyes made it possible for him to over look her flaws and release the file. "I wish you the best of luck, my dear."
Milo nodded, clutching the file close to her chest, and turned her back on the CIA deputy director.
Review, please!
Constructive criticism welcomed! Excuse any spelling/grammatical errors as I have no beta.