I am the one nobody talks about, though they wonder. I am the one nobody knows, although they're dying to look for me.
Several years ago, I met Irina. She was smart, she was funny, she was everything I wanted as a wife. So I asked her to marry me. She said yes, and we were wed on a cold February night—indoors, of course. We took a weeklong honeymoon down to Greece. My favorite part was climbing Mount Olympus, and Irina's was visiting the temple of the Greek goddess, Menthe. I took her back to my home in Southampton and began teaching her English. It was then that I noticed that she had seemed to be keeping secrets from me. She left for work each day at 4:30 and only came home at 8:30, 10:00 at times. She would leave for a business trip and come back with a gash on her cheek. She would say that her kitchen knife had slipped or that she had fallen down the stairs, but I knew that my Irina couldn't be that clumsy that consistently. She said she worked at a bank, but that was hard to believe. I felt dreadful not able to trust my wife, but I was worried. I asked my sources to keep tabs on her activities.
Irina was clever. She knew I would do that. I never found out what she did, but they could never find her, let alone tail her. So I hid a tracking device on the bottom of her nail polish, and bugged her sunglasses with a tiny Ekat bug that resembled a rhinestone. The news that came in… I didn't know what to do. Irina was a Cahill. Irina was a Lucian. Irina worked for the KGB. I had tracked her down to Paris, where she visited the Lucian stronghold multiple times. On the way back, she stopped in KGB headquarters before coming back home. I pretended to be just fine, but I'm pretty sure she suspected something—she had been trained well as a Lucian. I had hoped that I would marry a normal, non-Cahill person and forget my ancestry, but not only was Irina a Cahill, she was a Lucian. Not only was she a Lucian, but also she was an active Lucian. And not only was she an active Lucian, but Irina was my wife. And I loved her. Not only did I love her, but Irina was pregnant with our son. Our son.
Irina couldn't find out about me and my secret, so I had to leave. I left in September 2001. But I didn't want to hurt the one person I loved in the world by having her think I abandoned her, so when the New York police were collecting the names of the dead from 9/11, I added my name on the list. I was dead to the world.
I can only imagine how my Irina felt when she discovered that I was dead, but I did die that day. The light of my life was snuffed out to me by my own choice, and though I walked and moved and breathed, my life was over.
I took up the name of Gideon James, and after returning to England, I took a job at a government office validating birth certificates. I wore slightly higher shoes, knowing that Irina would notice even the smallest differences and take note of them. I wore blue-tinted contacts and dyed my brown crop of hair a salt-and-pepper black. I was the one who signed my son Nikolai's birth certificate, wishing I could run from behind the counter and tell Irina everything. I don't even know why I traveled back to England, except for that I had to be near Irina. My branch leader was very worried about my decision, thinking that Irina might discover me, and she was right to be worried. I should have been.
After my branch leader died, the Clue hunt started, and seven teams, including my Irina, traveled across the globe in search of 39 clues. I was very distressed, and tried to help Irina and the two Cahill children in whatever way I could. I sent Irina a few letter to accept young Dan and Amy, even, knowing the gifts they had inherited from their parents and their grandmother. Months passed as six teams continued to hunt, five of them trying to kill each other all the way. Irina finally accepted the advice from my anonymous letters and talked to Amy, warning her of the dangers of Isabel Kabra. I flew down to Australia to help in whatever way I could.
Indonesia came. Irina saw what Isabel bought, and I saw what my wife did. But I wasn't worried. My wife knew how to take care of herself, and if not, I would back her up. But Isabel set the fire too early. My Irina saved Alistair Oh and the children, but she was stranded on the roof of a burning house. I should have known she would make the ultimate sacrifice to prevent others from making it. I tried to find something to help her, but one of Isabel's guards delayed me and I was about a minute too late. My wife fell into the fire, taking part of me with it, but I wouldn't let it go. I wouldn't let her go. I jumped into the fire.
I told Irina as much as I could while choking black smoke out of my lungs. I told her what I had done who I was, and that I loved her. She squeezed my hand. When Irina died, I died too.
Reporters found two bodies in the charred ruins of the house, and no one could identify them. I knew, though, and Irina knew. It was us. Together. Peace had come between myself and my wife, as my branch would have wanted. And we were together, Nikolai, Irina, and I. Peace had come to the Spasky house.