A/N: Main notes at end.

Chapter 3

Rose knew how to charm. Spent weeks learning to do so when she first entered her training. They taught her to flirt, seduce, and use her sexuality to her advantage in any way possible. The boys in her class always thought it was unfair that she was given the easy way out. Called her a cheating slut.

Rose never took it to heart. Did her best to not let it affect her.

If they were really good at their jobs, they would find a way to use their charm on their marks.

Maybe they have by now.

But here she was now, having dinner with a dangerous weapons dealer. He's probably killed people too. He would be a good shot, Rose thought. Be disappointing if he wasn't.

She wondered what kind of gun he's packing right now. If he'd have the predictable one in his jacket and maybe even a second one in his ankle.

He'd be stupid to come unarmed. Rose certainly didn't.

He was dressed smart casual in dark grey jacket, white shirt and slacks that had Rose staring at his backside every chance she got. Rose herself was dressed in a deep red dress, which ended mid-thigh, it clung to her in the most flattering way, and rendered Dimitri momentarily speechless when he picked her up from her apartment that hour before.

His text this morning was brief and unspecific.

Pick you up at 8. Dress up. – D.

Guess he wasn't much of a texter then.

Rose snorted at the directness of his text, she's never usually the type of girl who would take this. But then again, if she was being herself, that would be made very clear from the beginning.

"So, where did you grow up?" Rose asked politely, soon after her glass of wine was poured. She sipped on her glass of Montepulciano with grace, trying her hard not to grimace at the taste. Wine was never her drink of choice, her sweet tooth carried over into her choice of alcohol as well.

She would have ordered herself a rum and coke, but Dimitri has ordered the bottle of wine by the time she had gotten there.

"I grew up in a small town in Russia, moved here a couple of years back," he answered. Rose already knew this, of course. "It's called Baia, a small town."

"What prompted the move?"

"Job opportunities mostly, I wanted to provide, and I got a good job offer here, so I packed up and took it."

"Wow," Rose mused, "That must've been a lot, moving halfway across the world and leaving your family behind."

"It's certainly not easy, but you probably know how hard it is to move away," he said.

"Yeah, but I didn't have a lot of people to leave behind."

"Not close to your family?"

"I don't have much of a family, my mother and I are estranged, and I don't know my father," she explained, her identity not far from the truth. Rose liked to intertwine the truth with her lies, making it easier to believe, for both herself and her target. "It is what it is, how about you?"

"I'm sorry to hear that," he seemed genuine in his sympathy. "It's hard to keep familial relationships, especially long distanced, but I still try."

He was frustratingly vague.

Rose knew all about his history, of course. His father was an alcoholic who got arrested when Dimitri was his early teens, and his mother and sisters still live in Baia. Their lives seemingly innocent in comparison to Dimitri's, but his little sister Viktoria was known to have affiliations with the local dealer there. Maybe she was going down the same criminal route as her big brother.

Rose wondered how Dimitri felt about that if he even knew about it at all.

Was he the kind of person who wanted their family out of the action? Or make it a family business?

"What do you do for a living?" Rose asked, shoving a forkful of salad in her mouth to look innocent in her questioning. This was the moment where Rose would be able to suss out the lie, to know his tell, everyone had one.

Rose had trouble with this in her training. People like Dimitri who lived their lie to the point of truth, sensing out a tell was difficult. Everything that Dimitri said was so charming that it was difficult to tell what was natural and what he accentuated.

Lies were hard.

But then again, the truth would be so much harder.

"I'm in business," Dimitri offered, "Invest in some places, pretty standard stuff"

"Oh yeah? Sounds interesting."

His books and expenses gave away small businesses he was involved in, laundrettes, a bakery, a furniture store. Some were legit and some were flagged for being a front of his weapons smuggling. Rose was still sifting through every part of the business during the days, but it was long to do all on her own.

"It's alright from time to time, gets repetitive but I still like it," he gestured his glass up, "How about you?

"I work in marketing. Can't say it's exciting myself, but I enjoy numbers," Rose smiled, her lie coming out smoothly. "I'm very new to it though, not sure if I'll think the same in a few years," She studied her cover story this morning while listening to the tapes last night, practising sentences about her job over again in the mirror until it seemed like second nature.

She thought back to what she heard this morning.

-x-

Skipping over the banal talk of the workers, she was forwarding till she found the time stamp she estimated.

'Has he arrived yet?' spoke a voice Rose didn't recognise, but with the same accent as Belikov, she could only guess it was his right-hand man, Ivan.

'Should be here soon, meetings in five minutes,' Dimitri answered. There was some movement, sounded like one of them was sitting down and the other was pacing around the room.

There were two microphones in the room, one under the table in the middle of the room and one in the lamp that was situated in the corner of the room.

'Gentlemen' a voice entered a room. Rose knew that voice from the day before, the gruffness of his voice still the same. It was Sal, the club's manager, maybe he was the buyer after all, Rose thought for a moment.

'Sal,' greeted Dimitri, 'Is our meeting running late?'

'Not at all', there was some rustling that followed that Rose couldn't quite tell what was going on.

Then she heard a ringing.

'Belikov,' greeted a voice on a phone, it was masked with some voice altering mechanism that made it sound warbled and deep. Rose started to set up a voice unmasking programme on her laptop, it probably wouldn't work if they didn't speak enough, it would be more helpful if she was able to hand this off to one of the techies at St. Vlad's.

'Sir, I thought we'd be meeting face to face this time,' Dimitri led the meeting, his voice snippier than she'd known it to be. He was pissed.

'Something came up.'

'Let's reschedule'

'There's no need.'

'Will all due respect, sir. I find it trouble doing business with someone I have never met in person or name I don't know. Forgive me, but my suspicions are rising about your character'

'Are you saying you don't trust me, Belikov'

'Respectfully, no,' the bluntness of Dimitri's response made Rose snort unexpectedly. 'And I guess you don't trust me either, considering you still won't meet me.'

'You're not entirely wrong.' There was a beat of silence. 'You'll meet me at your sale. And I'm happy to double the price for any inconvenience I've caused.'

The silence following had Rose checking the audio was still playing.

'Are you weighing your options?' the voice spoke up again.

'The shipment will be coming three weeks today.' Ivan said for the first time since the meeting started.

'I will contact you in three weeks. Enjoy the evening gentleman. I'm sure Sal here will make sure of that'

'Three weeks.' Dimitri said. 'Until then'

Click.

And the phone call was over.

'Thank you, gentleman,' Sal said, moving and causing some rustle, before opening the door. 'I'll set you up with a table in our VIP area'

'No need. We'll be on our way,' Rose could feel the anger of his voice seeping through. It also explained the frustration he was releasing while they had sex minutes after this moment.

Rose listened for another 10 minutes after and then sped up to listen anything for the rest of the evening while she was running the scrambled voice through the programme. Nothing came up on the tapes that got Rose's attention.

They talked throughout their main course about their lives, Rose's filled with lies and Dimitri being ambiguous at every stage. They were dancing around each other like two creatures before they began to strike.

"Are you up for dessert?" Dimitri asked politely, pulling Rose from her thoughts.

"Sure" Rose's voice lowered, "Nothing I could order here though," Dimitri's eyes dropped to her lips and lingered, before turning around and signalling the waiter for the bill.

-x-

Dimitri stuck around this time after, they went for a fancier place than last time, the hotel much better than the questionable motel and the god forbidden bathroom they were in before.

Rose laid her head on his chest, almost instinctively and before she had the chance to double guess herself, Dimitri's hand placed itself in her hair and began caressing slowly.

"That last round…" he started, still a bit breathless.

"I know," Rose agreed.

"Yeah," his voice still in his post orgasmic high, Rose laughed at his monosyllabic reply. "Was good."

"I know" she huffed a laugh "Don't go falling in love with me or anything," making a stupid joke in the middle of her bliss.

"Someone's confident, aren't they?" He said, smiling so his eyes crinkled at the corner, he really did have a beautiful smile. Rose could stand back and admire it for days.

"What can I say? I have a lot to fall in love with," she winked at him.

"Mm" he hummed in agreement.

"You don't agree?"

"I guess I can't disagree," his mouth holding back another smile. Rose really did bring out the playful side of him.

"Then what's with the 'mm'" she mocked and poked him in the stomach mock-glaring at him. She felt his abs contact at the touch and she smiled up at him before trailing her finger down lower, into his patch of hair below his bellybutton. Stroking slowly.

"Don't start something you don't intend to finish," he warned her.

"Oh, I definitely intend for you to finish," she said with confidence before putting her mouth to work.

Later that night, when Rose falls asleep next with a man who list of crimes are longer that her grocery list, she briefly thinks about the last man who held her this close.

-x-

Rose woke up to the subtle sunlight coming through the white voile. She blinked a few times to her surrounding, looking for the man she slept next to all night, who was putting on his socks and shoes at the edge of his side of the bed.

"Mornin'" grumbled Rose, who was in desperate need of some caffeine right about now.

"How'd you sleep?" Dimitri asked, his voice soft, like the way morning fresh air was.

"Good," she yawned, "Leaving so soon?"

"Work," he replied, stiffly but not unkindly.

"Can I see you again?"

"I would like that very much," he came and kissed her on the forehead, "go to sleep, the room is paid until midday."

"Sir, yes, sir," mumbled Rose and turned over to go back to sleep for at least another hour.

His light laugh was the last thing she heard.

-x-

On their second date, which Rose decided she was going to plan, ended with them making out in the heavy rain of a picnic in the park gone wrong. They both soon found shelter under the tree, kissing, and sharing stories. She learnt rain was his favourite, but he didn't love it as much as he loved snow. He missed the snow of Baia.

The third date, Dimitri bought Rose a single rose which Rose had no problem telling him how much she hated roses.

So, he brought lilies for their next date.

Rose still had them in a vase on her bedside table, it was the first thing she saw when she woke up.

If this was a normal relationship, Rose would love the pace that they were going. She would love the full dedication of the few hours she would have him for and find out all the titbits about his life back home or his favourite songs growing up, but it was not getting her closer to the identity of the buyer.

She had two weeks and she needed more information from him. She had to condense a very long game into such a short amount of time.

Dimitri was very good at keeping his work and personal life completely separate. He never so much peeped a word about his work apart from the old "work was good" answer he'd give every time she'd ask. He never really texted her apart from making plans but when they were together, it was just the two of them and no one else.

He knew how to make her feel special.

"Can you tell me more about your job?" Rose asked one date, them sitting at the edge a bridge, overlooking the river with the moon high in the sky. It was the end of a really long week; they had seen each other almost every day.

She had her hand interlocked with his, loving how big his hand felt, encapsulating hers so easily.

"It's very boring," he said shrugging a little, "It's a lot of paperwork and travelling around and talking to people."

"That's so boring, give me more, tell me what you hate and love about it, any office gossip?" Rose looked at him, pouting "I tell you all about my office gossip."

All made up of course, but if Dimitri ever met a lady called Janice from finance, he would walk in the opposite direction from her.

"I guess I don't have any eccentric stories as you do, Roza," he brought one arm round to her side a tickled her slightly, "I prefer listening to yours anyway."

"You are like Fort Knox, good sir," she booped him on the nose.

"I try not to be," he whispered, his warm brown eyes staring into hers, making the morning very vulnerable all of a sudden. "I try for you."

"You make me want to know every single part about you," she whispered back.

"I-" he started. Rose brought a hand to rest on his shoulder.

"Tell me."

"There's things that's best not to know about someone."

"That's okay," she said reassuringly, "I won't force you to tell me anything you don't want me too."

"I like you a lot, Roza" The nickname sent a shiver down her spine. "Are you cold?"

"No." She mouthed. "I like you too, Dimitri, and I'm sure I'll like all the parts you don't want anyone to see too."

He didn't say anything, avoiding the statement altogether by giving Rose soft kisses. Ones that's stayed soft rather than grow hungry like the ones when they were about to have sex.

This kiss spoke of more to come.

When Rose got home that evening, she decided to listen to the tapes again. The decoding programme didn't do much apart from taking of the warped part of it, it was still deep and slightly off that the results were a little too all over the place. Rose guessed they put their voice through some sort of programme multiple times to get that voice, so Rose put in her result through again.

The only downside of doing this herself was it took forever to do on her laptop and made it prone to crashing lots of times.

Rose did the same thing after the meeting had ended on tape, putting the rest on five times speed to go through. She went through day by day, mostly hearing the employees complain about customers and the work.

She stopped every time Sal came in the room, which was rare, he seemed to only come in every once in a while, to talk to someone or pick up something, nothing suspicious.

Rose went through Sal's contacts and banking and didn't find anything that could lead him to the buyer, she had no idea how the buyer would know Sal and vice versa. And Rose had nowhere to direct her with him.

Suddenly, the tapes stopped. Rose furrowed her brow and rewound the last couple of minutes of the tape. There were no voices, but someone entered the room and moved straight towards the first microphone, in the lamp, they moved it from its position and there was a crush sound that the other microphone picked up.

The footsteps went towards the other microphone and silence ensued.

Someone destroyed Rose's equipment. She felt a jolt of panic wreck through her throwing her body into a state of nausea.

Who the fuck knew about them? Rose was sure there was no cameras that saw her put them in that room.

She checked the time it was recorded. It was the end of last night when she was out with Dimitri. She went over every single moment from her date with him on that day and last night, trying to pinpoint when he checked his phone and if his mood changed afterwards.

The only difference was his moment of vulnerability he had with Rose. There was a spark of hurt in her chest that that moment could be fake. The little part of her brain, the one that commits to the role, thought she was actually Rosalind, was hurt the most.

She was just committing to the role, she though as she laid in bed that night. She wouldn't feel this hurt if she wasn't.

A/N:

I know I skip over chunks of time a lot, it can be a bit hit or miss sometimes lol. I'm still trying to find my own style of writing and getting better at it with everything I write so have some leeway with me pls.

Thank you for all the lovely reviews, they have been so encouraging with the writing.

I got really frustrated when I wrote the whole chapter on my phone on the train last week and then accidently deleted the whole thing. But I think I like this re-written version more; I just know I had some more poetic lines in the last version which I couldn't remember. But we move.

Till next time. xx.