Less than a week later we were in France. Adrienne and Yasha Petrov. Father and daughter on holiday in Paris. A rather rich father and daughter judging by our accommodation. Hotel George V, close to Champs-Elysées. I had to work extremely hard to keep my mouth from gaping and my eyes widening. If we could afford to stay here then I had to act as if it wasn't something new.
Adrienne and Yasha Petrov obviously didn't exist but if the police were to look it up, they would find a wealthy lawyer and his daughter from St. Petersburg, who often travelled for work. The paperwork was all there, birth certificates, driver's license, credit cards, even properties. For all intents and purposes, we were legit.
Plush carpet sunk beneath my feet and I gazed up at the sparkling chandeliers while Yassen checked us in. I had never been somewhere so marvellous before. Even the widows palace didn't hold a candle to this place.
Our room was on the second floor and once we arrived Yassen went over every inch of it thoroughly. I watched on with amazement as he expertly scoured the room for bugs and set himself up; a digital recorder attached to the side of the fridge, his bag at a particular angle, a pen sitting in a precise location on the desk. Small things, unimportant things to most people, but spoke volumes to him.
Eventually he turned to me, I had merely sat my bag at the end of my bed, inspected the glamorous bathroom then watched him.
"What are we doing here?" I asked.
"Learning." He said simply before adding, "How is your French?"
I had only started to learn French recently and I told him that. After that he made me speak only French while outside of our room. According to Yassen, I would not improve if I did not use it.
He wasn't wrong though. I definitely learned a lot, more than I expected and about things I hadn't expected to. It started when we left the hotel to get dinner. We had been walking through the foyer when Yassen pointed to the reception desk.
"That was where I first saw your mother." He commented out of the blue.
Shocked, I whipped my head around to look at him as we carried on out of the large glass doors onto the cool street. "You met her in France?" I had always just assumed they met in Russia.
He nodded before elaborating, "She had terrible French. Mine was rudimentary but still better than hers. She struggled with English too." He smiled lightly as he remembered. "She was having an incredibly loud argument with the receptionist, began shouting at him in Russian. I'm not sure why she caught my eye... but I went over and I offered to translate."
I snuck a glance at him, rather than being emotionless and blank he seemed, almost contented. "Why were you both in France? What happened after you translated for her?" I wanted to know everything. Neither of them had ever talked about it before.
"She was visiting her grandmother. You were named after her. I was here for work."
"Oh." It was a simple response but made him glance at me, especially when I added, "How long had you..."
He knew what I was asking and replied, "I had only been training. I hadn't done any myself. At that stage I was working with another man, Hunter. He was in charge." A strange look flickered across his face before he carefully hid it. That was when I determined I was going to try and find out more about this Hunter.
"So how did you go from translating to me?" I asked with a curious grin as we walked along the Seine.
"You, well, you were unexpected. After I met her in the foyer, she gave me her number. She said I should call her if I found myself with spare time and we could go to a cafe. I wasn't planning on taking her up on it. Then Hunter went off to... have some time on his own. He met someone. So, I changed my mind and I rung your mother. We went for lunch, then she showed me her favourite places around Paris, we had tea then spent the night together. She left the next day."
There was quiet for a moment, as I took it all in. Birds swirled far above us and few other people strolled the path. The sun was dipping and there wasn't a lot of warmth in the air. "So, you kept in touch?"
He shook his head. "No, no we didn't. I didn't know about you until you were over two. I had a job go wrong. Your mother found me. She patched me up. I was well enough to leave after a week, but I stayed for a month. She introduced me to you. I wasn't sure she was telling the truth at first, but even then, you were a spitting image of me. It was hard to deny."
I mulled it all over in my mind. My hands shoved deep into my pockets to keep them warm and my fingers played with the seam. I'm not sure what I expected but that story wasn't it. Yassen's eyes were on me, I knew, but I hoped I'd been keeping my face blank. It felt like I was hiding it all away but to someone with as much experience as him that probably wasn't saying much. He could probably read me like a book.
"Do you regret it?" The words escaped before I'd even thought it over.
It surprised him enough that his stride faltered for just a moment before he decisively answered. "No. Never. Some things, they're unavoidable. My feelings for your mother, and for you, is one of those things."
I believed him. Whether that was because I genuinely thought he was telling the truth or because I just wanted to, I wasn't sure, but the end result was the same.
So, we continued our week-long holiday, if it could be called that. Yes, we saw the sights, we did the things tourists would. But I also learned more in that week than I had previously. I learned I couldn't have the eggs for breakfast every day we were here, that made me predictable. I didn't tie my right shoe first. I could have no habits. In this business there was no preferences, no beliefs, no emotions, no sentimentality. Nothing that could be a weakness. That was after all, why I was here. Because Yassen had a weakness and now that weakness could be used against him. I had asked him what we could do about that. Again, like many things recently, his reply was terrifying and exhilarating. He would train me. He would teach me to be better than him, he said, as good as Hunter, then, they wouldn't be able to use me. Of course, I hadn't realized but that training had already begun here in France.
Not long after, I finished training at Malagosto. Walking away from that island, I never looked back. I had a few jobs on my own, a few with Jake and Yassen kept training me. I could never stop learning, he said. I even did a lot of jobs working with my father, even if I disagreed with the employer. That was how I ended up in the cockpit of Air Force One.
The engines roared around me as we hurtled down the runway, increasing speed. Outside was a blur and inside the cockpit was full of buttons and lights. Hendryk was fully focused on the controls as I half listened to the conversation in the lounge at the other end of the plane.
Why Yassen thought I needed more experience in the cockpit I had no idea. I doubted I'd ever get my license. He didn't have his, only his helicopter license.
Suddenly a gunshot rang out, drawing my attention back to the speaker from the lounge. The next words chilled me to my core.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Gregorovich. But you're fired."
I froze as the words rang in my ears, again and again, both them and the gunshot seemed to repeat. It took far longer than it should have for me to find my feet. Hendryk was focused on the take-off. He wasn't going to stop me as I numbly levered myself out of the chair and towards the door.
It seemed as though I was trying to wade through water. Everything was slow. My head was spinning, trying to figure out what went so wrong. It went right back to the beginning. We should never have worked for Damien Cray. He had far surpassed warranting the name lunatic. He was a special kind of crazy.
I'm sure everyone we worked for was a bit crazy, a little messed up, sometimes I wondered if we were too, but Cray had a level to himself. There's very little more dangerous than a man who thinks he's saving the world by destroying half of it.
I was almost there, barely meters from the door to the lounge, when the plane shuddered before lurching. It threw me against the wall as it seemed to twist this way and that. Another roll and I fell the other way. A sharp pain lanced through my skull as my eyebrow hit the corner of a bench and my vision turned black.
The plush carpet tickled my face as my eyes cracked open. My vision in one eye was red from blood that had dripped from my forehead. Clenching my fists and taking a mental note of any pains, I pushed myself up. The plane seemed to sway again but this time it was only in my head. Holding onto the wall I waited for my vision to steady.
I hoped I hadn't been out too long. The thought of what might possibly be through that door scared me. Almost holding my breath, I pushed it open.
The sight before me as the door opened was as terrifying as my imagination had been. Cray and the girl were gone but at the other end of the room lay both Alex and Yassen, their eyes shut.
Suddenly my feet picked up speed as I raced across, collapsing onto my knees. Blood covered Yassen's top, so much blood, almost- I shook the thought from my head. It wasn't too much blood. He could still make it; it wasn't spurting out. The bullet hadn't hit an artery and it was on the wrong side for his heart. There was still a chance, as long as I got him out.
Emergency vehicles surrounded the wreck. The inflatable slide still miraculously attached to the door. There was only one course of action. Pulling Yassen to the door, we fell onto the slide.
"Help! Help!" I screamed. By the time I reached the bottom, I had tears streaming down my face. "Somebody help! Oh my god. It was Damien Cray. Please help! He kidnapped us then, then shot him." The words came in sobs.
Immediately Yassen was lifted onto a gurney as someone in military uniform tried to ask me questions. I sobbed in response, refusing to leave Yassen's side, playing into hysteria.
He was bundled into an ambulance and I climbed in beside him. Unfortunately, the military man decided to come for the ride, unwilling to let us go without him. Since he was there though the paramedics sent him to drive so they could both work on Yassen.
One checked for an exit wound before pushing his fingers into the chest to try and manually stop the bleeding while the other hooked up an IV with a bag of blood attached.
Meanwhile I sat off to the side, tears streaming down my face and my breath hitched. No one was paying attention to me, I wasn't of concern right now, which was just the way I liked it. My eyes searched the ambulance for possible weapons, though I doubted I'd need them. The two paramedics could be taken out by hand and Yassen's gun that I'd tucked down the back of my pants could be used on the military man.
The paramedics movements slowed and the man who had his fingers in Yassen's chest had packed the wound and covered it was a chest seal.
"H-How is he?" I asked.
They turned to me, their faces solemn and I feared the worst again. "Stable for now, we've got the bleeding under control and he's getting more blood." He waved his hand towards the bag hooked up to the IV. "As long as he gets to surgery soon, he should be fine. It'll be a long recovery though."
I nodded, relief flooding through me before I put a lid on it and took a deep breath. Now was the time to act. If we went to the hospital we'd be arrested and thrown in a deep dark cell. Moving fast and catching them by surprise I had both paramedics disabled and on the floor.
Grabbing a syringe of midazolam and morphine from the side locker I headed towards the front. The military man hadn't even noticed the paramedics go down and was completely unprepared when I pointed the gun at him and told him to pull over. Once he had complied, I quickly injected the drugs to avoid any resistance and dragged him to join the paramedics before rolling them out the back door.
My heart thumped as I passed Yassen's still, pale body. If it wasn't for the beep of the machines and very slight rise and fall of his chest, I would have thought he was already gone. The urgency seemed to increase with every beep and I launched myself back up the front, speeding away as fast as I could. Lights and sirens blared until we turned into a suburban area and there was little traffic about.
Pulling up outside a small bungalow I reversed right up to the garage and hurried to the front door. Not even bothering to knock I threw it open.
"Frank!" I screamed, "Frank! Open the damn garage and get to work!"
Immediately, I heard the garage start to roll open and a small smile crossed my face. I was grateful it never took much to get Frank going, despite the copious amount of beer he drunk. I'm not sure I ever saw him ingest anything else. Frank was our medical guru, from stitches to setting bones to major surgery. He could do it. I'd heard stories though, of a man who turned up with broken fingers. He'd left with a broken hand. I'm not sure if it were true but the message was the same. If you came to see Frank, you better not be able to deal with it yourself.
Once the ambulance was safely hidden in the garage and Yassen wheeled into the sterile room behind, Frank got to work. Two others turned up to assist and I helped myself to the vodka from the kitchen, pacing anxiously.
They seemed to be working on him forever. Eventually I'd given up pacing and had sat in one of the armchairs, tapping my foot. I couldn't sit still; I'd even gone back to biting the corner of my lip like I did when I was younger. The waiting was the hardest part. It gave my imagination time to run wild and cycle through every worst-case scenario it could come up with.
The fall of heavy footsteps pulled me out of my dark musings. Frank's large body stopped in front of me. The hat containing his dark curls was still on but the rest of his surgical gear was gone.
"Well?" I demanded, bolting to my feet. Pleasantries weren't high on my list right now.
"He's going to be touch and go for a while. Sit, I'll clean that head up." It wasn't a suggestion. He already had the supplies in his hand. With a curt nod, I sank back into the chair and let him get to work. "Are you two the same blood type?" He asked.
I nodded, suppressing a wince as he cleaned the cut on my head. "He needs more?"
"He lost a lot of blood. It's probably a good thing he got hit from so close. The bullet embedded in his scapula rather than bouncing around. It'll be a long recovery, though, he's lucky to be alive at all. I'll get rid of the van once we've stripped it and Dexter will sort out any cameras or witnesses."
The recovery didn't matter to me, though, I appreciated that the clean-up would be handled. All that I really cared about was that he was alive. Even if we weren't out of the woods yet, at least he was alive.
The next week was spent at his bedside, waiting for him to wake. During the first two days Frank hooked me up to give Yassen some of my blood. After that, it was merely waiting. Everything was up to Yassen now. It was hard. He had bandages around his muscular chest. Tubes and wires seemed to come from everywhere. Thankfully the tube down his throat had come out early on and been replaced with a mask. It made the situation seem a lot less serious.
As with every day, I had woken, showered, eaten then sat on the hard plastic chair. I spent most of the day in the chair, save for two hours when I'd work out to keep myself in shape. I could only imagine Yassen berating me if I was unfit or rusty once he was better.
A small TV sat in the corner of the room. The news was on. Damien Cray was, once again, the top story. The authorities were still searching for two suspects. A blonde man in his thirties and a red headed woman in her early twenties. But they would never be found. The red head no longer existed. The wig had been burned and the makeup removed. It was a lot easier to appear older when you're a girl. Throw on a bra and some make up and you age at least five years.
A slight change in the beeping brought my eyes to Yassen. It was only a minute change but enough to put me on edge. I watched closely, waiting for any change in his person.
There it was. His finger twitched. I stood, keeping my eyes on him as my heart sped up. Then his eyes opened, just a little. They flicked around before widening a little more. I was holding my breath. They'd lost him twice during the surgery. There was a chance his brain had been starved of oxygen. There was a chance he wasn't the same.
Then his clear, icy eyes met mine and I knew, I knew he was still there. My breath released and my limbs felt a little like jelly.
"You're okay." It came out as barely more than a whisper.
There was an almost imperceptible nod before a smile grew on his face. Suddenly, he wasn't an agent of Scorpia anymore, he wasn't an assassin, he wasn't even Yassen.
He was Yasha. Just as he had been when my mother was still alive. He was my father and the thought made me warm inside. Happy. A feeling I had almost forgotten. I smiled in return. He was okay.