“And Virus?” she prompted.
“His real name is Petros Grigoris. When I finished ITC, he was in the unit I was assigned to. He’s one of the toughest guys I know. Fiercely loyal. Not much of a talker and has no patience for bullshit, but a good friend.”
“He has no patience for bullshit but is fine with people calling him Virus?” she asked.
His cheeks lifted, but the smile disappeared quickly, replaced with alert concentration. “It was his nickname when I met him. The story goes that the first day he arrived for ITC—that’s whatthey call special ops training—he was sick as a dog. Pale, fever, puking. The way the guys tell it, they make it sound like he was half dead. He didn’t want to get behind, so he wouldn’t go to the infirmary and wouldn’t sit out. Apparently, he had some super contagious flu, and nearly everyone on base ended up getting sick. One of the SOOs started calling him Virus, and it stuck.”
Warmth seeped through her chest. It was a nice story. Funny and personal. She liked hearing him talk about his past.
Then doubt chilled the heat. Was the story part of the role he was playing? An anecdote intended to relax her, to gain her trust?
“Is it true?” she asked.
“Is what true?” he asked, his tone distracted.
“The story about Virus. Is it true or is it another lie? An interesting personal story meant to lull me into a sense of comfort.”
His hands tightened on the wheel. “I never lied to you. There were things I kept from you—serious, important things I should have told you a hell of a lot sooner—but I never lied to you. Everything I said about my life, my family, Phillipe, and myself. It was all real.”
Her ribs felt constricted, like there was a boulder on her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She didn’t know what to believe. She didn’t know if it mattered what she believed. What she did know was that she didn’t want to feel like a fool again.
“I made a gesture of faith by coming with you. Now you need to do the same for me. Promise me there will be no more lies. No more omissions. Big or small. Going forward, I want you to be completely honest and upfront with me. If you can’t do that, I’m leaving.”
She meant what she said. Staying with Aleksei until the danger passed was the safest thing to do, and she wanted tobe safe, but she could not handle being lied to and used. If he couldn’t promise honesty, she’d face this thing on her own.
“All right. I promise. You can ask me anything, and I’ll tell you the truth.”
“I want more than that. I don’t want to have to ask. I don’t want you holding back information and then using the fact that I didn’t ask a question there was no way I could know to ask as an excuse. I want you to tell me everything. Everything. Keep me fully informed.”
Her voice sounded harsh and angry. It should. She was furious. But deeper than her rage was a sorrow so strong, her stomach ached from it. The butterflies of joy and excitement that had danced inside her during the past week lay still and bleeding, cut down by betrayal. Hopefully, her anger masked her suffering. She didn’t want him knowing how much he had hurt her.
“I promise.”
He spoke the words like a vow. His voice shimmered with guilt and regret, seeping through her own anguish, igniting her instinctive need to comfort. She clasped her hands together in her lap, fighting the urge to reach out and lay a reassuring hand on his muscled thigh. To get through the next few days with him, she needed to keep that innate desire in check. She was with him for protection, not to build a relationship.
That thought, and the raging heat in the car, was making her nauseous. Aleksei had turned up the heat to battle the chill that filled the truck while he’d opened the gate, and now she was sweating.
Her scalp twitched.
She glanced at the dashboard. It was 4:00 a.m. Other than the short break at the cabin while she cooked, she’d been wearing a wig for more than nineteen hours straight. She’d never worn one this long. Putting the wig on was normally the lastthing she did before leaving the house, and she took it off the minute she got home.
The twitch was now an itch. Itches, really. Several of them. She pressed her fingers to the sides of her head, but instead of soothing her scalp, the pressure set off a chain reaction of prickly, itchy sensations that made her want to jump out of the truck and chuck the wig into the eerie dark woods.
“Would you turn off the heat?” she asked.
“Sure,” he answered as he adjusted the knob. “Are you okay?”
She was now gripping the console and the overhead handle so tightly that her fingers were tingling.
“Yes. Just a little carsick,” she lied.
There was no way she was telling him what was really bothering her. From now on, she was communicating with him out of necessity, not desire. She’d already shown him too much vulnerability. She wasn’t making that same mistake again.
* * *
Aleksei knew Rose was lying to him, but he didn’t have the right to demand the truth. He'd fucked up. Really fucked up. He could hear her distress in every word she spoke. Pain she was trying to hide from him. Pain he’d inflicted. He’d been so focused on his goals, driving the train down the tracks, zooming right past flashing lights and warning signals.
He hadn’t meant to hurt her.