Consumed by Deception (Deception Trilogy #3) by Rina Kent

“Yes.”

“Then why haven’t you voiced them?”

“You didn’t ask for my opinion, so I didn’t see the need to give it.”

“I thought you’d be in Yan’s camp.”

“I am, partially. However, Yan can be reckless. Due to his friendship with Mrs. Volkov, he sometimes forgets about your character, Boss.”

“It’ll get him killed one day.”

“He just cares about her.”

“And you think I don’t?”

“Of course not. You just…show it differently.” Kolya pauses. “What do you plan to do about this situation?”

A long sigh leaves me as I study the pattern of the closed shutters through the glass. When the therapist said that Lia needs a change of habitat, an idea has been building in my head.

I hate it, but it may well be the only solution possible right now.

“I will let her be Winter.”

Kolya watches me intently as if I’ve grown a second head. “You…will?”

“It’s either that or I’ll lose her.”

“And how do you intend to go about that?”

“Do you still keep in touch with your colleague from the Spetsnaz who was excellent at disguise makeup?”

“Yes. What do you need him for?”

“Yan.”

“Yan?”

“Your colleague will disguise Yan so he can keep an eye on Lia.”

“He can’t keep an eye on her as he is?”

“No. She knows his face. It might remind her of me and complicate her state. He needs to look different and have another background.”

“What do you want him to be?”

“A homeless person. Put Lia in the shelter that’s under our protection and make sure to tell Richard that she’s to be treated with care, but hide her identity from him. He’s never met her before, so it shouldn’t be hard.”

“Boss, are you sure about this?”

“Yes, Kolya. I’ll let her believe the lie. If she wants to be Winter, so be it.”

Because sooner or later, her path will be a one-way road to me.





Adrian





A month later





It never gets any easier.

Not the part about watching from afar.

Or the part about going to an empty home without her.

Or the part where Jeremy asks me when his mother is coming back.

I tell myself it’s for her sake, for her mental health, and to kill whatever reason she had for jumping off the cliff.

I tell myself that she’ll remember me, that she’ll one day recognize Yan, then tell him to take her home.

Hasn’t happened so far.

If anything, she seems to be more invested in her fake life as Winter.

I hate that fucking name and the woman behind it who’s still comatose in my guest house. If Lia hadn’t met her, she wouldn’t have jumped off that cliff and we wouldn’t be here.

Though, it was probably only a matter of time before Lia attempted her escape. Meeting Winter was the last straw that broke the camel’s back, not the first.

What I hate the most about this situation are the conditions she’s living in. My Lenochka isn’t supposed to sleep in shelters or on the streets. She shouldn’t be wearing charity clothes and torn gloves.

She shouldn’t be homeless.

Her home is with me and Jeremy.

Every day, I battle the urge to whisk her up and take her with me, to drive her to our house where she was always meant to be.

Something stops me, though.

The change in her.

Unlike before, Lia’s often smiling now and even laughing with Yan—or Larry, as she knows him. Watching her interactions with him give me different urges, like strangling the life out of him.

I don’t like that she laughs with him yet doesn’t even remember me. I hate that she bonded with him in no time but had only panic attacks when I was by her side at the hospital.

But at the same time, I like that she’s more carefree, that her demons aren’t getting the better of her.

Yan also mentioned that she hasn’t had a single nightmare since the day she became homeless.

A few weeks ago, I had Emily, one of our department store managers, give Lia a makeover while she was on sleeping pills. The store manager changed my wife to look like the pictures of Winter we found on surveillance cameras. When she woke up in the hospital, I had a different doctor than Putin discharge her in case she remembered any details from the past and recalled his face.

Lia didn’t have any trouble believing she was Winter or adapting to her life, as if it had always been her own. It could be because she was used to being around the homeless due to the amount of volunteering she took part in.

She did mention once that they were free.

I never forgot her expression from back then, the sadness in it, and how much her eyes shone with a secret yearning for that freedom.

That night, I made up an excuse to spank her, to punish her for ever thinking about leaving me. Then I fucked her like a madman as if intending to purge that idea out of her head.

But deep down, I recognized that she believed in it. In fact, she probably buried it in her subconscious until this moment.

Being homeless is akin to freedom to her.

Kolya stops the car at the back of the shelter she stays in and we wait. My second-in-command retrieves his phone, probably to check on the hackers’ emails. Boris opens and closes his cigarette pack but doesn’t light one.