Page 69 of Poison Evidence

Ivy startled at that. It had never occurred to her that he was part American—even legally so. If his mother was born in the US, he had a claim to citizenship.

“Montana,” Dimitri said in answer to her unasked question. “She ran away from home at sixteen. Ended up in West Berlin when she was nineteen. She was there for the music scene at first. Travel was allowed from West Berlin into the East with a visa. My mom had friends with family on the East side and made several visits. She met my father, who was from Grozny but serving in the Soviet military, in East Berlin.”

“So you’re Chechen and American.”

He shrugged. “The name Veselov is more Russian than Chechen, and to the best of my knowledge, I have no family in Chechnya. I was born in West Berlin. Raised in Moscow and trained to be an American. I’ve lived in the US since I was twenty-two. I really don’t know what I am.”

She shook her head. “Born in West Berlin. You could claim German citizenship too.”

“It would take some work to find my birth certificate, and I doubt the surname on the document is Veselov. You see, my mother never told me her last name or why she ran away. She promised she would, when I was older.” He shrugged. “Any paperwork that included her maiden name was lost when we became wards of the state—if not sooner.”

“You mean you don’t know if you still have family in Montana?”

“I probably do. When my parents died, I fantasized about grandparents or aunts and uncles who would claim us. But I gave up those dreams. Dreams are dangerous. Plus, when I was older, I started to suspect what she might’ve been running from, and that maybe her family wouldn’t be any better.”

She slid a hand across the table and gripped his fingers. His story was going to be a hell of a lot more painful to share than hers had been.

So her husband cheated on her with someone younger and prettier.Boo-fucking-hoo. Sometimes, all one needed was a bit of perspective.

“I was six months old,” Dimitri continued, “when my mother was granted a visa to bring me into East Berlin. At that point, she just…stayed. My parents married, and when my dad was discharged from the military, we all moved to Moscow. I don’t remember Berlin or anything about living in the former GDR. My first memories are in Moscow, around the time my sister was born.”

His grip on her fingers tightened. “When Sophia was six, bullies at school began harassing her because our mother was American, and my mother sat me down and told me it was my job to protect her. I was the boy and was tough like my dad. Bullies never messed with me. I vowed to my mother that no one would hurt Sophia under my watch.

“We were a typical happy family, with the slight oddity of having an American mother in the Soviet Union, until our parents died when I was eleven. After that, we were sent to the orphanage, and there were more bullies to contend with. But I kept my promise. After three years, when we were recruited into the embed program, it was…a huge relief. It wasn’t ahomeper se, but it wasn’t the hellhole we’d been in. In the program, we were safe. There were no more threats of separating Sophia and me. Food was plentiful and hearty. Our English was an asset, not a reason to pick a fight. We were proud, patriotic Russians.” He paused and held her gaze. “It’s important to remember, I do love the Russia of my childhood. Hell, I love Russia—the place and people—now. What I don’t love is what I was forced to do for the government, and that the country has returned to a dictatorship.”

He picked up the shot glass and stared at it without drinking. He set it back on the table. “By that time, the Soviet Union had fallen and the GRU was scrambling to figure out its role in a post-Cold War world. We were part of an offshoot shadow organization, a group eager to retry embedding Russians who could pass as Americans—a program that had largely ended in the seventies—but now was being revamped with extensive training and planning.

“My accent was cleaner than Sophia’s, but then, I’d had our mother longer. When I was seventeen, how-to-be-an-American school took backstage to the more exciting stuff—how to fight. How to shoot. Tradecraft in all forms. I was good at it—better than Sophia—but at that point, I was less enchanted with the eventual goal. The training was fun, but the idea of living amongst Americans—my mother’s people—and spying on them didn’t sound great.

“When I was nineteen, after a six-week test trip to the US where I was able to pass flawlessly, I asked to be released from the program. The powers that be weren’t happy. After all, they’d invested years and money on both Sophia and me, and we were the strongest contenders in the program. I was supposed to be just over a year out from my permanent assignment. Initially, they wanted me to establish my identity, then after a few years, join the US Navy. They wanted me to try to get on a SEAL team.”

He picked up the shot glass again and this time drank half. He held the glass up to the light. “If I were a good Russian, I’d drink vodka.” His mouth pinched as he glared at the glass. “But here I am with scotch.” He met Ivy’s gaze. “Because I balked, Sophia was beaten with a hockey stick.Myhockey stick. I’d promised my mom that no one would hurt Sophia under my watch, and then a sadistic bastard beat her, because of me.”

“It’s not your fault. Your situation was impossible—”

He cut her off. “Why do you blame yourself for your husband’s cheating?”

“Touché.”

He finished his shot and set the glass in the center of the table. “The bastard who hurt her miscalculated. He’d just spent five years training me to fight with whatever was at hand. And to pick locks. Climb walls. Track data. Hack computers. You name it. I was a fuckingmasterof tradecraft. So I used what I’d learned to find out where he lived. Late one night, I escaped our compound and paid him a visit. I brought my hockey stick and gave him a lesson in the sport. Then I told him I’d finish my training and do my job, but Sophia was out. She was to be removed from the program. Move her to a nice apartment and maybe she could go to regular school, like other sixteen-year-old girls. I also told him that if he ever hurt Sophia again, I’d be back, but next time, I’d bring a puck.”

Dimitri cleared his throat. “Sophia was moved out of the facility. They didn’t give her an apartment like I wanted. She went into foster care. The family was decent. I was permitted to see her once a month—I needed to make sure the GRU wasn’t punishing her for my actions. When my training was complete, I became Parker Reeves. I didn’t see Sophia again for three years.”

His eyes darkened, and she wondered what he was leaving out. He cleared his throat. “That visit, when I was twenty-five, was the last time I saw her.”

How awful to have only one family member in the world and be cut off from that person for a decade.

He grabbed the bottle of scotch and poured himself another shot. “During my visit, Sophia was raped by the same man who’d beaten her when she was sixteen. He made me listen to her screams. He was higher up in the organization then. No way could I retaliate and expect Sophia to live.”

Ivy wanted to cover her ears, to hide from the horror of his story. To hide from the pain in his voice, the pain Sophia must have suffered. Instead, she poured herself a shot, knocked it back, and grimaced at the burn.

She lifted her gaze from the empty glass. His blue eyes were unguarded, showing all the pain he must’ve had to cloak when he lived as Parker Reeves.

“Am I the first person you’ve ever shared this with?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. For telling me.”