Agent 7. The Shadows: Part I

▪️◼️Chapter Thirty One◼️▪️

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ALINA
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I inhale sharply as I sit up in bed. A loud noise has startled me awake. I take a few rapid breaths to steady my breathing.

"Matteo?" I call out in a disoriented panic. Soft morning light is pouring in from the window to my right as the quiet murmuring of voices fill the air. I quickly search the bed to find it empty.

"Matteo?" I call out again, my voice is hoarse from exhaustion.

I turn my focus to the living room where I find Matteo--hands balled into fists at his sides--glaring up at the television hanging on the wall in front of him. My eyes follow his gaze.

My eyes all but pop from my skull as I take in the man on the screen.

"о мой Бог" I gasp. "How is this possible?"

On the television a live news broadcast is interviewing Mayor Oleg Borkov as he announces his run for Presidency. I shake my head back and forth in utter disbelief.

I watched him have a heart attack. And then I witnessed Matteo put a bullet through his head shortly after. Borkov is dead.

This... this doesn't make any sense.

Matteo, hearing my voice, turns toward me.

I flinch back when I see the rage in his eyes. Angry doesn't begin to describe his disposition. He's terrifying in this moment. Absolute venom oozes from his every feature. His shoulders are broad and his fists are curled at his sides. If smoke could billow from his ears, it would.

He takes a step toward me and I freeze with fear unsure if his anger is directed at me or the deadman who is very much alive on the television screen.

"Are you behind this?" He seethes, pointing to the television behind him. His words hiss off his thinned lips. My brows raise as I desperately shake my head, no.

"I don't understand. What's going on?" My voice is pleading, I need him to make sense of all of this.

Quickly, before I have a chance to scurry away, Matteo is at the edge of the bed grabbing me up by my arms. He is rough as he gets in my face. "Tell me how this is possible, Alina!" He demands, enraged. "How is the man I sent you to kill, the man I did kill, alive?!"

My breathing falters as I struggle to form words. I'm just as perplexed as he is. "I-i, I don't know! I was there when you shot him Matteo. I-i don't know how this is possible!" I need him to believe me, I don't understand any of this, either. We were both there, he held me in his arms as he took his life. I felt the vibration of the gun through Matteo's chest.

"You're lying," he seethes. "Why else would The Agency have put a hit on you? You, Vladimir, and Oleg must have been conspiring together this entire time!" He growls viciously. "Was it for this?" He tips his head towards the television screen behind him. "The Presidency?"

I gasp, dropping my hands loosely at my sides, in horror. "The people you work for put a hit on me?" I ask, incredulously. It's as if a heavy weight has fallen onto my chest and I have no way of getting it off.

I watch Matteo's body go rigid, his muscles as hard as stone at the question, yet he says nothing. His silence is all the confirmation I need. My stomach drops.

"A-and you were the agent sent to kill me?" My voice quivers. I lift my eyes to his. It isn't really a question, because deep down I already know the answer.

For a brief moment a pang of guilt flashes across his features. I see it in the way his onyx pupils dilate against the vibrant turquoise-green of his eyes. All too quickly they retract, as if it never happened, and he settles me with his usual blank expression.