Budapest » [Clintasha]

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Ruthless

The bargain was struck. Who was I to reject? Our chances were slim as it was, and as men went, someone who adored me for all of my fucks ups wasn't a bad guy to settle for. And it's not like I even deserved Alexi; so pure, so naive, so doting. He deserves a woman far more faultless than I.

The next month was sent plotting. Meticulously. Meticulously to the point of pedantry.

Any more than a month and I think I would've finally cracked. I was buzzing with excitement and crippled with terror; it's strange how often those two feelings coincide.

One of the bonuses of Alexi's higher rank was his access to files and schematics. He could get details of the base and all of its security without anyone batting an eyelid. He could obtain schematics of every corridor, pathway and ventilation shaft with only a small request. He could find copies of reports detailing where those had tried to escape and failed before us.

Reading about Black Widows and other agents I served alongside and how they reached their untimely demise in a mad dash for freedom was crushing. As well as gory details about how they practically ran at waves of gunfire in an attempt to breach the threshold of the facility.

But between all of the private plotting, life still went on. Our day job had us deployed to various locations within the boundaries of the Iron Curtain. I still breathed in death and administered it like the grim reaper, but the knowledge that my lifelong ordeal might soon be over drew everything into proportion.

After a particularly gruelling mission helping evacuate a small town on the border of the USSR after it had been destroyed by American troops, Alexi presented me with something to sugar-coat the horrors of the day. Like a parent on a child's birthday, he led me by the hand back to a nondescript location and told me to close my eyes.

Protesting and trying to laugh off the awkwardness of the situation, I was finally relieved of the test of my self-control.

"Open your eyes..." Alexi drawled in a level voice.

When I reopened them, I caught him squatted in my peripherals and diverted my attention down to him. Cupped between two hands, cushioning the priceless relic was a diamond ring.

"You can't be serious?!" I rasped, trying to drink in the reality of the situation. The gem was outrageously fat, and dwarfed the otherwise simple gold band it was set in. It was facetted and twinkled under the harsh light of his room.

Alexi's face lit up brighter than the diamond in the ring; his grin tearing his face from ear to ear. "I'm completely serious! I thought I'd get you a little token to symbolise my promise to you." He had taken a knee and anticipated my hand so he could slip the ring onto my finger.

Contraband was hard enough to sneak into the base, and something of that calibre was neither surreptitious nor easy to track down. "Where on earth did you get it?!" I gasped, coveting the shining thing.

And the bold man began to blush. "I was hauling a citizen out of the blaze back in that small town, and he turned out to be a jeweller. In exchange for saving his life, he gave me the ring he'd been working on..." He scratched the back of his neck with modesty. "It's not pilfered off a corpse or stolen if that's what you were wondering," he clarified with a shy titter.

I was rendered speechless and made a choked noise in the quest for eloquence. "Alexi, it's perfect. So perfect! Just like you..." And in a flustered and girlish manner, I offered my delicate hand to him and he eased the ring onto my delicate digit.

Somehow the bond between us was fused by the ornament looped around my finger. I couldn't help but admire it and tilt it in the light: making it refract and reflect. "Thought I'd give you something to make it official..." He explained. "And sure it's no lavish white wedding with a castle and champagne, but it's a start," he promised and pressed a kiss to each one of my knuckles individually.