My breath seizes up in my chest like concrete. I stare at her body, drinking in the soft curves of her breasts and her hips. The pregnancy is starting to show now, but it only makes her more beautiful.

“You’re fucking gorgeous, medoviy,” I say without thinking.

She smiles, shy and stunning all at once. “Are you going to give me your shirt, or just stand there gawking?”

I feel like someone else is piloting my body as my arm stretches out to give her the garment reluctantly.

She slips it over her head and lets out an adorable little giggle as it falls down to her knees, swallowing her perfect curves. “That’s better,” she says with a little sigh and the tiniest shimmy of her hips. “I guess if I can’t have my own clothes, yours will have to do.”

Then she sashays down the gazebo steps and slinks back inside, with white paint dotting the backs of her legs.

I watch her until she disappears.

25

JUNE

There’s a lightness in my step when I walk away from Kolya. A buzzing in my veins, a thrumming in my heart. I feel alive and hopeful in a way I haven’t felt in a long, long time.

Then I get back to my room, check my phone, and it all comes crashing down.

It’s still buzzing as I pick it up. Text messages. Videos. Pictures.

ADRIAN: Baby, I miss you so damn much. I hate the idea that you’re with him now. It fucking burns me. All I can say is, don’t trust him, June. He might pretend to care about you, but it’s all an act. It’s a fucking act!

ADRIAN: Don’t forget what we have, Junepenny. Don’t let him make you forget. It’s you and me against the world.

ADRIAN: Look at the photos and videos I’m sending you. I’m not the one who’s lying. The guy in the video, his name is Iakov. He worked for Ravil until Kolya killed him in Mexico.

ADRIAN: I know he spun you some bullshit justification for the murder, but don’t believe that shit for a second. He was tying up loose ends. The videos prove that he had a relationship with Iakov. He was trying to take over Ravil’s sex trafficking business with Iakov’s help. When he realized where Iakov’s allegiance truly lay, he killed him.

With shuddering fingers, I press play on the video.

I expect to hear conversation, but there’s no sound at all. Just grainy footage of two men in close conversation. I can’t deny that it’s Kolya talking to Iakov, though. I recognize both of them.

I drop the phone on top of the bedspread, and stare out the window, trying to make sense of what I just watched. Again, I’m faced with two different stories, and the same old pair of questions.

Where does the lie end? Where does the truth begin?

I leave my seat by the window and start pacing. I keep going around in circles, weighing everything I’ve learned with everything I’m feeling.