* * *
Later, I woke up to cheap lighting and the sterile scent of my apartment.
The kind of homecoming that reeked of debriefings and regret.
"Well," I said aloud, to no one in particular, "that's how I ended up here."
I stood, wobbling slightly, and gave the empty room a dry, crooked smile.
"That stranger motherfucker did this to me."
And that's exactly why he was now a stranger. A bastard two-faced one.
The phone buzzed on the nightstand, its screen lighting up the darkened room.
"Мамочка" — Mamochka.
She blinked at the name, her breath hitching for a moment.
After everything with Frank... after what happened to her...
She didn't hesitate. She swiped to answer.
Алло?(Hello?)
Маша!(Masha!)
О, мамочка!(Oh, Momma!)
Маша, я так по тебе скучаю! Как ты? Ты в порядке?(Masha, I miss you so much! How are you? Are you alright?)
Да, мамочка, я в порядке. Не переживай.(Yes, Momma, I'm fine. Don't worry.)
Ты уверена? Там всё хорошо?(Are you sure? Everything is okay over there?)
Да, всё нормально. Просто... немного скучаю по тебе.(Yes, everything's fine. It's just... I miss you a little.)
Маша, ты так изменилась... Ты стала сильной женщиной, я горжусь тобой.
(Masha, you've changed so much... You've become such a strong woman, I'm so proud of you.)
Спасибо, мам. Ты всегда была для меня примером.(Thank you, Mom. You've always been an example to me.)
Я знаю, что твоя жизнь там не легкая, но знай, что я всегда думаю о тебе.(I know your life there isn't easy, but know that I'm always thinking of you.)
Я знаю, мам. Я тоже часто думаю о тебе... надеюсь, что смогу увидеть тебя скоро.(I know, Mom. I think about you often too... I hope I can see you soon.)
Я тоже надеюсь. Будь осторожна, Маша.(I hope so too. Be careful, Masha.)
Ты тоже, мам. Береги себя.(You too, Mom. Take care of yourself.)
Maria Aleksandra Ermatova, also known as Masha.
Yes, this was the information he demanded — that stranger cloaked in arrogance and questions, as if he could summon a ghost with nothing but curiosity.
But ghosts don't come easy. Not mine.
He wanted the truth, or some version of it. A name. A history. The remnants of my past.
The truth is... I wasn't born into greatness. I was born into silence. My mother — well, no one really speaks her name. Some say she was a prostitute, others simply call her "missing." Either way, I never knew her. And honestly, I don't think she ever wanted me to.
I was left in the snow outside a crumbling church in Kazan. An infant wrapped in borrowed rags and prayers. I should've died that night, but fate — or something crueler — had other plans.
I was taken in by an orphanage run by a woman named Elena Petrovna, a widow who had nothing but gave everything. She became my mother. My only mother. She fed me, raised me, gave me the name "Masha," and loved me fiercely, even as the world looked the other way.
I had no talent, no skills. Just a sharp tongue, a sharper mind, and an uncanny ability to stay invisible when it mattered. I wasn't the fastest, or the strongest — but I watched.
And eventually, someone else noticed that too.
During the Cold War, the Americans came quietly. Not in uniforms, but instead in suits. They didn't knock at all. They just whispered. Soon, they followed. And one day, when I was barely ten, they made me vanish.
Kidnapped by them?
No, I wasn't stolen. I walked with them.
Elena... she didn't stop me. She cried, but she didn't stop me. The deal was clear: I would be trained, fed, protected — given a future. And she could write to me once a year. See me once a year. On one condition — never ask where I go or what I do.
So I became someone else. Erased, rewritten, redefined.
They burned Maria.
They sculpted Charlotte Nightfall.
And now, here I am — praised, feared, mythologized. A detective without a home. A weapon made from dust.
Faking my identity while deceiving the entirety of people in a country.
And he — that fool — wants to know who I really am?
Would he even believe it?
Would you?
Also, this was a top-level secret.
Yet he said he wanted to understand me.
People like him— I mean, people like Frank James Drake — they think understanding is a game. A puzzle with an answer. They don't realize that some riddles bleed when solved.
Let alone they do realize that kind of bleed doesn't hurt people, but himself.
Frank had been circling me for months now. Not officially. Not with orders. But with that same stubborn curiosity that gets men killed in this line of work.
I saw it in his eyes — the way he lingered on my silences, the way he catalogued every twitch, every breath, like I was an enigma to decode.
He didn't want Charlotte. He wanted Masha. The girl no one was supposed to remember.
He thought peeling back my layers would make me real to him. And maybe, just maybe, it would make him feel less fake. That's the thing about spies — we all wear masks, but some of us forget we put them on.
I hadn't meant to let him in. Honestly, I didn't think I could. But that night — that stupid, cursed night — I faltered.
One moment of weakness.
One look too long.
One question I answered when I shouldn't have.
And the next thing I knew, he was in my apartment, a half-empty bottle between us, silence growing like ivy on the walls.
I stared at him then. Really stared.
Not the flirt. Not the agent. Just... the man.
And for a fleeting second, I thought maybe... maybe he could handle it. Maybe I could tell him everything — the snow, the orphanage, Elena, the day I left Russia behind.
But then he opened his mouth.
"Who are you really, Charlotte?"
My breath caught. My body froze. Every instinct screamed to deflect, to laugh it off, to call him a drunk idiot.
But instead... I looked away.
"That's a dangerous question to ask."
He leaned in, undeterred. "And yet, you haven't walked away."
I hated that he was right.
Because I hadn't.
Because part of me — the small, broken part still answering to Masha — wanted someone to know. To carry the burden with me. Even if it was just for a moment.
So I said the name.
"You may call me Masha. Maria Aleksandra Ermatova. I'm from Russia."
He blinked, surprised. The smirk faded.
And in that stillness, I felt something shift. Between us. Inside me.
The lie was broken. The mask cracked.
And there was no taking it back.
Instead, I gave Frank hell, taking him there with me.
Together.