Chapter 2
The loud clank ahead startled Sydney, a gate closing shut that echoed off the mausoleum walls.
"Sydney! I'm a man of my word," Sark's voice reached her ears and his words made her spine tingle. Had she heard those words from him before?
She shook her head, she had to focus. Dealing with Sark and Anna at the same time was no easy feat. They were both enough of a pain in her ass separately but together... Not good.
A lock of hair had escaped her ponytail and she brushed it away.
Straining her hearing, Sydney tried to locate her targets. The corner was within arm's reach and she held her breath. Her back to the wall, she took a swift glance beyond the corner. A shadow was getting closer.
Counting to three in her mind, Sydney stepped into the hallway, her gun raised in front of her.
But something was off.
The marble from the walls had become wooden panels and the light was artificial now, coming from small chandeliers lined up along the corridor.
And there was no one in sight.
The stray lock was back in her face. Sydney raised her hand to push it behind her ear and froze.
The hair was blonde.
She grabbed a larger lock and moved it in front of her eyes. Blonde. Long, straight, not tied in a ponytail. She looked down at herself and realised that her mission gear had disappeared. In its place there was a maroon leather jacket open over a blank tank top and black leather pants.
Looking around, Sydney tried to identify her surroundings. A mirror to her right caught her eye. She walked up to it and stared at her reflection.
This was no disguise. The hair wasn't a wig. This was her. Julia Thorne.
"Yes, you look really hot, we all know that. Now will you hurry up already?"
Sydney spun on her heels and the sight before her eyes stole the words out of her mouth.
Sark was looking around impatiently. Dressed in a black suit, shorn head and thinner than she remembered him. He was holding a disk in his left hand and a gun in the right one. Sydney fought the urge to raise her own weapon and shoot him right there. What was going on? What was Sark doing with Julia?
Sark looked at her again and frowned. Her confusion must have been written all over her face because he stepped closer to her. "Are you okay?"
Sydney didn't know what she'd been about to say because her mouth had a mind of its own and was already speaking. "You better not cross me, Sark," she heard herself saying and her voice didn't sound confused, just cold and threatening. And maybe a tad bored, as if she'd said that to him before, several times.
Sark's momentary lapse into humanity passed and his face reverted to the detached professional she was used to. "I'm a man of my word, Sydney."
The alarm clock blared into the dark room, jolting Sydney awake.
What was that?
Jogging had always helped Sydney clear her head. The monotony of her movements, the familiarity of the activity; it soothed her nerves and made it easier to work through the puzzles in her mind.
Somehow, it didn't work today.
Sydney sighed defeated when her apartment came into sight but she wasn't really surprised.
This had hardly been the first dream to unsettle her with info about her life as Julia Thorne. And jogging hadn't helped with those either. Add Sark to the mix and not even running a marathon would suffice.
Sydney had naively thought that once Kendall had told her what had happened to her during her two missing years she would be able to put her past to rest.
Just how stupid was that?
Not even a week after her talk with Kendall she had dreamt of a mission she had gone on with Simon. The dreams had been still incoherent by then, rarely following a clear sequence, disjointed images, sentences out of place and lacking any real sense. She knew they were real but she didn't get the feelings that should accompany her actions. The only thing she'd felt was apprehension, angst, fear... The unknown terrified her.
No, the feelings had been a recent development. Only last week actually.
She'd had another dream about Simon, a different job... And their celebration after a well done op.
Sydney had jolted up in bed, rousing Vaughn in the process, and raced to the bathroom. After throwing up and sending Vaughn to bed, assuring him she was fine, Sydney had stayed an hour under the hot spray of her shower.
She didn�t know what had been worse, the feeling of being used she was left with or the knowledge that it hadn�t been Simon who initiated their� Affair.
When she'd hooked up with Simon, back when she was still trying to find out what had happened to her, Sydney knew 'intellectually' that she had slept with him. Simon's familiarity with her body had made that clear. Not only was he perfectly comfortable touching her but he also knew just where and how to touch her to make her body burn with just one caress.
But knowing something had happened wasn't the same as remembering it happening.
That dream had fired up her body, awakening sensorial memories she didn't remember feeling. But she had felt them.
"I would have waited... I wouldn't have given up on you!" her own words haunted her.
She hadn't.
Of course, it was different. He'd been already married by then. She knew that, she had kept tabs on him, and she hadn't been partnered with Simon until months after Vaughn's wedding. Sydney had mourned their relationship and put it behind her. She didn't remember all of it but her feelings during that dream with Simon had hinted at it. She hadn't felt guilt or remorse. Not even a thirst for revenge. She had just wanted him and she'd let herself have him.
The problem was that having those feelings back had changed her view of Vaughn, of their relationship now.
She hadn't said anything, of course. And he hadn't noticed either. Sydney was an excellent actress, when she wanted to be. Still, it irked her somehow that he hadn't seen through her deception. Not that she wanted to deal with that particular scenario, god forbid, but the fact that she could fool him so easily about her feelings only furthered the uneasiness on her part. Didn't he notice because she'd already been unconsciously faking before? Was she not really doing anything different?
She realized where her thoughts had wandered to and stopped. From Sark to her problems with Vaughn. How did she get there?
Sydney entered the apartment and went for the shower, smiling at Nadia as she passed her in the kitchen where she was making breakfast.
"Michael left a while ago. Said he'd call you later," Nadia yelled at her.
"Okay, thanks."
It had been a stupid thing to do, Sark knew that. But he hadn't been able to stop himself. It's not like he'd been there to see her reaction, if she had any.
"I'm a man of my word," he muttered. How many times had he told her that? It didn't matter, she still didn't believe him.
Sark parked the BMW in his driveway. It had been a while since he'd been in this particular house. Two years. Right before his trip back to the glass cell.
The Italian landscape in the background of the mansion made for a beautiful picture. Sark had always liked to surround himself with beautiful things. Expensive, beautiful... The best. Cars, clothes, houses... Women. Yes, especially women. Sark smirked at his train of thought.
Entering the house, he went straight to his office. Everything was as he'd left it and Sark felt relieved that he'd purchased the house with a different name in the end. Lazarey wasn't safe anymore. He turned on the computer and entered the password. The stupid Rambaldi symbol came to life.
"Fuck you, bastard," Sark spat at the screen. He hated the man. Rambaldi had been the worst thing to ever happen to him. And if Irina was right, the old creep wasn't finished with them yet.
Irina hadn't mentioned the name, of course, but then she didn't have to. Rambaldi had been the force that guided every aspect of Irina's life for years. If something was about to happen in her life, Rambaldi would be involved.
Aside from Allison, Rambaldi had been one of the bigger sources of their personal disagreements. Sark just couldn't understand how a woman of Irina's intellect and pragmatism could believe and follow so blindly Rambaldi's teachings.
The computer beeped when the file finished uploading and Sark inserted a disk, copying the information and then deleting it from his computer.
He knew it wouldn't work, but Sark was going to try buying his way out of the latest 'assignment' that Irina wanted to give him. He knew she wouldn't give up so easily, even if he had made clear he wouldn't do it. So, he'd hand the disk to her and hope she'd let him walk away in exchange.
Sark and 'Julia' had gathered quite a bit of intel on Rambaldi, thanks to his unknowing father. Intel that Irina wouldn't have any other way seeing as Sydney wouldn't remember about it and they had told no one. Her own copies, with even more info than his had, were somewhere only she knew. She hadn't trusted him after all.
"Yes, I'm a man of my word, Sydney," he repeated. "But you're not."
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