Collaboration with @silmarilz1701
Svetlana knew how to play the game. She'd been caught in the political drama of Stalin's inner circle since birth. The only child of one of Stalin's closest friends, she grew up in the limelight, scrutinized by frie...
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A DEAL TO SELL MY SOUL
This chapter is Sveta's finale (barring epilogues). It picks up with her getting the news that Zhanna assassinated the alleged Nazi commandant. And while Sveta sheds no tears over the death of a German, the kill was unsanctioned, and the Americans are pissed. Zhanna has been arrested for insubordination, for conduct unbecoming of an officer, and for killing the suspected, but not yet proven, enemy against orders.
That's when Sveta realizes she has a choice to make, just not the choice she thought she'd get to make about Ron and Boston. Zhanna will never get out of the court martial and the arrest herself. But Sveta could. She heads to the meeting Sink is holding with Dick, Nixon, Speirs, and Welsh regarding Zhanna's arrest. Putting on a metaphorical mask, she decides to embrace the hatred the Americans feel toward her. She weaponizes her words once more.
Sveta boasts that SHE killed the Nazi, not Zhanna. After all, how could a weak, timid Pole be so ruthless. No. It was her, in a moment of revenge. They don't immediately believe her, so she turns it on them. Sveta knows what makes people tick. She tears into everyone present, trying to burn all her bridges.
Nixon, who's been left behind by his wife and can't handle his alcohol... Of course his intel was wrong. Winters and Welsh are too distracted pining over their girls... Sveta expresses surprise that Winters is willing to arrest Zhanna—then again, it makes sense he would be so overly confident in her abilities. And why would Ron care if she assassinated a suspected commandant? He killed his own man.
If she can burn the bridges, get them angry enough to act without thinking too hard, they'll trade her life for Zhanna's. And that's exactly what happens.
Sveta is arrested. And that's where we pick up with an excerpt of the end.
...a deal to sell my soul...
Svetlana | Silmarilz1701
Sveta knew fear. As the MPs grabbed her arms and forced her out of the office, she saw it in the eyes of those she left behind. Fear, anger, betrayal. Her words cut deep. She'd burned those bridges. No one would cross.
The handcuffs on her wrists echoed the ropes that had bound her in Rostov-on-Don. Nothing had changed. A puppet was still a puppet, no matter where she stood. American, Russian, civilian, soldier. Sveta understood that now.
They shut her into a room in the basement of the Austrian hotel. She had a bed, a table. Sveta took a deep breath. She closed her eyes. The bridges had been burned. Her life belonged to Beria, to Stalin, to Russia. It always had. Sveta just hadn't wanted to admit it. She'd lied to herself, in the same way the world had lied to her.
They had the decency to un-cuff her in her cell. She ran her fingers through her hair. They caught on a matted knot. Sveta sighed. She sat on the cot. Putting her head in her hands, she tried to calm down.
