Budapest » [Clintasha]

Prologue

Prologue:

My name is Natalia Alivanovna Romanova and I work for the KGB. But my life is something of a lie.

I work for no one. I work for myself. And I always work alone.

I have a very specific skill set. I have charm. I have wit. I have sex appeal. I play to the common weaknesses of men, pulling them in on an invisible thread, ensnaring them in my inescapable web and striking mercilessly like a venomous spider. For that reason, they call me the Black Widow. I'm cunning, ruthless and utterly unstoppable. I am a one woman fighting machine. I can do more damaged unarmed than most people could do armed.

I have been hired out as a gun, by countless organisations: terrorist cells, criminal gangs, the government, the secret service, the militia. There's not a self-respecting syndicate that hasn't heard my name. People fear me, and revere me. And when they require my services they come to me, with a name and a price for no questions asked dirty-work.

My work in the industry started when I was seven years old, innocent, easily manipulated and gullible. I was a different person. It was a different life. One I can only just recall. Most of what I can remember of my childhood has been lost through the mind wipes, (which can be counted on two hands) and with good reason too.

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Just to be clear; when anyone's speech is italicised, it means they are speaking Russian.

A trigger warning: this book is for MATURER READERS, themes of infant abuse, domestic violence, alcoholism, sterilisation (and surgery), mental health (PTSD, Stockholm syndrome, brainwashing), sexuality (and expression of), implicit prostitution, dubious/non-consensual sex, and war are addressed. There are scenes of explicit violence, explicit scenes of a sexual nature (dub/non-con, dom/sub undertones, and vanilla), and swearing. If any of this offends you, this book is not for you.

There is satirisation of the Cold War, the class divide, gender, and sex, xenophobia; none of this is intended to offend, but to hold a mirror up to society and point out the failings in these things. 'The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame,' once said Oscar Wilde.

Without further ado, enjoy the story!

-Professional_Dreamer