She wasn’t wrong, which only pissed me off more.
The truth was that Drew Kamarov had gotten inside my head in ways I didn’t understand and couldn’t control. Every morning for the past seven days, I’d walked into that office knowing he’d be there. Knowing those steel-gray eyes would track my movements like I was a puzzle he intended to solve. Knowing he’d notice things no one else noticed—the way I organized files, the routes I took through the building, the split second of hesitation before I answered certain questions.
He saw too much. Knew too much. Threatened the careful balance I’d maintained since Vance Donovan had walked into my life two years ago with photographs and threats and a chain I’d been wearing ever since.
“Okay, real talk.” Hailey poured us each a fresh drink, her expression shifting from playful to serious. “You survived Father Vincent’s orphanage. You survived bar fights where men twiceyour size wanted to prove something. You’ve run jobs for Rafael that would make most people piss themselves. So either Drew Kamarov is legitimately dangerous….”
She paused, letting the weight of that word settle.
“Or you’re catching feelings, and that’s why he’s getting under your skin.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. I opened my mouth to deny it, to tell her she was out of her fucking mind, but nothing came out.
Because maybe she wasn’t wrong.
Maybe the reason Drew Kamarov made me uncomfortable wasn’t because he was dangerous, though he absolutely was. Maybe it was because when he looked at me with those calculating gray eyes, I felt seen in a way that terrified me. Not just observed or analyzed, but actuallyseen. Like he could read through all my carefully constructed defenses and find the truth I’d been hiding from everyone, including myself.
“I don’t do feelings,” I said finally, which was both truth and lie. “Feelings are liabilities in our world.”
“Feelings are what make us human,” Barbara corrected softly. “Everything else is just survival.”
I thought about that. About the difference between surviving and living, between existing and actually feeling something real. I’d been surviving since the day Rafael pulled me out of Seattle, playing my role perfectly—his loyal assistant, his trusted shadow, the girl who saw everything and asked nothing.
But underneath that performance was the truth Vance had forced me to swallow: Rafael’s family had killed my father. The Bratva had destroyed my life before I even knew what life was, left me in that orphanage with manufactured donation checks and Father Vincent’s paid silence.
Everything I thought I’d built—the security, the money, the power Rafael had promised—was constructed on the grave of the man who’d given me life.
And now I was supposed to feel something for Drew? Rafael’s cousin? Another Kamarov with that same last name printed on my father’s death certificate?
“He’s the enemy,” I said, more to myself than to them. “They’reallthe enemy.”
Hailey’s expression shifted, understanding dawning in her eyes. She knew about Vance—not everything, but enough. Knew I was walking a tightrope between two men who would kill me without hesitation if they discovered my betrayal.
“Cass…” she started, but I cut her off with a raised hand.
“I’m fine. Just need to get through the next seven weeks, and then Drew goes back to Russia and my life returns to normal.”
“Normal,” Barbara repeated, and there was something sad in the way she said it. “Is that what we’re calling this?”
The music shifted to something slower, more intimate. Around us, the club pulsed with the kind of energy that came from people making deals that would never appear in any official record. I recognized faces from Rafael’s inner circle, a few enforcers from Damir’s crew, some high-end clients who paid for Bratva protection.
This was my world now. Had been for three years. Expensive leather and dangerous men and secrets that could get you killed if you spoke them out loud.
I thought about my father, David Miller, a man I barely remembered. Vance had shown me pictures. Told me stories about how the Bratva had murdered him over some territorial dispute I didn’t fully understand. How they’d taken a five-year-old girl and erased her history, paid off an orphanage to keep her existence quiet.
How Rafael finding me in that Seattle bar wasn’t luck or fate but careful calculation. Keeping your enemies’ children close, maybe. Or just tying up loose ends before they became problems.
Either way, I was here. Trapped between Vance’s demands for information and Rafael’s trust that I didn’t deserve. And now Drew had entered the equation, throwing off every calculation I’d made.
“He called me kitten,” I said suddenly, the memory surfacing with sharp edges.
Barbara choked on her drink. “Hewhat?”
“That first morning we met. I told him not to break anything while playing office, called him flyboy. He shot back with ‘try not to bite, kitten.’” I could still hear the way he’d said it—that low, controlled voice with just enough edge to make it clear he knew exactly what kind of weapon he was deploying.
Hailey started laughing—actually laughing—her head thrown back and shoulders shaking. “Oh my God. He’s flirting with you.”
“He’s antagonizing me.”
