“Same thing when you’re both fucked up enough,” Barbara pointed out, grinning now. “And let’s be honest, you’re both pretty fucked up.”
She wasn’t wrong about that either.
Drew Kamarov walked around with the kind of control that suggested serious damage hidden beneath expensive suits. The way he analyzed everything, calculated every angle, trusted nothing at face value—that wasn’t just professional paranoia. That was survival instinct carved deep into bone.
I recognized it because I wore the same scars, just in different places.
“Seven more weeks,” I repeated, like a mantra. “I can handle seven more weeks.”
“Sure, you can.” Hailey refilled my glass, her smile softening into something closer to sympathy. “But the question is, do you want to?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. Didn’t want to examine too closely why Drew’s presence made my pulse spike or why I’d started arriving at the office earlier just to see him already at his desk, working in that focused way that suggested he never stopped calculating angles.
Didn’t want to think about how his voice sounded when he spoke Russian to Damir on the phone, or how his hands moved across keyboards with the same precision I imagined they’d move across skin.
No. I definitely didn’t want to think about that.
“I want another drink,” I said instead, pushing my glass forward. “And I want to talk about literally anything else.”
Barbara and Hailey exchanged one of those looks women share when they know their friend is lying but love her enough to let it slide. For now.
“Fine,” Barbara said, raising her fresh shot. “To surviving seven more weeks of Russian cousins who call us kittens and look at us like we’re puzzles worth solving.”
“To telling them to fuck off when they get too close,” Hailey added.
“To keeping our secrets buried and our walls high,” I finished.
We clinked glasses, and the tequila burned exactly the way it should—sharp and cleansing and nowhere near strong enough to drown the truth.
Drew Kamarov was dangerous. Not just because of what he could discover about my arrangement with Vance, but because of how he made me feel when those gray eyes found mine across Rafael’s office. Like maybe I wasn’t just Rafael’sshadow or Vance’s informant or the orphan girl still searching for the father the Bratva had stolen.
Like maybe I was someone worth seeing.
Chapter 3 – Drew
Rafael had leaned back in his leather chair, cigar smoke curling around his face like a living thing, and said the words that gave me both freedom and responsibility: “I don’t care how you get it done. Work like you do in Russia. Use your instincts. I only want the damn result.”
He’d lit that cigar like he didn’t give a fuck about the world burning around him, which was probably accurate. Rafael Kamarov had built his empire on the ashes of other men’s mistakes, and he wore that power like a second skin.
“You’re family,” he’d added, gray eyes meeting mine across the desk. “That means I trust you to see what needs seeing, handle what needs handling. No filters. No politics. Just results.”
I’d nodded, understanding the subtext beneath his words. He was giving me permission to dig, to investigate, to question anything that didn’t feel right. He was also absolving himself of responsibility for whatever I might discover.
Smart. Ruthless. Exactly what I’d expect from a Kamarov.
What he didn’t know, what I hadn’t told him, was that I’d already found something that didn’t feel right. Something that moved through his building like a shadow with access to every locked door and confidential file.
Someone named Cassandra Miller.
***
The pattern emerged during my second week. Every time Rafael left the building—meetings, site visits, business dinners—she transformed. The efficient assistant who moved with military precision became something else entirely. Something calculating and deliberate and fucking suspicious.
I’d started staying late, hiding my presence behind darkened office windows and security feeds I’d quietly accessed.Watching her move through the building when she thought no one was paying attention.
No knock. No hesitation. She’d moved through Rafael’s private office like she owned it, fingers flying over his computer keyboard with practiced ease. Then to the security office, where she’d entered a code that made the guard on duty conveniently disappear for a smoke break he hadn’t planned on taking.
She’d opened locked drawers, photographed documents with a phone she kept separate from her work device, copied files onto drives that vanished into her bag like they’d never existed.
