Professional. Methodical. Absolutely not authorized.
What bothered me most wasn’t what she was doing—industrial espionage was common enough in our world. It was the timing. The precision. The way she only operated when Rafael was guaranteed to be elsewhere, like she’d memorized his schedule down to the minute.
Like she’d been doing this for a very long time.
I should have told Rafael immediately. Should have compiled evidence, built a case, handed him proof that his trusted assistant was systematically betraying him. But something stopped me—instinct, maybe, or the nagging certainty that I was missing pieces of a larger puzzle.
I was temporary here. The outsider. The stand-in for Maxim, who’d vanish back to Russia in six weeks. This wasn’t my organization to protect, wasn’t my battle to fight.
But I made damn sure Cassandra knew I was watching.
It became a game I hadn’t agreed to play. Every time she turned a corner, I was there. Every time she tried to slip into a restricted area, I materialized in her peripheral vision. No words. No accusations. Just my presence, constant and unavoidable.
She didn’t flinch—I’d give her credit for that. But her jaw would tighten, muscles tensing beneath pale skin like she was preparing for impact. Her fingers would curl slightly, that tell she probably didn’t know she had, the one that said she was calculating distances and exits.
I’d catch her eyes across the office and hold her gaze just long enough to make my point clear:I see you. I’m watching. Whatever you’re doing, I know.
The first time I’d done it, she’d stared back with those brown eyes gone cold as winter, silently asking what I intended to do about it. When I’d simply smiled—not friendly, not warm, just acknowledgment—something had shifted in her expression.
Recognition, maybe. Or the beginning of real fear.
I found myself enjoying it more than I should have. The way her carefully controlled composure would crack just slightly when I’d appear where she didn’t expect me. The tension that crackled between us like static electricity, dangerous and magnetic in equal measure.
She was trying to maintain her routine, trying to act like my surveillance didn’t affect her. But I could see the cracks forming. The slight hesitation before entering certain rooms. The way she’d check over her shoulder more frequently. The calculation behind every movement.
I was ruining the peace of her life, and some fucked-up part of me loved it.
***
“You look like shit,” Kirill had said when I’d walked into Nocturne that Friday night, and he wasn’t entirely wrong.
Two weeks of late nights watching security feeds and trailing Cassandra through Rafael’s building had left me running on caffeine and spite. But I’d agreed to meet my best friend for drinks because even I recognized when I needed to step back from an obsession before it consumed me.
The club assaulted my senses immediately—noise, neon, vodka, perfume thick enough to choke on, and smoke that hung in the air like fog. Bodies moved on the dance floor with varying degrees of coordination, and the bass line vibrated through my chest like a second heartbeat.
Kirill had secured a private booth in the back, elevated enough to see the entire club while maintaining some distance from the chaos. He’d already ordered vodka—the real stuff, not the watered-down shit Americans called premium.
“Two weeks, and you’re already embracing Chicago’s nocturnal lifestyle,” he said, pouring two glasses with the ease of long practice. “How’s the assignment treating you?”
“Like a curse disguised as family obligation.” I accepted the glass, downing half in one swallow. The burn was familiar and grounding. “Rafael wants results but no details. Everyone else wants details but no responsibility. And his assistant—”
I stopped, because speaking about Cassandra felt like giving her power she didn’t deserve.
“His assistant, what?” Kirill prompted, too curious for his own good.
But I didn’t answer, because that’s when I saw her.
She walked through Nocturne’s entrance like she owned every inch of space her body occupied, and something in my chest tightened with recognition that felt dangerously close to hunger. Black dress that hugged curves I’d been trying not to notice, hair pinned up to expose the pale column of her neck, heels that added height she didn’t need and made her legs look endless.
She moved beside Rafael, the perfect professional companion, but there was something different about her here. Looser. More relaxed. Like she’d shed the armor she wore in the office and replaced it with something equally dangerous but less defensive.
Rafael stopped to speak with someone near the entrance, and Cassandra kept walking. Straight to the bar, where a girl with dark hair and sharp eyes greeted her like they were sisters separated at birth.
I watched her order a drink. Watched her laugh at something the bartender said, head thrown back slightly, exposing more of that pale throat. Watched her raise her arms to adjust a pin in her hair, and the movement made the dress shift, showed skin that made my jaw clench involuntarily.
She didn’t care. Didn’t seem to notice or give a damn that half the men in this club were watching her with the kind of attention that made my hands curl into fists. She was careless, exposed, had no business looking that relaxed in a crowd where predators outnumbered prey three to one.
“Drew.” Kirill’s voice cut through my spiral. “You all right, ?????”
