"I need a way to make your father bleed," I said. "He owed me, he ran from me, and you were his weak point. That's what men like him always have, a weakness."
Her lips parted again, trembling this time. "So you followed me, stalked me."
"Yes," I said again. My voice was steady, and my stare was fixed on her. "I had men with you for months, and I watched you. Your routines, your friends, every place you went... I knew everything before you even knew my name."
Her face paled. "Like prey," she muttered.
"Like leverage," I corrected. "Prey dies quickly, leverage keeps the game going."
Her laugh was sharp and broken. "And you're proud of that?"
I leaned forward, and my elbows pressed into the table. "No, not proud, just honest."
Her breathing was quick now, her chest rising fast. "You disgust me."
I let that sink in, let her feel. Then, I said the words that mattered. The words that shifted everything.
"But it changed."
Her head snapped up. "What?"
I didn't flinch, didn't soften. "It changed; leverage turned into need."
She blinked at me, with confusion clouding her rage.
"I don't know the moment it happened," I said. "Maybe the way you laughed when you thought no one was watching. Maybe the way you cursed under your breath, walking home. But I stopped seeing you as a leverage. I saw you, and once I did–" My voice dropped lower, like a rasp. "I couldn't let go."
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed hard. "That's not... That's not love. That's an obsession."
"Call it whatever you want," I said. "Need, obsession, possession. It doesn't change the truth. I will never let you go."
Her eyes shone, not just with anger now, but with something else... fear tangled with the pull she hated to admit. She turned from me, pacing and running her hands through her hair. "God, Viktor. Do you even hear yourself? You're saying I was a debt one moment and your addiction the next. Do you know how insane that sounds?"
I rose from my chair, slowly and deliberately. "I know exactly how it sounds, and I don't care."
She spun to face me, with her chest heaving. "You don't care about me–"
The door burst open, and Dimitri stepped inside, carrying a sense of urgency I rarely saw.
"Boss," he said, his voice clipped. "We have a problem."
Emilia froze, with her eyes darting between us. I didn't look away from her. "Speak."
"They're leaking dossiers," Dimitri said, dropping a folder on the table over her scattered photos. "Names, numbers, operations. Not random. Organized. Surgical. Someone wants us exposed."
My jaw tightened. "Romano ?" I asked.
Dimitri nodded once. "It matches his style, but it's bigger. This isn't just revenge. They're tying you to everything... smuggling, hits, contracts. It's out there now. Headlines by morning."
Emilia's breath hitched. Dimitri added, "This isn't a sniper in the dark. This is war in the daylight, and someone inside fed them. We definitely have a mole."
I turned then, finally pulling my eyes away from Emilia to the folder. Flipping it open, I saw documents, files, and even worse, my signature orders were clean, too clean on them. Whoever leaked this wanted it seen.
My blood ran cold, then hot. "He was already dead the moment he touched her," I said, my voice low and lethal.
Emilia flinched at the weight in it, but I didn't care. Dimitri then waited, but I gave him nothing more. Not yet. He left, shutting the door with a quiet finality.
The silence after was heavy, and Emilia stared at me, her lips trembling. "So this is what my life is now. Snipers, leaks, lies, and you standing here telling me I was leverage and then..." Her voice broke.
