"If you can fight like that," I say instead, struggling for control, "why haven't you tried to kill me?"
She goes still. I watch her pulse jump in her throat.
"You've had chances. The knife in the basement. Just now, you could have crushed my windpipe with that throat strike if you'd committed fully."
"Maybe I don't want you dead."
"Why not?"
Her eyes meet mine, and there's something raw there. Something real. "Maybe I need answers only you can give me."
The words hang between us, loaded with possibilities I don't want to examine.
I release her wrists, step back before I do something stupid. My control is hanging by a thread and we both know it.
"Get cleaned up," I manage, voice rougher than I intend. "Meet me in my study in twenty minutes."
I leave before she can respond, before the sight of her against that mirror, flushed and dangerous, makes me forget why I'm supposed to hate her.
In the shower, I let the cold water punish my skin, trying to wash away the feel of her pressed against me, the scent of her sweat and heat. It doesn't work. Nothing works. She's branded into my senses now.
Twenty minutes later, I'm composed. Changed. The taste of her relegated to memory where it belongs. Mostly.
She arrives in a fresh dress, still shapeless cotton because I'm petty like that, but she's done something to it again. Tied the waist with a strip of fabric. Made it hers like she makes everything hers.
"Sit."
She takes the chair across from my desk. The bonsai sits between us, recently pruned, soil still damp from watering.
"You fight like someone who's killed before."
"Is that a question?"
"It's an observation." I pour two glasses of vodka, slide one toward her. "Drink."
She takes it, sips, and doesn't even wince. Of course she doesn't.
"My men are concerned about you," I say.
"Your men are afraid to look at me."
I take my own drink, let the burn center me. "But they talk. They think you're a weakness. That I'm… compromised."
"Are you?"
"I'm deciding."
She sets down her glass with a soft click. "What do you want, Alexei?"
My name in her mouth still does things to me it shouldn't. "I want to kill you. But first I want to understand you. What you are. What you're doing here."
"I've told you…"
"You've told me lies wrapped in half-truths. I'm tired of it." I lean forward, pull a file from my drawer. "So here's what's going to happen. I'm going to give you something. Information. And you're going to sit there and take it."
I slide the file across the desk. She opens it, and I watch her face carefully. Photos, shipping manifests, names, dates. All of it fabricated, but she doesn't know that.
"The Barones," I say, keeping my voice neutral. "They're planning a move against your family. Three weeks from now. A shipment coming through the harbor, weapons, enough to arm a small army. The Germans are backing them."
