His eyes narrow, as he takes in this new information: I didn't fall for his fake intel.
"Indeed." He refills our glasses. "My turn. Why did you really let me take you?"
The question I've been dreading. My fingers drum against the crystal, a tell I immediately stop.
He's implied before that he knew I let him 'kidnap' me, but I haven't admitted it yet. I'm tempted to lie, to play the innocent princess, but we're past that. Besides, I promised to tell the truth in this game, and for some reason that matters to me right now.
"I needed answers," I say, tracing the patterns in the crystal glass. "About what happened eleven years ago. About why I dream of your brother."
"You could have found answers other ways."
"Could I? Your family doesn't exactly take meetings." I drain my glass for courage. "Besides. I wanted to see you."
"See me."
"Know thy enemy." But even I hear the lie in it.
We trade questions like blows. Each answer peeling away another layer. The vodka makes everything softer, edgesblurring dangerously. We've each used our three passes. The bottle is half empty.
"Okay," I say, pouring us both another glass. "Enough heavy questions. Tell me something ridiculous about yourself."
"That's not how the game works."
"I'm changing the rules. Something embarrassing. Something no one knows."
He narrows his eyes. "Why?"
"Because you're Alexei Volkov, bratva prince, terrifying crime lord. And I want to know something human about you."
His lips twitch, almost a smile, but not quite. He's trying to play it off, to make me think this is just a game, but I see it in the way his thumb taps the rim of his glass. The way he doesn't look at me for a full five seconds. He drinks, winces, and for one strange, flickering moment, he's just a man trying to figure out how much of himself to show.
His jaw clenches like he's fighting himself.
"I'm afraid of butterflies," he says, so quietly I almost miss it. Then louder, with the steel edge he uses for business: "They disgust me."
I suck in a breath, trying to determine if he's joking, but his face is stone. He doesn't blink, doesn't smile. Just waits for my reaction, like a condemned man waiting for the verdict.
"I'm sorry. What?"
"Butterflies. Moths too. Those papery wings, the way they move unpredictably." He actually shudders. "When I was seven, one landed on my face while I was sleeping, those tiny legs creeping over my cheeks and that wormy body. It was disgusting. I've never recovered."
This man. Who broke Tork's fingers one by one. Who held a knife to my throat without trembling. Who has thirty-seven personal kills.
"Butterflies."
"Don't."
"I'm not…" But I'm already laughing. It bubbles up uncontrollable, the pure absurdity of it. "You… the basement… all those knives… and you're afraid of…" I'm gasping now, tears streaming. "Butterflies!"
"I will throw you out of this room."
"You moved me here! You're stuck with me!" I'm holding my stomach, doubled over on his bed. "Oh my God. The big bad wolf is afraid of butterflies."
"I should have let you keep bleeding on those shoes."
That sobers me slightly, but I'm still giggling. When I finally stop, wiping tears from my eyes, he's watching me with an expression I can't read. Not anger. Something raw. Hungry.
"Your turn," he says, voice rougher. "Something equally humiliating. Fair's fair."
