But I couldn’t look away. She shifted in her seat, crossing one leg over the other, and I felt something primal stir in my chest. Something I hadn’t felt in years, maybe ever.
She looked up suddenly, as if she could feel my gaze. Our eyes met across the club, through smoke and bodies and the pulsing lights. The world narrowed to just that, her honey-brown eyes meeting my blue ones, some invisible thread pulling taut between us.
Then she looked away, and I could breathe again.
“Kirill.” Drew’s voice cut through the fog. “You good?”
I forced myself to look at him, to change my expression into something resembling normalcy. “Fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
Across the room, Damir glanced over and caught my attention. He made a subtle gesture toward the booth where Barbara sat. The universal sign:Come here.
Before I could answer Drew—before I could even process what I was about to do—my body made the decision my brain was still arguing against. I stood, straightening my shirt, checking the gun holstered beneath my jacket out of habit.
“Where are you going?” Drew called after me, but I was already moving.
Through the crowd. Past the bodies grinding to the bass that shook the floor. Past the bar where Damir stood with Hailey. I moved with purpose, the way I always did, cutting through obstacles like they didn’t exist.
Because they didn’t. Not when it came to this.
Not when it came to her.
I told myself I was being reckless. Told myself this violated every rule I’d spent years building. Told myself Vladimir would call this a distraction I couldn’t afford, that Douglas was still out there, that I had promises to keep and vengeance to deliver.
But my body didn’t care about any of that.
My body only cared about the way her honey-brown eyes had met mine. The way something had shifted in my chest, something I thought I’d killed years ago. The way she made me feel like maybe—just maybe—there was more to life than code and cold revenge.
She looked up as I approached, and our eyes met again. This time, neither of us looked away.
The club noise faded. The crowd disappeared. There was only her, only this moment, only the electricity crackling in the air between us like a live wire.
I didn’t know what I was going to say. Didn’t have a plan beyond getting closer, beyond seeing if this insane connection was real or just my imagination playing tricks.
But as I closed the distance between us, as I watched her breath catch and her lips part slightly, as I felt my own pulse spike in a way that had nothing to do with danger and everything to do with want—
I knew I was about to make either the best or worst decision of my life.
And for once, I didn’t give a damn which one it was.
Chapter 3 – Barbara
The air shifted like the atmosphere before a storm, and every nerve ending in my body went on high alert, hyperaware of something I couldn’t name. Cassandra was saying something about Damir’s surprisingly decent conversation skills, but her words turned to static in my ears.
Then I looked up.
Tall, lean but solid, wearing dark jeans and a fitted jacket that somehow looked more expensive than it probably was. His impossibly blue eyes were locked on me like I was the only person in the entire club.
My whole body responded before my brain could catch up. Heat rippled up from the base of my spine, spreading through my veins like wildfire, pooling low in my belly in a way that made me press my thighs together. This was insane. I didn’t know this man. Didn’t know his name, his story, anything beyond the fact that he was looking at me like I was something he’d been searching for his entire life.
“Barbara?” Cassandra’s voice cut through my thoughts. “You okay?”
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t look away. He’d begun moving towards me and was getting closer, cutting through the mass of bodies like water parting around stone, and every step he took made my heart pound harder.
The club’s chaos, the thumping bass, the bodies grinding against each other, the strobe lights cutting through smoke, all of it faded into background noise.
He reached me, and the world narrowed to just the two of us.
