His eyes hold mine. “I did. Not like a romantic idiot. I didn’t send flowers. I didn’t show up at your door. I asked questions. I had people check. I wanted to know if you were safe or if you’d been taken to hurt me.”
The wordtakenmakes my stomach roll.
“And when I couldn’t find you,” he continues, “I let it go. Because if I pulled you back into my orbit, you would have been in danger. You would have been watched. Followed. Used.”
I think about the woman in the hotel hallway four years ago, the one who told me to run. I feel a chill crawl up my arms.
“So now you’re telling me you’re this…this Bratva heir,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady, “and you expect me to just sit here and accept it.”
He shakes his head. “No. I expect you to be scared. I expect you to hate me. I expect you to want to run.”
My eyes burn. “Then why are you keeping me here?”
His gaze flicks to the bedroom door again. “Because someone died on that plane, and it wasn’t an accident. And because the people who did it will look at everyone connected to it. They willlook at me. They will look at anyone near me. That includes you. That includes your daughter.”
I grip the edge of the chair. “This is not my fault.”
“I know,” he says immediately. “And I’m sorry.”
The apology is quiet, rough around the edges, like it costs him something. He doesn’t say it again. He doesn’t repeat it until it sounds pretty.
I swallow. “If you’re this powerful, why are we running?”
His mouth tightens. “Because power doesn’t mean invincible. It means you have more people trying to prove they can touch you.”
I stare at him, trying to absorb the shape of the world he’s describing. It’s ugly and practical, not glamorous. It’s not even dramatic. It’s just dangerous.
“And the man on the plane,” I say. “Kirov. You knew him.”
He nods. “Yes.”
“Was it your people who killed him?”
His eyes cut to me. “No.”
I believe him, which scares me more than if I didn’t.
I stand up, needing to move, needing air. “You should have told me sooner.”
“I should have never been near you,” he says, and there’s something blunt in it that feels like truth.
I turn to face him. “Then why am I still here? Why am I in a penthouse in Boston with you?”
His voice lowers. “Because when I saw you on that plane, after four years, I realized I didn’t want to let you go again.”
My chest tightens, anger and something else twisting together. “That’s not a reason.”
“It’s not a good one,” he agrees. “But it’s mine.”
I take a breath, trying to steady myself. “If we go to New York tomorrow, what happens?”
Aleksander’s jaw flexes. He looks at me for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he admits, almost painfully honest.
That scares me more than anything else tonight. The way he says it—not with uncertainty, but with a kind of resolve, like whatever happens, he has no intention of letting me go. The air between us tightens, charged and impossible to ignore.
He moves toward me with a slow, deliberate purpose, his gaze locked on mine. I feel it before he even touches me—my body responding, breath catching, nipples hardening beneath the thin fabric of my top. The fear, the anger, the wildness of the last few days all boil up into something sharp and hungry.
He crowds into my space, his presence overwhelming. His hands find my waist, dragging me flush against him. “I need to taste you,” he murmurs, voice rough against my ear. “I’m hungry.”
