That's the story I tell myself. That I wanted the best protection for the Pakhan's wife. That I needed someone trustworthy, capable, uncompromising.
But there's another truth beneath that one.
I needed someone who wouldn't fall under Victoria Ainsley's spell.
Because it's easy to fall. Too easy. The way she moves through a room like she's conducting invisible music. The way her voice can cut or caress depending on her mood. The particular combination of elegance and defiance that makes men forgetthemselves, forget their training, forget why proximity is dangerous.
I've watched it happen. Watched Alexei grin like an idiot whenever she's near. Watched Maksim's control fray at the edges when she provokes him.
I needed someone immune. Someone who would report facts without filtering them through attraction or admiration or the particular stupidity that comes from wanting a woman you can't have.
Vitor is that person.
For days now, he's accompanied Victoria wherever she goes. And every evening, he comes here to deliver his report, her comings and goings, her patterns, her behavior.
It's not that I don't trust her.
It's that she's starting to see too much. Know too much. Ask questions that don't have safe answers.
"Everything went smoothly today?" I ask.
"Nothing unusual." Vitor's voice is flat, professional. "Same routine. Same locations."
"Walk me through it."
He recites the day like he's reading from a tactical report. Morning pilates. Lunch at the restaurant. Afternoon at the boutique. Evening spa appointment.
I nod, processing. It's the same pattern she's followed every day. Almost compulsively predictable.
"It's strange," Vitor continues. "Her entire world seems confined to one city block. The restaurant, the spa, the pilates studio, the salon, the boutique. Everything within walking distance of each other."
He's right. It is strange.
Most women with Victoria's resources would spread their activities across the city. Chase the best services regardless of location. But she stays within a tight geographic radius, like she's drawn boundaries for herself and refuses to cross them.
Convenient for security. Makes my job easier.
"Works for me," Vitor says, echoing my thought. "Short commutes. Minimal exposure. Though I could use a proper place to eat lunch. That restaurant food isn't to my taste."
A smirk tugs at my mouth. Maksim had the same complaint.
Maison Lyra really is designed exclusively for women.
The thought starts to unspool into analysis, but Vitor interrupts.
"We did deviate from routine today. She went to her father's house."
Everything stops.
"What?" The word comes out hard.
Rage ignites in my chest, cold, sharp, immediate.
Her father's house. Arthur Ainsley, the man who bargained her. The man who grabbed her at the wedding, who I twisted into submission and warned never to contact her again.
Why would she go there?
The pieces don't fit. This whole dynamic with her father has never made sense. She negotiated her own price, demanded he not walk her down the aisle, shows nothing but contempt for him.
