She flinches.
“You actually beat me,” I say. “You actually fucking beat me.”
Her fingers curl around the edge of the table. “So you… wait.”
I can’tfuckingbelieve it.
“Yes,” I say. “I wait.”
I stand in disbelief. The chair legs drag against the floor. She rises slower, her eyes on me the whole time, wary and flushed.
“Come here,” I tell her.
“Why?” Her voice is thin, but she doesn’t move.
“Just come here, Anya.”
She steps around the corner of the table, cautiously. She stops an arm’s length away.
I close that distance until the edge of the table presses into the back of her thighs. I plant my hands on either side of her onthe wood, caging her in. The heat coming off her is enough to make my pulse jump.
“Do you have any idea,” I ask, “how badly I want to fuck you right now?”
Her throat moves. Her eyes drop to my mouth for one second before she drags them back up.
“But you won,” I say. “And I gave you my word.Slovo Volkova.” A Volkov’s word.
Confusion flickers across her face. Disbelief. A tiny, dangerous spark of trust.
I step back before I change my own rules.
“You’re wasted sitting in some anonymous lab in Basel,” I say, like I just had the idea. I move to the window because I need distance between us. “That mind belongs in a place where it actually matters.”
“I don’t have a lab anymore,” she says. There’s a raw note in the words she probably didn’t mean to let out.
“You will. Second floor, east wing. I’ll have a space converted. Proper hood, proper equipment. You give Luka a list of what you need; he’ll make it happen.”
She stares at me. “Just like that.”
“Just like that.”
“And the catch?”
“That’s the catch,” I say. “You working keeps you useful. You working under my roof keeps me in control of the risk. I don’t like surprises, especially the chemical variety.”
Her mouth twitches. “Very responsible of you, Mr. Volkov. Crime, murder… but with proper lab safety.”
“I don’t break what belongs to me.”
She goes very still at that. Then she laughs.
“You really think that makes you better,” she says. “The rules. The lab. The waiting. You think it makes you some kind of… kinder monster.”
“I never said I was kind.”
“No,” she says. “But you’re very invested in convincing me you’re not like the others.”
I turn back from the window to face her fully. “I’m not likeanyother.”
