My voice comes out small. “And if I say I want to study antidotes?”
His mouth twists. “Then I make money off your antidotes,” he says. “And hope you remember who kept your brother breathing.” He moves to his side of the bed and sits, fingers going to his shirt buttons.
“Roman,” I whisper, and I hate that it comes out like that, like his name is something fragile in my mouth.
He doesn’t look at me. “You want to hate me?” he says. “Good. It’ll keep you alive.”
He stands, strips down, switches off the main light so the room falls into softer shadows. “But don’t ever forget I’m the one you get punished by, not the one you get sold by. There’s a difference.” He slides under the covers on his side and turns his back to me, broad shoulders a dark wall in the dim light.
I roll carefully onto my side. Every movement pulls at my stinging skin. The sheets rasp against the hot lines on my ass and thighs, and my body shudders from the sensitivity.
I stare at the ceiling. My chest is tight. My eyes burn again.
I am naked in a Russian mob boss’s bed with belt marks on my body and his mother’s necklace on the dresser.
ROMAN — Private Study, 01:47
Ihaven’t slept.
The clock says 4:47 AM, and I’ve been lying here for hours listening to Anya breathe, watching the shadows move across the ceiling. She’s on her stomach with her face turned away from me, one arm tucked under the pillow, the sheet pooled at the small of her back. I can see the marks from here.
My cock twitches against my thigh, and I hate myself for it. I wasn’t planning this, not so soon. But fucking Dmitri got under my skin.
I get out of bed carefully, pulling on sweatpants before I do something stupid like wake her up and make everything worse. The floorboards creak under my feet as I cross to the door, and I hold my breath until I’m in the hallway, pulling it shut behind me with a soft click.
The study is dark and quiet. I pour myself a whiskey—three fingers, neat—and take it to the window, pressing my forehead against the cold glass while Moscow glitters below.
My mother’s violin is still on the desk where I left it. I pick it up, tuck it under my chin, and try to play. Bach. The Chaconne. The piece she used to hum while she brushed my hair before bed.
The first few notes come out clean. Then my fingers slip, and the bow drags wrong. The sound turns ugly, and I set the whole thing down before I throw it through the window.
I’m on my third whiskey and picking up the violin again when the door opens behind me.
I don’t turn around. I can smell her from here—lavender soap and warm skin.
“You should be sleeping,” I say.
“So should you.”
Her voice is rough. Tired. I turn around, and she’s standing in the doorway wearing my shirt, the white linen hanging off one shoulder, the hem hitting mid-thigh. Her hair is a mess, and her eyes are red-rimmed, and I can see the edge of a bruise peeking out below the fabric where my fingers dug into her hip.
“There’s whiskey,” I say, nodding toward the decanter. “Help yourself.”
She crosses to the sideboard, pours herself two fingers, and takes a sip without flinching at the burn. Those grey eyes watch me over the rim of the glass.
“I heard you playing,” she says. “From the bedroom.”
“Trying to play. It wasn’t going well.”
“It sounded like you were strangling a cat.”
My jaw tightens. “Noted.”
She takes another sip, still watching me. “Is this the part where you tell me why you’ve been awake for hours? Or are we going to pretend everything’s fine?”
“Everything is fine.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
