"Time to stop."
Eight PM. Kostya stood in the doorway, and I realized the room had gone dark except for my laptop screen. How long had I been sitting here? My back ached, my eyes burned, but I was so close.
"Five more minutes?" The plea escaped before I could stop it. "I'm right on the edge of something important."
His expression didn't change, but something sharpened in his eyes. A test. This was a test.
"No."
One word, soft but absolute. I stared at the screen, at the thread I was about to unravel, at the answer that danced just out of reach. Five minutes. That's all I needed. Maybe ten. Definitely no more than twenty.
My hand hovered over the keyboard.
"Maya." My name in his mouth was weighted with warning and promise. "Close it, baby girl."
I closed the laptop.
The relief in his eyes was barely visible, but I caught it—he'd been uncertain if I would obey. That small tell made my chest warm with pride. I'd chosen him over the work. Chosen obedience over obsession.
"Good girl," he said, and this time I did whimper, just barely.
Dinner was charged with anticipation. Every bite felt like foreplay, every glance loaded with promise. He watched me eat with an intensity that made swallowing difficult, his gaze tracking the movement of my throat like he was imagining other things my mouth could do.
"All of it," he said when I pushed vegetables around my plate, too keyed up to finish.
I ate the vegetables, hyperaware of his attention, of the way approval radiated from him when I obeyed. My underwear was ruined, had been since morning, and the ache between my thighs had become a constant throb.
"Bed," he said at ten, and the word sounded like a promise.
"Will you—" I stopped, not sure what I was asking. Will you come to me? Will you stay? Will you finally touch me the way I've been craving for three days?
"After you've slept," he said, reading the question I couldn't voice. "Rest first. Then we'll see how good you've been."
I went to bed like I was supposed to, but sleep was impossible. My body was wound too tight, every cell anticipating his arrival.Would he come at midnight? One? Would he make me wait until morning?
The questions circled as I lay in the dark, listening to the compound settle into night sounds. Somewhere below, guards walked their rounds. Somewhere above, the old bones of the building creaked and settled.
And somewhere in my laptop, closed but not forgotten, was a puzzle that begged to be solved.
Just one more look. Just to note down what I'd found before I forgot the connections. I wouldn't really work, just document. Five minutes, maybe ten.
The rationalization built with each passing minute. I was resting. I was in bed. Those were the rules. He hadn't said I couldn't use my laptop in bed. Hadn't specifically forbidden work after bedtime, just mandated when I had to stop and when I had to sleep.
By midnight, the argument had won.
I pulled the laptop under the covers with me, the screen too bright in the darkness. Just a quick note. Just the connection I'd found. Just—
The pharmaceutical company had a CEO. The CEO had a brother. The brother was a surgeon.
At Brighton Medical Center.
In Brand's department.
My heart hammered as I dove deeper, forgetting everything except the web of connections sprawling across my screen. This was bigger than I'd imagined. Bigger than Brand, bigger than the hospital, bigger than—
The door opened.
The laptop screen illuminated his face from below, casting shadows that made him look like something out of a nightmare—or a very specific kind of dream.
