“That was different.”
“How?”
“I wasn’t in love with my employer.”
The room goes silent. I turn slowly, searching his face for the joke, the deflection, anything except the truth burning in his storm-cloud eyes.
He didn’t mean it like that. He meant caring. Attachment. Not?—
“Sergei—”
“Forget I said that.” He’s already moving toward the door, putting distance between us. “We need to focus. If we’re really doing this—if you’re set on confronting Matthew at the gala—then we need a better plan than ‘show up and improvise.’”
He’s running. From the admission, from whatever’s building between us that we’re both too scared to name. I should let him. Should focus on the mission, on ending Matthew before he ends me.
But I can’t.
“Hey.” I catch his wrist, pulling him back. His pulse hammers beneath my fingers. “Don’t do that. Don’t say something real and then hide from it.”
“It wasn’t?—”
“Yes, it was.” I step closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body. “And for the record? I’m terrified, too. Of this. Of what it means. Of how much I need you when I swore I’d never need anyone.”
His hand comes up, cupping my jaw with devastating gentleness. “This wasn’t the deal. The marriage. It was supposed to be business.”
“When did it stop being business for you?”
“The night you helped me hide a body without flinching.” His thumb traces my lower lip. “Or maybe before that. When you proposed this insane arrangement and I said yes, even though every instinct screamed that it was a trap.”
“Some trap.” My hands slide up his chest, feeling the hammer of his heart. “You got a wife who shoots back and a daughter who has two parents who’d burn the world down for her.”
“And you got a killer who can’t promise you safety. Can’t promise you normal. Can’t promise anything, except violence and danger and?—”
I kiss him. Cut off the self-loathing with my mouth, pouring every complicated feeling I can’t name into the press of lips and tongue. He responds immediately, his hands sliding into my hair, tilting my head back to deepen the kiss.
This isn’t gentle. Isn’t soft. It’s need and fear and the acknowledgment that we’ve crossed a line we can’t uncross.
When we break apart, his forehead rests against mine.
“We should talk about this,” he murmurs. “About what we are. What this means.”
“After.” I pull back enough to meet his eyes. “After Matthew’s handled. After the gala. After we’re safe and Mila’s safe and I can think past surviving to the next day.”
“After,” he agrees, though something flickers in his expression. Disappointment, maybe. Or understanding that some conversations are too heavy for right now.
The office door bursts open. Mila appears, puzzle piece in hand, triumph written across her small face. “I found the corner! The one that’s been missing for three days!”
The moment shatters. Sergei steps back, composure sliding into place like armor. “That’s great,ptichka. Show me.”
She bounds over, chattering about the puzzle’s difficulty, oblivious to the tension crackling between her father and me. I watch them together—his hand gentle on her dark hair, his smile soft in a way that’s only for her—and something in my chest cracks.
This is what I’m fighting for. Not just revenge. Not just the inheritance. This.
This family that shouldn’t work but does. This life built on fake marriage and real bullets. This dangerous, complicated, perfect thing that started as survival and became something I can’t name yet.
My phone buzzes. Wesley.
Got the security footage you requested. Matthew visited three different weapons dealers this week. He’s planning something.
