I rest my forearms on the table, fingers curling loosely around my glass. The liquor glints under the shifting lights as I turn it lazily in my hand.
“She’s pushing against the edges of her fear,” I say. “Trying to decide what she is to me.”
“You think she knows she matters?” Lukyan asks.
“She feels it,” I answer. “She doesn’t understand it yet.”
“Should we bring her in?” Viktor asks. “Before she slips the leash?”
A cold amusement curls through me.
“She’s not slipping anywhere.” I lift the glass to my lips, not drinking—just letting the edge touch my mouth as the grin deepens. “She’s been in my orbit since the night she watched Hector die. Whether she realizes it or not.”
Ardaleon leans back, arms crossed. “And now?”
“Now,” I say, setting the glass down gently, “she’s moving exactly how I expected her to.”
The club lights cut through the haze, illuminating the men at my table—the Sharov family, the core of an empire built on precision and brutality. They all watch me, waiting for the next directive.
I rise from the booth, resting my hands on the edge of the table as I stand. “It’s about time,” I murmur, voice low but carrying through the booth.
Ardaleon glances up. “Time for what?”
I let the grin resurface: slow, dark, hungry. “Time I take this trouble away.”
Chapter Nine - Eden
My morning starts the way it always does: too much caffeine, too little sleep, and a computer screen that feels brighter than it should. The research center hums with soft conversation and the clacking of keyboards.
People gather in small clusters over behavioral charts and case studies. It should be grounding. Familiar. Safe.
It isn’t.
My thoughts drift again and again to Simon. Every time I blink, I see the precise way he looked at me at the café. Warm voice. Cold eyes. A strange tension behind every polite word. Something about him feels both inviting and dangerous, like touching something sharp just to see if it cuts.
I shake the thought away, trying to focus on the work in front of me. A presentation on observational bias should hold my attention. It doesn’t. The cursor blinks at the top of the page, waiting for me to type something thoughtful, but my chest tightens instead.
I open a new tab.
I tell myself it’s for peace of mind. Or curiosity. Or anything except what it really is: fear mixed with fascination.
I type his name slowly.
Simon Sharov.
The search results load. Articles. Public records. A few business listings with vague descriptions. He is not a visible man. Lukyan Sharov, however, is. His name appears everywhere—wealth, power, allegations, tabloid rumors. Then I see a picture from a gala. Lukyan in a tailored suit, arm around a woman, smile sharp.
Beside him stands a man in a dark coat.
Simon.
My heart drops so hard I grip the desk. The image is clearer than the memories I have of him. That same controlled expression. That same posture. The faint scar near his temple. A face I shouldn’t be able to trace with such certainty, but somehow I can.
I click the photo.
Underneath it, Lukyan’s name is bold, followed by a short biography. I scroll. Clara’s article flashes in my memory. Her curiosity about Lukyan. Her insistence that something darker lay beneath the wealth and glamour. Then she vanished.
I keep scrolling.
