I should care about the territory first. The Bratva. The docks, the shipments, the cartel. But my first order of the day is reinforced security around her building, her route, her door. I don’t frame it that way out loud. I bury it underoperational necessity.
It’s a lie everyone accepts.
She returns a few minutes later, hair damp from splashing water on her face, eyes more awake but still lined with exhaustion. She pauses when she sees the way my men have subtly shifted. One now stands closer to the stairs. Another outside the window line of sight.
She notices. Of course she does.
“What changed?” she asks.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” I say.
Her gaze sharpens. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
She glares at me, but doesn’t push further. She moves to the kitchen instead, searching for a glass. I watch her opendrawers and cabinets until she finds one. She doesn’t ask permission. I like that more than I should.
The morning passes slowly. Reports come in. Men come and go. Viktor updates me on shipments.
Ardaleon texts something about Rafael’s crew sniffing around the wrong block again. Through it all, I feel Eden’s presence like a constant thread tugging at my attention.
She sits at the table sometimes, pretending to read, and I catch her staring over the pages more often than not. Other times, she stands near the window, careful to stay out of clear sight from the street, watching the world she no longer belongs fully to.
She’s trying to understand the new shape of her life.
I’m trying to understand why I care.
Her innocence bothers me. It has edges I don’t know how to push against. It makes my world look sharper and uglier in comparison. But her sharpness keeps me alert, keeps me interested. She refuses to crumble, and that… pulls at something in me I thought was long dead.
By midafternoon, my mood is already frayed from Cortez’s movements, my men’s stupidity, and my own relentless awareness of the girl sitting ten feet away. She taps her pen against the table, chewing the inside of her cheek as she writes.
I wonder if she’s writing about me again.
I wonder what she sees.
The knock at the door is measured—three taps, a pause, two more. One of mine. Lukyan steps in, scent of smoke and cold air following him.
“We dealt with the idiot who made that joke,” he says quietly, in Russian. “He won’t use his mouth for anything but apologies for a while.”
“Good,” I reply in the same language.
Eden looks up, brows pinching slightly. She doesn’t understand the words, but she recognizes the tone. She watches us carefully, eyes moving between us like she’s trying to pick up context through body language alone.
“Anything else?” I ask.
“Cortez’s car drove past twice,” Lukyan says. “We sent them a friendly reminder they’ve been caught.”
“What kind of reminder?”
“The kind that makes them rethink their life choices.”
He smirks, but the humor doesn’t touch his eyes. I nod once, and he leaves as quietly as he came.
Eden sets her pen down. “I can’t be here if there’s a war about to break out,” she says.
“You already are here,” I answer. “You’re safer here than anywhere else.”
She laughs once, a small, disbelieving sound. “Safe. Right.”
