My phone buzzes again. Another update from Alexei—nothing urgent, just confirmation that the additional security teams are en route. I respond with a series of clipped instructions, my mind already shifting into operational mode.
But a part of me stays in last night. In the sound of her voice saying my name. In the way her body felt beneath mine, tight and trembling, giving me something precious.
She waited for me. Two years, and she waited.
I don't know what that means. Don't know if it's the beginning of something or just a moment of madness we'll both regret when this is over. The feelings between us are real—I'm sure of that now—but feelings don't guarantee a future. Not in my world.
And I still don't know if I'm capable of giving her the things she needs. The things she deserves.
The bathroom door opens. She emerges in a cloud of steam, wrapped in one of my towels, her wet hair leaving dark trails on her shoulders. She catches me staring and raises an eyebrow.
"What?"
"Nothing." I cross to the closet, pulling out a shirt for her. "Here. Your clothes from yesterday are probably still wet."
She takes the shirt, letting the towel drop without self-consciousness. I watch her button it—my shirt, on her body, falling to mid-thigh—and something possessive coils in my chest.
Mine. The word echoes in my head, unbidden. She's mine.
But even as I think it, I know it's not quite true. She's here because circumstances forced her here. She slept with me because the tension between us finally became unbearable. But that doesn't mean she's chosen this life. Chosen me.
When Sergei is dealt with, she'll have options. Real options. She could go back to medical school, rebuild her life,find someone who doesn't have blood on his hands and enemies at his gates.
The thought makes my jaw clench.
"The tattoos," she says, interrupting my spiral.
I look up. "What about them?"
She crosses to where I'm standing, reaches out, traces a line of ink on my forearm. Her touch is light, curious.
"I couldn't see them clearly last night. In the dark." She follows the pattern up to my shoulder. "There are so many."
"Occupational hazard."
"Do they mean something?"
I hesitate. The tattoos are a map of my life—every kill, every loss, every milestone in my rise through the ranks. Some of them I got by choice. Others were given to me, ritual markings that signal my place in this world.
"Some of them," I say finally.
"Will you tell me about them? Someday?"
That word again. Someday. The future stretching out in front of us, uncertain and fragile.
"This one," I say, touching a small symbol on my inner wrist, "was my first. I was eighteen. It marks my initiation into the brotherhood."
She studies it, her fingers tracing the edges. "What did you have to do? To earn it?"
"You don't want to know."
"Probably not." She looks up at me, her expression unreadable. "But I'm asking anyway."
I hold her gaze. She deserves honesty—I promised her that. But some truths are uglier than others.
"I killed a man," I say quietly. "A traitor who had sold information to the Ivanovs. Dmitri gave me the gun and told me to prove my loyalty."
"Did you hesitate?"
