He pinches my cheek. “Liar.” But he doesn’t push. He takes a sip of his coffee and studies me with those dark eyes. “I need you to look at something today.”
“More security footage?”
“Files. Viktor’s operation is bigger than I thought.” He sets his mug on the nightstand. “And you’re not going back to Eclipse.”
I blink. “What?”
“It’s not safe. I received a tip from Viktor’s inner circle. He suspects I’m investigating him and assumes that it had something to do with the hiring of the new security analyst.” I see a muscle tick in his jaw. “So, you’ll work from here. Remotely.”
“You can’t just—” I stop myself. Yes, he can. He absolutely can. He runs the organization, he can restrict my access, and after what happened between us, he apparently thinks he owns me too.
“I’m a prisoner, then.”
“You’re being protected.”
“Same thing.”
“No.” He reaches out, curling his fingers around my wrist. “A prisoner would be in a cell in my basement. You have full run of the house and the grounds. My men have been instructed to accommodate any request you make.”
“Except leaving.”
“Except that.” A smile curves his lips, transforming his face from coldly beautiful to devastatingly handsome. “For the time being.”
I open my mouth to argue, then shut it again.
We stare at each other, and I know I should pull away. But his thumb is rubbing slow circles on the inside of my wrist, right over my pulse point, and the gentle touch is short-circuiting my ability to think.
“Why does it matter if something happens to me?”
Something fierce and possessive crosses his face, and his thumb stills on my pulse. “Because it does.”
He stands, releasing my wrist, and I feel the loss immediately.
“Get dressed and meet me in my study in twenty minutes. I’ll show you what we’re dealing with.”
He’s gone before I can respond, taking his coffee and leaving me staring after him, confused and frustrated. Thank fuck for the sheets bunched in my lap. At least he didn’t see the hard-on his little wrist massage gave me.
His study is on the first floor, tucked away in a wing I haven’t explored yet. Dark wood, leather furniture, windows overlooking the grounds. Exactly what I’d expect from a man like him. But it’s the organized chaos that surprises me. Fileseverywhere, stacked in precarious towers. A laptop open on the desk, three monitors showing what looks like financial records and security footage. Papers covered in handwritten notes, coffee mugs that suggest he runs on those frequently when he’s here. It’s a complete opposite of his pristine office at Eclipse.
Enzo is standing behind the desk when I walk in, and he doesn’t look up immediately. His fingers continue moving across the keyboard, and I take the moment to watch him.
He looks tired. More tired than I’ve seen him, with tension in his shoulders I’d missed earlier.
Good, the vindictive part of me thinks.He should suffer. But mostly I just feel… complicated.
He looks up then, and our eyes lock across the distance. I won’t call the smile he tosses my way sexy, but my body apparently missed that memo.
“Sit.” He gestures to a chair. “I’m pulling up the files now.”
I sit. The chair is more comfortable than I expected. One of the monitors flickers, and suddenly I’m looking at spreadsheets. Lots of them.
“This is two years of Viktor’s activity,” Enzo says, moving to stand beside me. “Shipments that went missing, inventory discrepancies, money that disappeared from accounts only he and I had access to.”
I lean forward, scanning the numbers. My analyst brain kicks in despite myself, parsing the data, looking for patterns. It’s extensive. Far more than I’d realized from my own digging.
“How much has he stolen?”
“From me? Conservative estimate, about half a million.”
