It doesn't. It leaves me restless, irritated with his control, irritated that I want to break something just to hear a different sound.
I look away before I do something I can't pretend was about security.
"Resume your position," I say. "We have a meeting with the logistics team at 0800. I need to see who is still solid."
Maksim returns to the door.
The distance becomes correct again. The posture. The arrangement. The roles put back in their boxes.
And still, my fingertips burn.
I pour another drink. The bottle clinks against the glass, loud in the silence. I carry it to the window.
Somewhere out there, Boris is moving pieces on the board. Somewhere, my father is deciding how much blood he is willing to spend.
I should be thinking about names, evidence, routes.
Instead, I keep thinking about the scar along Maksim's ribs and how he saidI was a childas if it were weather.
I drink.
Behind me, Maksim breathes. Slow. Even. An anchor in a room that feels like it's drifting.
I set the glass down.
"Maksim."
"Yes."
"Tonight," I say, keeping my eyes on the city because I don't trust my face. "You sleep in the room again."
A brief pause. He isn't slow to answer; he is careful with the moment.
"Yes."
I don't turn around.
If I turn around, I will look at him. And if I look at him, I will remember the pulse under my fingers and the way my heart stumbled as if it didn't recognize itself.
So I stare at the city until the lights blur. I let the ache sit there. Physical. Simple. A sensation I can handle.
I refuse to chase it into meaning.
6
MAKSIM
I tryto picture my own quarters, but it comes back wrong, like a room from someone else's life.
White walls. Gray industrial carpet. A bed so tightly made that the sheets look painted on. I smoothed the corners every morning, a reflex drilled into my hands since I was six. If I stopped, I felt it in my skin—an itch beneath the surface that wouldn't clear until the fabric was flat.
The closet held identical sets of clothing, hung like tools on a rack. The suit for formal occasions hung at the far end, shrouded in plastic, untouched until the schedule demanded it.
There was nothing personal. No photographs. No objects with stories. Nothing to prove I existed outside the hours I was clocked in.
I haven't gone back in three days.
The penthouse has swallowed my life. I sleep in the wingback chair by Ivan's bedroom door, or on the floor when my lower back starts to seize and I need a hard surface. I shower in themaster bathroom while Ivan eats breakfast, keeping the door cracked so I can track his reflection in the mirror.
