He nods once and leaves, no extra words, no glance back. The door closes, and the click lands in my chest like something small breaking loose.
I stand alone in my office with my hand on the edge of the desk.
I remind myself that nothing has changed.
If he read the file, he would see the truth. He understands who he is, what the facility made him, and that I gave him a place to stand.
I convince myself it was a gift.
I reassure myself that it was necessary.
Yet my throat tightens regardless.
The office is quiet. Outside, the penthouse hums softly, and the city beyond the glass remains indifferent as always.
I wait for the sound of his footsteps taking position outside my door.
They don't come right away.
That absence—small, ordinary, a silence that shouldn't matter—scrapes at me more intensely than any threat I can name.
10
MAKSIM
The hallway is short.
A few steps from Ivan’s office to the elevator. A strip of carpet that never quite lies flat at the seam. A camera in the corner that sees the whole length if you know where it’s pointed. A wall with paint so smooth it feels slippery under my shoulder.
I’ve stood here enough that I can picture it with my eyes shut.
Right now my eyes are open, and I’m still using the wall.
I shouldn’t.
I don’t lean when I’m doing my job right. I don’t sink weight into anything. I don’t give the body permission to soften.
But the adrenaline that kept me moving all night has bled out of me in the elevator, and the ache that was background noise in the car has climbed to the front. Every breath pulls at my ribs. Every small shift drags pain through my side like a hook. My knees keep trying to unlock at the wrong time.
If I stand away from the wall, I can feel the slow tilt of myself starting. Not dramatic. Not a collapse. Just the body making an argument I don’t have the strength to win.
So I press back. I borrow the wall’s steadiness.
The file is still in my eyes.
Not the folder itself—there’s nothing in front of me but painted drywall—but the words sit behind my eyelids like they were burned there. I blink. They’re still there. I stare at a blank spot on the wall until it fuzzes. They don’t move.
Do not praise.
Keep him hungry.
Proximity as reward.
His handwriting is the worst part. That neat, controlled script I’ve watched carve decisions into the world for years. I’ve seen it on orders, on security notes, on the clean signatures that turn a conversation into a command.
I used to take comfort in it.
If his pen touched it, it mattered. If he wrote it down, it would be handled. Clean. Exact. Contained.
