I've been in the chair by the door since he fell asleep.
Not guarding the room—guarding him. The moment he finally let himself drop, the fear that he would simply stop breathing crawled into my throat and refused to leave. He'd gone too long without sleep, too long without food, too long running on nothing but spite and discipline. When his body finally gave in, it didn't drift; it crashed. A total systems failure.
He looks younger like this. Not twenty-three—he isn't twenty-three and hasn't been in years—but younger in the way a face changes when it isn't held in place by constant, grinding control. The hard lines at the corners of his mouth aren't as severe. His jaw isn't locked against a threat I can't see. His brow isn't waging a war of its own.
I remember the first time I saw him.
A sterile room in the facility. Fifteen candidates lined up like products on a shelf. Men trying too hard. Men trying to sell themselves with posture and aggression.
Maksim stood at the back and didn't sell anything. He watched. He waited. He didn't flinch when my gaze landed on him, didn't look away, didn't smile. He existed in a stillness that the other men couldn't replicate.
He feels like that man again when he sleeps. The original version. Before I put my hands on him. Before I wrote the instructions on how to break him.
Something in my chest shifts, sharp enough that I almost inhale wrong. It's not warmth. It's not softness. It's a tight, ugly pressure that makes me want to reach out and put my hand on his throat just to feel the life beating under my fingers.
I don't.
I keep my hands on the arms of the leather chair and let the restraint bite into me.
This is not the time to indulge in anything—neither sentiment nor guilt, nor the hunger that has been circling me since that night in the restaurant when I watched him turn bodies into silence.
I should be thinking about Boris.
I should be focused on the next strike, the next move, the next leak. I should be planning a counter-offensive that leaves my uncle with nothing but regret.
My phone vibrates against my thigh.
No sound, just that private pulse that makes my skin crawl.
I glance down, expecting a message from Alexei—another report, another name, another piece of the puzzle. Instead, the alert fills my screen in red block letters that don't care whether I'm ready for them.
PERIMETER BREACH DETECTED
SECURITY PROTOCOL COMPROMISED
AUTHENTICATION CODES ACCESSED
For a second, my brain stalls, unable to decide which part of the message to panic about first.
Then my body takes over.
Cold dread drops through my stomach, heavy and immediate. My mouth goes dry so quickly that my tongue feels stuck to the roof of my mouth.
I open the diagnostic packet with my thumb and scroll.
This isn't someone trying doors. It isn't a guard bribed in the lobby with an envelope of cash. It isn't a surveillance van parked outside with a long lens.
This is deeper.
This is the building's nervous system.
Elevators. Locks. Camera routing. Access logs. Dead zones. Override codes.
My eyes catch the timestamp, and my jaw tightens until it aches.
Overnight. Before dawn.
During the vendor handshake window.
