The transition is terrifyingly fast. One second he is a thrashing, panicked victim. The next, the predator is online.
He sits up. The movement is fluid, violent, and precise. His hand blurs toward the nightstand.
"Clear," I say.
I keep my hands visible, away from my hips. I do not flinch as the barrel of his SIG Sauer levels at my chest.
"It's Maksim."
He stops.
For ten seconds, the room is dead silent. He breathes hard, his chest heaving, sweat glistening on his forehead. The gun doesn't waver. He looks at me, but I don't know what he sees—me or the thing from his dream.
Then, slowly, recognition returns.
He lowers the gun, placing it back on the nightstand with a heavy clack. He pushes the damp hair from his forehead, his hand shaking with a tremor he can't quite suppress.
He begins to rebuild the wall. I watch him do it. He straightens his spine. He fixes the sheet. He composes his face into the mask of the boss, but the cracks are still visible.
"You left your post," he says. His voice is gravelly and ruined by sleep, but his tone is steady.
"I heard a disturbance," I reply. "I came to assess."
"Assess." He spits the word.
"The perimeter is secure," I tell him. "You were... compromised."
He looks at me. Really looks at me. In the dark, stripped of the suit and tie, the hierarchy feels thin.
"I don't have nightmares," he lies.
"Understood."
"Go back to the chair."
"Yes."
I turn. I don't ask if he's okay. I don't offer him water. Offering comfort would acknowledge weakness, and Ivan would hate me for that.
"Maksim."
I stop in the doorway. I don't look back.
"Lock the bedroom door."
The order hits me in the chest. He wants the barrier back. He needs physical separation. He needs to know that if he breaks again, I won't be there to witness it.
"Yes, Sir."
I pull the heavy door shut and hear the latch click into place. A small sound, but it feels final.
I walk back to the wingback chair. I check the window. I check the main lock. I sit.
My pulse hammers a frantic rhythm against my ribs. Seeing him like that—undone, raw, begging—felt more dangerous than the knife Viktor brought to the table.
Not the glass.
The car crash. The mother. The blood on the Kennedy Expressway. Everyone knows the story, but no one knows the damage.
