Instead, I sit in rigid silence, my hands clenched on my thighs.
Eva stares out the window, her jaw tight, her thumbnail pressing into her index finger. The sexual attraction between us crackles in the air like electricity before a storm, but her resentment creates an impenetrable barrier. I can feel the heat radiating from her body, see the way her chest rises and falls with carefully controlled breaths, and notice how her thighs press together beneath her dress.
I imagine sliding my hand up those thighs, pushing the fabric aside, discovering if she's wearing the same simple black panties from before or something different. I imagine making her gasp, making her forget why she's angry, making her body respond to mine the way it always does despite her mind's protests.
But I don't move. Don't touch. Don't speak.
The silence stretches between us, heavy with everything we're not saying, and by the time we arrive at the tower, my control is fraying at the edges.
At the office, Eva goes straight to work with focused intensity that would be admirable if it wasn't so clearly designed to avoid me. She organizes files with mechanical efficiency, answers phones with professional courtesy, and prepares my coffee to exact specifications without once meeting my eyes when she brings it to my desk.
I retreat to my office and try to concentrate on the mounting crisis with my alliances. The Chinese are still threatening to break completely. The Irish want their sit-down. David's legal maneuvering is buying us time but not solutions. I should be focused on strategy, on damage control, on proving to the Moscow delegates that I'm still worthy of being Pakhan.
Instead, everywhere I look, I see Eva.
The desk where I took her, papers scattering to the floor as I buried myself inside her. The door where I pressed her against the wood, her legs wrapped around my waist, her moans filling my office. The leather couch where we tangled together in desperate need, her nails digging into my shoulders, her body arching beneath mine.
My cock hardens at the memories, and I shift in my chair, trying to focus on the financial reports spread across my desk. But my gaze keeps drifting through the glass wall to where Eva sits at her desk, her brow furrowed in concentration, her lips slightly parted as she reviews documents.
I imagine those lips wrapped around my cock, her brown eyes looking up at me as she takes me deeper. I imagine bending her over her desk right now, hiking up that dress, making her scream my name where anyone could hear.
Blyat.I'm losing my fucking mind.
My phone buzzes. The IT specialist, requesting an immediate meeting. I tell him to send Lev, grateful for the distraction from my own spiraling thoughts.
Viktor arrives within minutes, his laptop tucked under one arm, his expression grim behind thick-framed glasses. He's beenhandling our cybersecurity for three years, and I've never seen him look this concerned.
"We have a problem," he says without preamble, settling into the chair across from my desk. "Someone's been attempting to hack into our systems for the past week."
My attention sharpens immediately. "How serious?"
"The attempts are amateur but persistent." Viktor opens his laptop, pulling up screens of code and access logs that mean nothing to me but clearly trouble him. "They're probing for weaknesses, trying different entry points. Most concerning, they're specifically targeting files related to your personal accounts and business dealings."
I lean forward, my hands steepled. "Can you trace them?"
"Already did." Viktor's fingers fly across the keyboard. "The IP address leads to a residential location. I have the address here."
He slides a piece of paper across my desk and I glance at it. My eyes drift to the side and through the glass wall. I see Eva glance up, concern flickering across her face before she masks it with professional neutrality. She knows something's wrong, can read the tension in my posture. But she doesn't come to my office, doesn't ask questions.
Lev and I leave without explanation. I catch Eva watching through the glass as we head for the elevator, her brown eyes following my movement, and for a moment, our gazes lock. I see the worry she's trying to hide, the fear that something's happened, that I'm walking into danger.
Then the elevator doors close, and she's gone.
The address leads us to a building that's seen better decades, the kind of place where people mind their own business and don't ask questions. My security team has already secured the perimeter by the time we arrive. We take the stairs to the third floor, our footsteps silent on worn carpet, and stop outside apartment 3C.
I nod at Lev. He picks the lock with practiced ease, and we enter with weapons drawn.
The studio apartment is cramped and cluttered, dominated by a desk holding multiple monitors, their screens glowing in the dim light. Tyler Chen sits hunched over the keyboards, his fingers flying across the keys, completely absorbed in his work. The walls are covered with printouts—financial records, news articles about Russian organized crime, surveillance photos of me entering and leaving my office building.
This foolish boy has been building a case. Trying to prove what I am. Trying to save Eva from a monster.
My jaw tightens as I survey the evidence. He's uncovered far too much. Names, dates, transactions that should be buried deep. Amateur work, but thorough. Dangerous.
Tyler finally notices us. His head snaps up, his face going pale behind his wire-rimmed glasses. For a heartbeat, we all freeze—him in his chair, us in the doorway, the moment stretching like pulled taffy.
Then Tyler lunges for his phone on the desk.
Lev moves with predatory speed, crossing the small space in two strides. A single precise blow to Tyler's temple, and the boy crumples unconscious to the floor, his wire-rimmed glasses skittering across the worn linoleum.
