I climb onto my bike and start the engine. The rumble normally thrills me, but it isn’t enough tonight. Nothing's enough anymore. Not when I know she exists. Not when I know what she looks like when she's scared and trying not to show it. I sit with the engine running, going nowhere, and thinking about the way she held herself. The way she spoke. The way she looked at me with those haunting eyes that cut right through every defense I've ever built.
I've seen a lot of beautiful women, fucked more than I can count, but none of them mattered. None of them were her. She's different. She's been shattered and put back together with all the sharp edges facing out. A weapon disguised as a woman. My weapon. My woman.
Mine.
I shake my head to clear it, but it doesn't work. She's lodged in my brain like a bullet I can't dig out. The Pakhan doesn't pay me to sit in parking lots obsessing over dancers. Doesn't pay me to feel anything at all. I'm supposed to be his right hand. But I can't stop thinking about her. Can't stop imagining what it would be like to have her. To own her. To keep her safe in a world that already tried to destroy her once.
I drive, not knowing where I'm going, just that I need to move, to do something with this energy burning through my veins. But no matter how fast I go, I can't outrun her. Can't escape the memory of her face. Can't stop seeing her every time I blink.
Later—hours later, though it feels like minutes—I'm in my penthouse alone, the way I'm always alone. Except I don't want to be anymore. I want her here, in my space. I want her scent on my sheets and her cries of pleasure in my ears.
The place is sparse. Functional. Nothing personal except for a single photograph on the mantel. My sister. Dead for fifteen years now , but the only person I ever cared about.
Until now.
The thought should scare me. It does scare me, but not enough to make it untrue.
I pour myself a neat vodka. Standing at the window looking out at the city lights below wondering if she's doing the same thing. Standing at a window, wondering if I recognized her. Wondering if she's safe.
She's not safe. Not from me. Not anymore.
Because I did recognize her.
The moment she looked up at me with those fucking eyes, the moment I saw the rage buried there, the moment she spoke?—
I knew.
Yelena.
The Pakhan's daughter. The girl I left in the desert ten years ago. The girl who was supposed to die out there in the sand, heat, and endless nothing.
She chose to be a fighter, changing her name and her appearance. Now she’s back as someone else entirely. Someone harder, sharper. More beautiful than any woman has the right to be.
She came back as Sofiya. But most importantly, she came back as mine.
I drain my drink. Pour another. The vodka burns going down, but I barely feel it. I barely feel anything except the want clawing at my insides.
I should tell the Pakhan. That's my job. My duty. My entire fucking purpose. To protect him. To eliminate threats. To solve problems before they become catastrophes. And Yelena—Sofiya—whatever the fuck she calls herself now, she's a threat. The biggest threat I've ever encountered. She's working at a club he owns. Getting close to his men. Killing people just to gain more access through trust.
She's here for revenge. I can feel it.
And the worst part is I don't care.
I don't care that she wants to kill the Pakhan or that helping her means betraying everything I've built. Because I know I’m going to help her. Despite knowing this obsession is going to destroy me.
I just wanther.
I want her safe, want her close. Want her looking at me the way she did tonight—wary and brave and so fucking beautiful it hurt to breathe.
I should have her eliminated. Clean. Efficient. No loose ends. No complications. But I can't give the order that would end her. Can't be the reason she stops existing. Can't lose her when I just found her. Because ten years ago, I made a choice. I gave hera chance when I should've put a bullet in her head. I pointed her toward survival instead of certain death, giving her a small chance. And she took it.
Why did I save her? Why did I disobey a direct order? Why did I risk everything for a fifteen-year-old girl who'd just watched her mother die?
Maybe I knew, even then. Maybe some part of me recognized that she was mine. That she was always going to be mine.
Does she know I’m the one who cut out her mother’s tongue? That we made her mother suffer before the Pakhan made her watch her mother die? When he ordered her tortured and killed by his men, Igor, Ivan, and Anatoly, I felt nothing. They were three animals who enjoyed their work far too fucking much. But when I arrived to find them playing with her, breaking her, taking everything that made her human and destroying it piece by piece, something inside of me broke.
I've done terrible things. Killed more people than I can count. Followed orders that haunt me. But what they did to her—I wanted to kill them. Should have killed them. Still might.
