“You don’t have any competition,” I murmur, my eyes dropping to his mouth. “But you have to give me space sometimes. This is a lot for me, and I still feel out of place.”
“Don’t,” he insists, his hand slips over my hip, around my waist. “No one here questions your presence. No one wonders what I see in you, Alyona.”
When he kisses me, it’s unhurried and intimate. His lips are firm, familiar now, and my body leans into him without hesitation.
His thumbs slide under the hem of my blouse, finding bare skin, sending heat spiraling low in my belly. He murmurs against my mouth, his voice a low promise meant only for me.
“You’ve been running hot lately,” he says softly. “I’ll ask them to cool the center.”
I smile against his lips, the tension between us melting into something heady and electric. As the presentation drones on, everyone is oblivious to the quiet reconciliation unfolding in the dark. “Don’t. That’s ridiculous. I’m just a little overwhelmed. And this vest…”
His fingers toy with one of the buttons.
“I can take it off of you, Alyona. I can clear out a room and strip you bare and?—”
“Shh,” I laugh, pressing my hand over his mouth. His beard tickles my palm, lips pressing a kiss there as his eyes lock with mine. “Don’t,” I warn, not sure what I’m warning against; the thought of him taking me, owning me, in this place that he owns,with hundreds of people just on the other side of the door, it’s thrilling to say the least.
But my heart flips with the possibility of something else.
Don’t make me fall for you,something in me whispers as he takes my hand from his lips and holds it in his.Don’t make this harder than it already is.
Chapter 24
Kazimir
I’m standing over a titanium rib assembly when the argument finally resolves itself.
The tolerances are perfect on paper, but paper does not account for heat shear at altitude, or the way stress migrates when an aircraft is pushed past what it was meant to endure. I trace the line with my finger, slow and deliberate, while my design lead waits, tablet hugged to his chest like a shield. Around us, the headquarters hums with quiet industry, a surprisingly legitimate cover for my underground operations.
In a hangar visible outside the window to the left, a shipment of signal jammers, GM-94 grenade launchers, and twenty second-hand M24 sniper rifles is leaving shortly for Colombia. Its manifest lists only crates of earthmoving machinery parts that will support the country’s legitimate mining operations.
“Change the lattice,” I say at last. “Micro-triangulation along the spine. It will add three pounds, but it will survive a hard climb and an emergency descent without warping.”
He blinks, then nods quickly, already adjusting the model. No one ever expects the street kid from Prague to actually know about manufacturing aircraft. “That’ll increase lifespan by?—”
“Twenty-two percent,” I finish. “And make the maintenance schedule attractive enough that the government stops pretending they don’t want it.”
A few of them smile at that, the nervous kind that comes from working for a man whose ambitions are never small. Baranov Tech has contracts across three continents, but Savannah is the heart of it. It’s the place where the future gets shaped by hand before it ever sees a runway. My uncle started small, with a private aircraft company that catered to billionaires like himself, looking to hide secrets and do business several thousand miles in the air. But I restructured it this way on purpose. If I am going to control my own fleet and rely on it, then I need to know every bolt, every weakness, every advantage.
I dismiss the team with a nod and turn toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the private airstrip. One of my jets sits on the tarmac, sleek and newly modified, its silhouette unmistakable. Power made visible. Control made real.
My phone vibrates in my pocket.
I already know it is not good news. Liev’s team has recently caught me up on the things I’ve been purposely avoiding.
I answer without looking at the screen. “Speak.”
“Hinto’s people are moving,” one of my men says. “We’ve got eyes on the off-base hangar, the one south of the city. They’re not subtle about it. Looks like sabotage, boss.”
My jaw tightens, and something cold and familiar settles into my chest. When I was in my twenties, my uncle went to war with another man from Moscow who meant to take over our business from the inside. This is what it felt like.
“How many?”
“Four confirmed. Maybe more on overwatch.”
I glance once more at the jet outside, then turn away from the glass. “Hold position. Do not engage.”
A pause. “Boss, we can handle?—”
