Because she was Keira. Because she'd looked at me across a therapy office and seen something worth examining. Because when she kissed me, I'd felt more present than I had in years. More real.
Because I was starting to realize that protecting her wasn't just a duty or an obligation.
It was something I wanted. Something that mattered in a way I wasn't ready to examine too closely.
My phone buzzed. Yegor, with an update on the security rotation. I read it, responded, and forced myself to focus on the threats that were tangible and immediate.
The Petrovics would make their move eventually. When they did, I'd be ready.
But tonight, in the quiet of my penthouse with Keira sleeping down the hall and my brother keeping watch and the city spread out below me like a promise I wasn't sure I believed anymore, I let myself feel something I hadn't felt in a long time.
Hope.
Fragile, uncertain, probably foolish. But there.
I finished my water and went to bed, knowing I wouldn't sleep, knowing I'd lie awake thinking about her, knowing tomorrow would bring more danger and more complications and more reasons why this was a terrible idea.
I didn't care.
Some terrible ideas were worth pursuing.
Chapter 14 - Keira
I woke to gray light filtering through unfamiliar curtains and the disorienting confusion of not knowing where I was.
Then it came back. The penthouse. The marriage. The kiss. The text message that had sent everyone on high alert.
I lay there for a long moment, staring at the ceiling, cataloging the events of the past seventy-two hours like a patient presenting symptoms. Kidnapping attempt. Forced marriage. Kiss with husband. Death threat. Sleepless night.
Any therapist worth their degree would tell me I was in crisis. That I needed to process, to grieve, to allow myself to feel the full weight of what had happened.
Instead, I got out of bed and took a shower.
The water was perfect—hot and plentiful, the kind of water pressure you only got in expensive buildings with excellent plumbing. I stood under it until my skin was pink, letting the heat work into muscles I hadn't realized were tight, and tried to organize my thoughts into something manageable.
I'd told Rodion I didn't regret the kiss. That was true. I'd also told him I didn't know what it meant. That was also true.
The problem was that I was starting to want to find out.
I dried off and dressed in clothes Nina had sent—simple, elegant things that fit better than they had any right to. The woman had good taste and apparently an accurate eye for sizing. I wondered what else she'd observed about me in our brief meeting.
My phone was gone. I'd almost forgotten—Yegor had taken it last night, right after the threatening message appeared. Security risk, he'd said. They could track it. I'd handed it overwithout argument, too shaken to protest, but now the absence felt like a missing limb.
My patients. My practice. My entire life, inaccessible.
I needed to do something about that. But first, I needed coffee.
The penthouse was quiet when I emerged from my room. Morning light filled the main living space, softer than the harsh brightness of the night before. Without the crisis atmosphere, I could actually see the place—the clean lines of the furniture, the art on the walls, the books lining the shelves of the study I'd glimpsed but never entered.
I made coffee in the gleaming kitchen, orienting myself by the smell and the ritual. Some things were the same no matter where you were. Water, grounds, heat. The alchemy of caffeine.
Cup in hand, I wandered.
I told myself I was just exploring my new home. Getting the lay of the land. But I knew what I was really doing—looking for clues. Trying to understand the man I'd married through the space he'd built for himself.
The living room was tasteful but impersonal. Expensive furniture, carefully chosen art, nothing that revealed anything about the person who lived here. It could have been a high-end hotel suite, designed to impress without intimidating.
The study was different.
