She curled tighter into me, voice soft as she whispered, “I don’t know how to answer that.” A soft laugh came from her, a puff of air bathing my chest. “But yeah, I’m better than good.”
I let out a slow breath, low and controlled, and didn’t loosen my hold on her. If anything, my arm tightened, my hand splayed firm and possessive over her stomach. I was aware of it. I didn’t stop myself.
“Good,” I murmured against her hair. “That’s what matters.”
She shifted, settling more fully against my chest, and I adjusted instinctively, pulling the blanket higher, angling my body so she was shielded on all sides. The bunker felt smaller than it was. Warmer. Everything seemed reduced to the steady rhythm of her breathing and the weight of her curled into me.
We lay there in silence for a long stretch of time. My instincts stayed sharp out of habit, listening for sounds that didn’t exist, mapping exits I already knew by heart, but my hand never left her body. I moved my thumb once, slow and absent, tracing the small line of her hip. I felt possession, plain and undeniable.
She hummed softly, already drifting, her trust heavy in the way she leaned into me without hesitation. That trust hit harder than anything else ever had in my life. I lowered my head and brushed my mouth against her hair.
As her breathing evened out and sleep took her. I stayed awake, staring into nothing, but guarding everything, especially the most important thing to me.
Because whatever line I’d crossed tonight, whatever claim I’d made, I knew one thing with absolute certainty… this wasn’t over.
And no one was taking her from me.
Chapter 15
Zoya
Ididn’t hear or see anything while I was inside the panic room. That was the point of it. Concrete walls thick enough to swallow sound. Reinforced steel doors. Layers meant to keep danger out and secrets buried deep.
Whatever Dmitry did when he left this space stayed on the other side of those walls. It didn’t bleed through. It didn’t reach me.
When he came back, I knew without a word that something had shifted.
He didn’t rush. Didn’t scan the room. He shut the door, secured it, and stood there for a moment as if he were deciding where to place the weight of what he carried. His face was closed off, carved into that icy stillness I’d learned meant control—not calm.
Something had changed.
“I got a call,” he said.
He finally looked at me then. Fully. Dark eyes steady, jaw locked down hard enough to hurt.
I already knew the answer, but I asked anyway. “My father?”
For a fraction of a second, I saw him consider lying. Not to protect himself, but to protect me.
“Da,” he said.
The word landed clean and sharp. I straightened instinctively, as if my body remembered this kind of moment. Moments when my father reached through distance and reminded me who he believed I belonged to.
“What did he say?”
Dmitry exhaled slowly through his nose. “He says the deal is complete.”
My stomach twisted, but I didn’t look away. I nodded once, and could feel the shape of what was coming before he said it.
“And he wants you returned.”
Returned.
Not asked for. Not requested, but given back like property that had been loaned out and was now overdue.
I waited for fear to rise. It didn’t. What came instead was cold and sharp and furious. Something clean and burning.
“I was currency,” I whispered, not phrasing it as a question.
