The air feels tight between us. My heart beats fast, but it’s a clean rhythm. Fear and something else.
He tilts his head.
“Decision?” he asks.
I think of the hostel bunk. The burned coffee. The roommates who snore and steal cheap cigarettes. I think of the ghost in his files and the way my chest pulled tight when I saw Courier’s tag.
I set the empty glass down.
“I’ll stay,” I say.
His jaw lightens. Just a little.
“Good,” he says. “Then listen carefully.”
He lays out my new life in simple lines.
I’ll move into a suite in the east wing of his estate. I’ll have a workstation inside his office and a second one in a secure room near the server racks. I’ll eat at his table when he calls for me, at the staff table when he doesn’t. I’ll meet his captains, his advisors, his crew. Not as a toy. As a tool.
“You’ll carry a company phone and a separate device I’ll give you,” he says. “Nothing of yours plugs into my system without that bridge.”
“Are you worried I’ll steal from you?” I ask.
“Everyone steals,” he says. “I just prefer to know how.”
“You have a lovely way of making a girl feel welcome,” I say.
“You’re not here to feel welcome,” he says. “You’re here to keep a man from cutting my house apart in pieces.”
He steps closer.
“One more rule,” he says. “You don’t lie to me about threats. I don’t care if you lie about anything else. You can lie about lovers, about friends, about how much you slept. You don’t lie about danger. If you see something, you tell me. Even if you think I won’t want to hear it.”
“You think I’m fragile?” I ask.
“I think you’re smart,” he says. “Smart people sometimes try to manage problems alone. That’s how bodies show up in the wrong places.”
My throat tightens. I nod.
“Understood,” I say.
He holds out his hand again.
“Welcome to my house, Raina.”
I take it.
His grip is warm and firm. It lands heavier than any signature.
Fire moves through me from that one simple contact. Controlled. Focused. Bright.
He feels it too. His thumb presses once against my palm before he lets go.
The first weekin his house feels unreal.
The estate sits on a rise outside the city, stone and glass and steel. Guards at the gate. Guards at the doors. Cameras at every corner. Inside, it’s warmer than it looks. Heat in the pipes. Real food on the tables. Heavy curtains at the tall windows.
Anastasia shows me my room. She moves like a maid and a bodyguard at once. Light steps. Straight spine. Hair twisted tightly.
