Her eyes flash. “Define stupid.”
“Anything that ends with me cleaning up after you.”
“Go to hell.”
I almost smile. “Already been.”
Then I close the door behind me.
The air outside feels colder, sharper. I walk down the hall, each step measured, hands in my pockets. Lev will have men on this building by dawn. I don’t trust her not to panic, but she won’t get far if she tries.
When I reach the street, I stop for a moment and glance up at the window I know is hers. The light’s still on. Her shadow moves once, then disappears.
I should let this be what it is—a simple transaction. But there’s something about her that doesn’t sit right in my head. Something I can’t name. Maybe it’s the way she looked at me when she realized I wasn’t bluffing, like she wanted to hate me but couldn’t find enough strength left to do it.
I push the thought away and instead let the quiet fill the street, the city humming around me while something else settles in my chest, the practical part of my brain filing details the way I always do. I followed Lucas with Lev and two men because Lucas sells product that is not his to sell.
When I watched him with her it was like a door I hadn't planned to step through had opened. She stood there in his life like a light left burning in a bad room, doing the work, holding things together, and it makes me think for a second that she deserves better than whatever scrap heap of life Lucas offers.
Then I remember the men who would cut that life into pieces for a joke and the fathers who trade daughters like currency, and the thought of pity dies quick because pity does not keep anyone alive. I am lucky, in a way that does not feel clean, because she is useful and soft enough to unbalance a room and because that unbalancing is the lever I need to move a larger weight.
By morning, she’ll understand what I meant when I said she’s mine.
CHAPTER FIVE
Kira
I wake to a hard, steady knock that cuts straight through sleep. For a second, I think I imagined it, that my head is still stuck somewhere between last night and whatever dream I was having. Then it comes again, slower this time but louder, like whoever’s behind the door knows I’m awake and doesn’t plan to leave until I open.
I sit up too fast and the room tilts for a second, the pale morning light sneaking through the blinds and landing across the floor. My phone says six-oh-three.
I groan, shove my hair out of my face, and grab the first thing within reach—a faded sweatshirt that smells faintly of detergent and exhaustion. My feet are freezing as I cross the room.
When I open the door halfway, he’s standing there. Dark suit, crisp shirt, no tie, eyes sharp and clear like he’s been awake forhours. He looks completely untouched by time or sleep or basic human limits, like he’s in control of everything around him, including me.
“Get dressed,” he says, his tone flat, like it’s the most ordinary request in the world.
I blink at him, still half-asleep. “It’s six o’clock.”
His eyes move over me once, calm and detached, taking in the sweatshirt, the messy hair, the fact that I clearly don’t care. “Five minutes,” he says again, as if repeating it will make me listen.
“For what?” I ask, my voice sharper now. “I have to be at work at 9:00.”
“We’re going out, I’ll get you back in time. Look presentable. Not like that.”
“What?” I stammer, looking down at myself, then back up at him.
He glances past me into the apartment, eyes sweeping over everything like he’s taking notes for a report. “Clothes, hair, whatever else women do to look presentable,” he says quietly, his voice low but certain. “Be ready.”
I stare at him, disbelief burning through the fog in my head. “You wake me up before sunrise to insult my wardrobe?” I ask, my voice rising with every word.
He looks back at me with that quiet, bored expression that says he’s already decided I’m wasting his time. “Kira, you have a part to play. I expect you to look it.”
I want to slam the door in his face, but part of me knows he’d just open it again. “You can’t seriously expect me to go anywhere with you right now.”
“I can and I do.”
He’s impossible. He speaks like he expects the world to listen, and maybe it usually does. I tell myself that’s why my pulse is racing, but the truth feels messier than that.
