She glances up at me. “At least no one died.”
“Yet.”
The corners of her mouth twitch. She’s trying not to smile, and the effort somehow makes it worse.
The elevator stops. The doors open to our floor. I don’t move right away. The quiet stretches, thick with something that feels too close to everything I’ve been trying not to feel since I met her.
“You did well,” I say.
She looks at me for a long time before answering. “So did you. Until you didn’t.”
The doors start to close again, and I catch them with my hand. “Go inside, Kira. I’ll join you later.”
She steps out, brushing past me, the side of her arm grazing my chest. The touch is accidental, but it burns.
I stay in the elevator until the doors shut completely. Only then do I let the tension out of my shoulders. My reflectionin the metal looks like someone else—someone younger, less in control. Someone I thought I’d buried years ago.
I can still hear the murmur of voices from earlier, the echo of Boris’s laughter, Irina’s silent disapproval, Kira’s quiet defiance. And suddenly, I realize how ridiculous the whole thing must’ve looked. A public scene, a family drama, all unfolding under chandeliers and crystal.
I press the button for the top floor, watching the numbers climb.
Somewhere between one heartbeat and the next, it hits me that we just turned a business alliance into a goddamn soap opera. And for the first time in years, I have no idea how to fix it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Artyom
The silence in the elevator feels too loud.
By the time I reach the top floor, my jaw aches from staying locked. I should’ve walked away sooner. Should’ve known better than to let Boris drag me into a pissing contest in the middle of a hotel lobby full of cameras and witnesses. But the truth is, the second he looked at her like that—like she was dirt under his shoes—I stopped thinking.
That’s the part that bothers me most. I never lose control.
The hallway stretches long and gold-lit, expensive without warmth. I push the door open to Mikhail’s suite and the quiet hits like a wall. The air smells faintly of whiskey and hotel polish, sterile and heavy. For a moment, I just stand there, staring at the city through the glass. It looks beautiful from this high up, untouchable.
Except right now, all I can see is her face. Kira, looking up at me after it was over, her voice low but shaking with anger.You just made it worse.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe I did. But there’s a part of me that doesn’t regret a damn thing. Because for one second, when I told him to watch his mouth, I saw her eyes change; just a flicker, but it was there, and in that moment, I knew she had never been defended like that before.
But I shouldn’t care about that. I shouldn’t care about her, period.
Mikhail sticks his head through the door, already dressed in a dark suit, hair slicked back, a cigarette hanging from his mouth.
“Meeting’s in ten,” he says, voice rough from the smoke. “They want us downstairs.”
“Who’s there?”
“Everyone,” he says. “Camorra, the Irish, Boris. Half the room probably wants to see if you and Petrov will wait to kill each other till after dessert.”
I grab my jacket and slide it on, buttoning it one-handed. “No promises.”
We take the elevator down together, the morning already bright through the glass, sunlight cutting across the marble like ablade. Mikhail walks a step ahead, the picture of calm, but I can feel him watching me from the corner of his eye.
He’s quiet for a minute, then says, “You’re different with her.”
“With who?”
He smirks. “Don’t start. You know who. I’ve never seen you that hot-headed before. Not even with Father.”
