I try to rest, but my mind won’t stop spinning. I lie there, staring at the ceiling, the words echoing again and again. I turn over, pressing my face into the pillow. The sheets smell clean, expensive, foreign. Everything in this place feels like it belongs to someone else, including me.
He should’ve told me what I was up against. He had every chance to. But instead, he let me stand there like a fool, defending something I didn’t even understand.
My fingers find the ring on my hand. I twist it until it digs into my skin. It’s beautiful, heavy, and fake all at once.
I tell myself I don’t care. That this is all business, that he’s just another man with too much power and too little conscience. But deep down, I know that’s a lie. Because no matter how angry I am, I can still feel him looking at me.
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling again, wishing I didn’t care. But I do, and that’s what scares me most.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kira
I’ve been pacing the room for hours, too wound up to sit still. Every time I close my eyes, I see his face, and the way the lobby went silent the moment he spoke. It plays over and over until I start wondering if I imagined the whole thing.
The city outside is deep in dusk now, a thousand gold lights bleeding through the windows. Somewhere far below, there’s music, laughter, life. Up here, it’s just me and the clock ticking too loud, the half-empty coffee cup, the bruise of anger that won’t fade, no matter how many times I tell myself to calm down.
I’ve changed clothes three times, unpacked, and still, I can’t make myself get ready for tonight. Every thought leads back to him. The ring. The way he looked at me like I was something he had to protect, but to never trust.
A knock comes, sharp and sudden, but then the door opens without waiting for permission.
Artyom. He stands in the doorway like he owns it, the soft light from the hall catching on the black of his shirt, the open collar framing the hard line of his throat. No tie, no expression, just that calm, controlled stillness that makes everything in me want to explode. His sleeves are rolled once at the wrist, his watch glinting faintly when he moves.
It hits me all at once—anger, heat, confusion—colliding in my chest until I can’t tell which one hurts more. The sound of my heartbeat fills the space, and I swear he can hear it. He doesn’t even flinch when our eyes meet, just watches me, waiting, with patience that feels more like mockery.
Something inside me snaps.
I’m on my feet before I realize it, fingers wrapping around the first thing I can reach—the glass vase on the nightstand. My hand shakes as I lift it, but the movement feels good, sharp, like oxygen finally hitting my lungs.
“Don’t,” he says quietly, but I already have.
The vase explodes against the wall behind him, glass scattering across the marble, the sound cutting through the quiet like a gunshot, but he doesn’t move. Shards glitter near his shoes, a few catching in the cuff of his pants. The only sign he’s even alive is the slow rise and fall of his chest.
When he finally speaks, his voice is calm, deep, steady in that way that makes it worse. “Are you done?”
“Not even close.”
He steps inside, shuts the door with a quiet click. “Then go on.”
I want to scream, to hit him again, to do anything that makes him feel even half of what’s been clawing through me all day. “You could’ve told me,” I say, my voice shaking. “About Irina. About the fact that I’m standing here pretending to be something another woman was supposed to be.”
His eyes narrow, the muscle in his jaw ticking. “Who told you?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does.”
“It was your sisters,” I snap. “They told me because apparently you weren’t planning to. And Boris certainly gave it away first.”
He exhales, slow, measured, like he’s counting backward from ten. “It wasn’t your concern.”
“My concern?” I laugh once, sharp but there’s no humor in it. “You dragged me into this mess, Artyom. You put a ring on my finger and paraded me in front of people who already hate me, and you think it’s not my concern?”
He moves closer, and the air between us shifts. “I told you what this was from the start.”
“No, you told me half of it.”
“You wanted your brother safe. I wanted leverage. That was the deal.”
