My face heats instantly. “That’s not—oh my God, that’s not the point.”
He shrugs, still smirking. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“There’sno wayI’m sleeping in the same bed as you.”
He holds up his hands in mock surrender, the faintest laugh under his breath. “Fine. I’ll take the couch.”
I cross my arms. “Good.”
He gestures toward the bathroom. “Then go change before you fall asleep standing there.”
I roll my eyes but grab my things and head for the bathroom, closing the door a little harder than necessary. My reflection still looks flushed, ridiculous. I take a few seconds to breathe before changing into my nightshirt and tying my hair up.
When I step back out, he’s stretched out on the couch, one arm behind his head, the other resting over his stomach. He’s changed—no more crisp shirt or tie, just a plain black T-shirt and sweats. The sight catches me off guard. He looks almost… normal. Just a man sitting in the half-light, broad shoulders relaxed, hair a little messy from running his hands through it. The lamp beside him throws a soft amber glow across his skin, catching the edge of a faint scar on his forearm.
Something in my chest shifts. I tell myself it’s just exhaustion, but my pulse doesn’t get the memo.
“Get some sleep, Kira,” he says, voice low and warm now, almost teasing. “You’re safe. I’ll be right here.”
I glance at him once more before turning toward the bed. “Don’t get too comfortable.”
His smirk returns. “Too late.”
I slide under the covers, pretending to ignore him, but my pulse won’t slow. The sheets are cool against my legs. I lie on my sidefacing the wall, pretending to sleep. The room stays quiet except for the occasional creak of leather as he shifts on the couch.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Kira
I don’t know what pulls me out of sleep at first. The room is quiet except for the low hum of the air conditioner. Then I hear it again—a scrape of metal, soft but wrong. The lamp near the couch spills a thin line of light across the floor, and in that light, Artyom is already standing, still and alert, watching the door.
“What is it?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer. Just raises a hand, palm flat in the air, telling me without words to stay exactly where I am. His eyes don’t leave the door. The stillness in him is almost worse than fear, it’s cold and absolute focus.
A second later, the lock clicks.
The sound is small, almost polite—just the click of metal against metal—but it slices through the quiet like a knife. Every nerve in my body goes rigid. The air itself seems to change, thinning around us, heavy with something unseen.
Artyom moves before I can even breathe. One clean, silent step forward. His hand finds the back of his waistband, steady and practiced, fingers closing around the cold outline of the gun. His whole body shifts with it—shoulders lowering, weight settling on the balls of his feet, ready to spring. The muscles in his forearm tighten, the tendons flex beneath his skin. He’s a shadow pulled taut, every part of him wired for the impact he already knows is coming.
Even the air between us feels charged, like the room is holding its breath, waiting to see what breaks first—the lock, or us.
Then the door bursts open. A shape rushes through the darkness, fast and heavy. The noise that follows is furniture scraping, of breath colliding with force. I barely manage a gasp before a hand catches my wrist and yanks hard enough to bruise. The pull sends me stumbling off balance, the room tilting as adrenaline spikes through me.
Artyom is already there. He crosses the space between us in two strides, his body slamming into the intruder with the weight of something trained, practiced. The impact shakes the wall. A framed picture falls and shatters somewhere behind them. The man grunts, tries to swing again, but Artyom catches the motion, pins his arm, drives him back against the dresser so hard the lamp flickers.
I stumble toward the bed, half crawling, half falling onto it, clutching the blanket like it could stop what’s happening. My pulse is so loud it drowns everything else. The air smells like sweat, metal, and fear.
The fight is brutal but quiet—grunts, the thud of fists meeting flesh, the scrape of shoes on the floor. A knife flashes in the man’s hand, catching a glint of light from the lamp. For one breath I can’t move, can’t even scream, watching the blade swing upward.
Artyom twists at the last second, catching the man’s wrist mid-swing. The movement is fast—too fast for my eyes to follow—and then the blade reverses direction. A wet, muffled sound cuts through the air as he drives the knife straight into the intruder’s throat.
The noise that follows is low and choking, wet and human, the kind of sound that makes your stomach turn because it’s not supposed to exist outside of nightmares. The man jerks once, hands clawing at his own neck, and a spray of blood hits the wall, then me.
The heat of it shocks me more than the sight. It dots my cheek, warm and slick, sliding down to the corner of my mouth before I can move. The metallic taste floods my tongue when I breathe in too sharply. My knees buckle, and I catch myself on the side of the bed, every pulse in my body beating out of sync.
The knife slips free with a sickening sound and clatters across the hardwood. That tiny metallic note feels obscene, too normal against the chaos.
