Her jaw tightened. “Even if it destroys me?”
The question hung between us, unanswerable.
Because the truth was, I would destroy her if it meant keeping her alive. Would burn down everything she loved, everyone she’d known before me. Her father, her old life, her illusions about who I was and what this world demanded.
Then I remembered the dying man’s word: Petrov. Her father. Italians weren’t just circling. They’d already sunk their claws in, already found their leverage. And when they came for her—and they would come, I could feel it building like pressure before an explosion—I would do whatever it took to keep her safe.
Even if it meant becoming exactly the monster she feared.
I closed my eyes and held her tighter, feeling her heartbeat steady against my ribs.
Chapter Nineteen
Mila’s POV
I woke to muscles that ached in places I hadn’t known could ache, and a hollow feeling in my chest that had nothing to do with the physical.
The bed beside me was empty again. Cold again. I could hear shuffling sounds as I moved close to the window.
I pulled on clothes quickly—jeans, a sweater, and thick socks against the perpetual cold of the marble floors. The voices grew louder as I descended the stairs. Not quite shouting, but close—the kind of controlled intensity that meant something had happened. Something bad.
I found them in the foyer.
Viktor stood at the center of a cluster of guards, his usually calm expression tight with urgency. Dimitri was there too, barking into a phone in rapid Russian. And Alexei—
Alexei stood like the eye of a hurricane, perfectly still while chaos swirled around him. He was dressed in all black, his pale eyes cold and calculating as he gave orders with the quiet authority of someone who’d never had to raise his voice to be obeyed.
He looked like a god of war. Beautiful and terrible and absolutely merciless.
“—every entrance, every exit,” he was saying. “I want security footage from the last seventy-two hours reviewed. Someone slipped information out of this estate, and I want to know who and how.”
My stomach dropped.
“What happened?” I asked, my voice smaller than I’d intended.
Every head turned toward me. The guards’ expressions were carefully neutral, but I could feel their assessment. Viktor looked calm while Dimitri just looked grim.
Alexei’s gaze landed on me, his suspicion feeling like a physical thing. Sharp. Searching. Looking for something I desperately hoped he wouldn’t find.
“There’s been a breach,” he said quietly. “Someone fed information to the Italians. They have one of our supply routes mapped, locations of three safe houses—details they shouldn’t have access to.”
My first thought was of my father. Had he done this? Had his contact with me somehow exposed the estate’s security? Or worse—was he working with the Italians, using me as his way in?
The second was the man standing right in front of me. My husband.
“How?” The word came out as a whisper.
“That’s what we’re trying to determine.” He crossed toward me slowly, each step measured. When he was close enough to touch, he stopped. “Did you sleep well?”
The question was so normal, so domestic, that it felt obscene given the context. But I understood what he was really asking:Where were you? What do you know? Are you involved?
“Fine,” I managed. “I slept fine.”
His eyes narrowed slightly—he knew I was lying, could always tell—but he didn’t push. Not here. Not in front of the others.
“Go have breakfast,” he said softly. “This doesn’t concern you.”
It was a dismissal. A gentle one, maybe, but still a dismissal. And the subtext was clear:Stay out of this. Stay safe. Don’t make me doubt you.
