I blink. “Answer to me?”
“Yes.”
“That feels optimistic.”
His expression hardens. “It’s not optimism. It’s instruction. If I put you somewhere, no one overrides you unless it comes from me.”
“Shouldn’t Vaska be second command?”
“In the compound he is. Inthishouse? Its you.”
I absorb that slowly.
He keeps going.
“You do not open doors yourself if security isn’t expecting someone.”
Fair.
“You do not leave the compound alone.”
Less fair.
My face must say it because his gaze narrows.
“This is not an argument.”
“I don’t want some random guard man following me around.”
“Beda,” he says evenly. “Some things are less rules and more orders.”
My jaw tightens.
He ignores it shifting in front of me.
“If I tell you to get in a car, you get in. If I tell you to go to the panic room, you go. If I tell you to stay behind me, you stay behind me.”
I stare at him. “You really know how to make a girl feel independent.”
He steps closer.
Enough to make me feel the shift.
“This isn’t about independence. It’s about keeping you alive.”
I hate that it works on me a little. Hate that after Gabriel, after the rope, after all of it, part of me wants someone to be this certain.
I look away first.
My gaze lands on another shelf full of ammunition.
“So that’s it?” I ask. “Don’t answer doors, don’t go anywhere alone, obey in emergencies?”
“No talking to men who aren’t ours without telling me who they are.”
My head snaps back to him. “What does‘ours’even mean?”
“Bratva. Men under me. Men allied to me.” His eyes sharpen. “Not Kaya. Not anyone tied to him. If someone approaches you and you don’t know exactly why, you tell me.”
