***
That night, I can’t sleep. Can’t stop replaying the messages, the ultimatum, the weight of tomorrow pressing down like physical force. Dimitri is beside me, breathing even and deep, one arm draped across my waist in sleep.
I ease out of bed carefully, grab my robe, and slip into the hallway. My feet carry me toward his study before I consciously decide to go there. The door is unlocked, and I push it open, moonlight streaming through the windows to illuminate the space where he spends so much of his time.
The desk is neat, organized, papers stacked with precision. The laptop sits in the bottom drawer, just like the messages said. The drive is still connected, still waiting.
I could take it now. He’s asleep. Security is lighter at night. Felix isn’t here to monitor.
I could end this tonight, send the messages saying it’s done, and let whatever happens next unfold without me having to actively participate in tomorrow’s choice.
Instead, I sink into his chair and just sit.
The leather still holds his warmth, his scent. I close my eyes and imagine him here—working late, making decisions that affect hundreds of lives, carrying the weight of an empire built on violence and money and the kind of control that keeps chaos at bay.
He’s a monster. I know that. Have always known it.
Except he’s also the man who saved a kitten because she was helpless. Who checks locks obsessively because his motherdied when he couldn’t protect her. Who holds me at night like I’m the only thing keeping him tethered to something human.
The door opens quietly. I don’t startle; somehow, I expected this.
Dimitri leans against the frame, wearing only sleep pants, hair disheveled. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“No.”
“Thinking about tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
He crosses to the desk, and I expect interrogation. Demands. Questions about why I’m here, what I’m planning, whether I can be trusted.
Instead, he just settles on the edge of the desk, close enough to touch. “You know what’s in that drawer.”
“Yes,” I admit.
“You know what it represents. What someone could do with that information.”
“Yes.”
“You’re here anyway. Not taking it, sitting in my chair, thinking.”
I finally look up at him. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t know who I am or what I want or how to reconcile the woman who wanted to destroy you with the woman who… ”
“Who what?”
“Who can’t imagine doing it.” The confession tears out of me. “Who looks at you and sees someone worth protecting instead of someone who deserves to fall. I don’t know when that changed, Dimitri. I don’t know how you got inside my defenses this deeply.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. Then he reaches down, pulling me to my feet, hands settling on my waist.
“I’m going to ask you something,” he says quietly. “I need complete honesty. Can you give me that?”
My heart hammers. “Yes.”
“Did someone approach you? Offer you a way out if you provided information about my operations?”
The question hangs between us. This is it. The moment where I either lie or confess everything.
“Yes,” I whisper. “At Damien’s event. Someone slipped a phone into my purse. They’ve been messaging me since, pushing me to take that drive, promising protection if I help them destroy you.”
