RAZVAN
The humming of the Gulfstream’s engines matches the irritation pulsing in my temples, a low, vibratory growl. We are thirty thousand feet above the Russian wilderness, suspended in a pressurized tube of leather and mahogany, and the silence between us is thick enough to choke a man.
I sit in the oversized captain’s chair, my laptop open on the mahogany table, a spreadsheet of Baltic shipping manifests glowing against the dim cabin light. I haven’t processed a single line of data in forty minutes. My wound from the car fight is stitched and sore, but I don’t let the pain show. My eyes keep drifting, my focus snagging on the woman sitting three feet across from me.
Lena is staring out the window. She hasn’t moved since we leveled off after takeoff. She hasn’t reached for her water, hasn’t touched the plate of smoked salmon the attendant placed before her, and most importantly she hasn’t looked at me. Not once.
It’s a new kind of warfare.
In Moscow, our relationship was a series of sharp edges. She fought me with her eyes, with her tongue, with the way she bristled whenever I entered a room. I knew how to handle that. I understood friction. I understood the language of a captive clawing at her bars. But this? This total, clinical erasure of my presence? It’s driving me toward a ledge I didn’t know existed.
That sex…it changed the molecular structure of the air.
I can still feel her. The phantom sensation of her heels digging into the backs of my thighs, the way she arched into me as if she wanted to disappear into my skin. In that hotel room, the masks didn’t just slip; they disintegrated. She wasn’t the “traitor’s daughter” and I wasn’t the “monster.” We were just two starving people devouring each other in the dark. I thought—naively, perhaps—that it would be a bridge. I thought that once I had claimed her so thoroughly, once I had seen the absolute ruin of her composure, there would be a new language between us.
Instead, she’s deleted the alphabet.
“Lena,” I say. My voice is a low rasp, cutting through the hum of the jet.
She doesn’t blink. She doesn’t even shift her gaze from the clouds. It’s as if the sound of my voice is merely ambient noise, like the wind whistling against the fuselage.
“Lena,” I repeat, louder this time, the edge of my authority sharpening into a blade. “I’m speaking to you.”
She turns her head. It’s a slow, deliberate movement. Her eyes meet mine, but there’s nothing behind them. No hatred. No fire. No lingering heat from the bed we shared hours ago. It’s the gaze of a stranger looking at a piece of furniture.
“Yes?” she asks. Her voice is flat. Level.
“The security briefing for our arrival,” I say, gesturing vaguely to the papers on the table, grasping for a reason—any reason—to force a real interaction. “Lyosha will be meeting us at the private terminal. We’re going straight to the estate. No stops.”
“Fine,” she says.
One word. That’s it. She turns back to the window, the movement so dismissive it feels like a physical slap.
I snap the laptop shut. The sound echoes in the quiet cabin. I want to stand up. I want to lean over her, trap her between the seat and my body, and demand to know where she went. I want to remind her of the way she screamed my name in St. Petersburg. I want to force her to acknowledge that I am the man who took a bullet for her—or at least, was willing to.
But I stay seated. Because for the first time in my life, I’m afraid of the answer. Or worse, I’m afraid there is no answer. Just this vast, echoing nothingness.
I’ve spent my life mastering men’s fears. I know exactly how much pressure to apply to a man’s throat to make him tell me his secrets. I know which accounts to freeze to ruin a rival. But I have no idea how to make a woman talk to me when she’s decided I no longer occupy the same reality as her.
I find myself obsessing over her profile. The curve of her ear. The way a single dark strand of hair has escaped her clip and rests against the pale column of her neck. I remember the taste of that skin. I remember the way it tasted of salt and peonies. My hand twitches on the armrest, a localized tremor of pure, unadulterated need.
I have everything. And yet, I am sitting here, starving for a single look that isn’t empty.
The descent into Moscow is gray and dismal, matching my mood. We land at the private terminal under the shroud of a light drizzle. The tarmac is slick, reflecting the amber lights of the hangars.
Lyosha is waiting. He’s standing by the lead SUV, his hands folded in front of him, his face a mask of professional neutrality. But I see the way his eyes sharpen when he sees Lena step off the stairs. He’s checking her for damage. He’s checking me for the cause of it.
“Boss,” he rumbles as I reach the ground. “Welcome back.”
“Status,” I bark, my tone more clipped than usual.
“The estate is locked down. No incidents. The boy is, well, he’s been a handful. He’s currently convinced the playroom is a fortress and he’s the commander of the guard.”
A ghost of a smile tugs at my lips, the first bit of genuine warmth I’ve felt since the gala. “Good. Let’s move.”
The drive back to the compound is another exercise in silence. Lena sits in the corner of the SUV, her hands folded in her lap. She doesn’t look at the city as we pass. She doesn’t look at the reinforced gates as they hiss open to admit us. She is a ghost haunting her own life.
The moment the car stops in the courtyard, she’s out. She doesn’t wait for the guard to open her door; she’s already halfway to the main entrance before I’ve even unbuckled my seatbelt. She’s running. Not from the guards, but from me.
