I was tired, not in the physical sense, but in the bone-deep way that came from too many lies and too little honesty. My body still did what it was trained to do: walk with purpose, dominate with a glance, read people like scripture. But the charm I wore like a second skin had begun to fray. And the cracks, once invisible, now spidered just beneath the surface.
“Just experimenting,” I said casually. “Turns out, watching your closest friends fall in love one after another really messes with your sense of fun.”
Nikos arched a brow, amused. “You? Jealous?”
“Hardly,” I said, taking a sip of my water. “I’m an emotional fortress wrapped in Armani.”
He snorted. “That line must kill in therapy.”
I laughed again, this time letting it rumble a little deeper. Still shallow, surface-level at best. But Nikos didn’t press.
Not that he had to.
Because beneath the wit and the polished control, the truth gnawed at me. Erik and Raia. Noah and his sweet little firecracker, Shelby. Gabriel and his brilliant assistant, Rose. Colin and Lincoln had Zara. Chaos and love somehow stitched together into something real for those three.
One by one, my friends were finding something true. Something raw. Something worth choosing.
And me?
I peeled people open for a living. I pushed, prodded, seduced, and dominated until they spilled the softest parts of themselves at my feet. And then I walked away, careful to never offer anything in return.
Because if they saw all of me… well, I wasn’t sure anyone had the stomach for it.
“Besides,” I murmured, swirling the ice in my glass, “we make our living breaking people open. Doesn’t mean we stay whole ourselves.”
Nikos studied me for a beat, expression unreadable. Then he leaned in slightly. “Maybe it’s time you stopped playing the god of mischief and let someone actuallyseeyou.”
A thin crack echoed from my glass as the ice snapped.
I smiled, sharp and clean. “Careful. You’re veering dangerously close to therapy.”
He grinned. “You’d tie your therapist to a St. Andrew’s cross.”
“Only if they billed me hourly.”
We clinked glasses, his filled with something smoky and potent, mine with restraint, and let the moment settle.
Then I straightened slightly, pulling the conversation back where it belonged. “Enough of the heavy stuff. What are you doing here, Nikos? I have a shift tonight, and if you need something, it’ll have to wait.”
He tilted his glass, letting the amber swirl.
“Actually… you’re not working tonight.”
I paused. Slowly turned to face him. “What do you mean I’m not working?”
He grinned. Too easily. “I might have called in a favor and told your friends I wanted to set you up with someone.”
My pulse didn’t change. My breath didn’t stutter. But inside, my mind went very, very still.
“Explain.”
Because Nikos didn’t do matchmaking. Not for love. Not for fun. If he’d made a move like this, it wasn’t a game. It was a job, and one I didn’t appreciate being sprung on me last minute. Him being here at all made me very unhappy.
Nikos didn’t answer right away.
He reached into his inner jacket pocket, pulled out a thin, matte-black envelope, and slid it across the bar toward me like he was offering me a contract with the devil.
“You know Ivan Morozov?”
