Page 36 of Possessive Bratva’s Kidnapped Virgin

"I'm developing a working relationship with that category," I said.

“Hmm,” she muttered. Then she chuckled.

*****

The suite was quiet when we came in. The city beyond the windows had settled into its late-night frequency, colorful, distant lights contrasting with the reduced traffic.

Isla set her heels on the floor by the door, her small gold earrings on the dresser table, and her purse next to them. I wondered if she knew that she was making this space, in small increments, hers.

I poured water and set a glass on the table in front of her, going to stand at the window.

The file on her was still several pages of clean information, with a gap before Phoenix that was still being researched.

I still didn't know her past. I didn't know the extent of the threat following her, didn't know where the next escalation would come from, or what form it would take when it arrived. There were variables I hadn't closed, threads I hadn't resolved, a threat assessment that was still incomplete in its most important dimension.

Twelve hours ago, that would have been intolerable. The incompleteness would have been a pressure I'd have needed to resolve before I could move forward.

Now I stood at the window and found that it was simply acknowledged and workable.

Her hand found my arm from beside me. She'd crossed the room without announcement, the contact before the words which was becoming its own kind of. I looked down at her hand and then at her. She was looking at the city too, standing beside me in the green dress with her hair coming slightly loose from its arrangement.

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

An unusual question, for me. Most people didn't ask it because they sensed that the honest answer might be more than they were prepared for.

"Threat assessment," I said.

"At midnight."

"It doesn't observe office hours."

She was silent for more than a minute.

“We’re going to be alright, yeah?"

I thought about what I knew.

About what it meant that I had introduced her in a room full of people who would carry the information outward through every network it needed to reach, and felt, doing it, something that was not purely strategic. About the fact that I had never, in thirty-five years, lost a game where the stakes were ones I'd decided to play for.

"Yes," I said.

She looked up at me then.

"Alright," she said.

She turned back to the window, and I mirrored her movement.

We stood there together in the late-night quiet of a city that didn't need us to make sense of it, and I felt the reality of her beside me. As a person who had chosen, in full knowledge of the cost, to stand here.

As mine.

My wife.

Whatever was coming, I would be beside her when it arrived. I had spent a career ensuring that the games I played were games I could win. I had never, before, had a reason to fight for something that mattered more than winning.

Anyway, I did now.

Chapter Nine