Page 20 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

“No.”

He stays maddeningly calm through all of it, and that calm is what finally cracks something in me.

“I never wanted any of this.” The words come out rough now. “I never wanted his money, his structures, his lessons, his goddamn paperwork. I wanted a law degree and my own apartment and a boring life where nobody discussed me like a route or a shipment or some asset in reserve.”

My eyes burn. I hate it.

He says nothing.

“I signed pages because I was tired,” I go on. “Because he lied and he was my father and I was nineteen and I thought the worst thing he could do was trap me socially or financially.” My breath catches hard. “I didn’t know he was building me into this.”

Maksim’s expression changes then, and he looks all the more beautiful for it. His eyes narrow and catch the light from the window. “I know,” he says.

“No, you don’t.” I step closer to the desk. “You keep acting like I have to adapt faster because your world is old and brutal and organized. I didn’t choose it.”

His gaze sharpens. “And if I let choice govern this situation, you would be dead or married off to a worse beast by the weekend.”

I flinch and he rises.

“I’m not doing this,” he says, each word flat, “out of the goodness of my heart. I’m doing it because control is the only thing standing between you and men who would use your body, your name, and your signatures for settlement.”

I hate him for being right, and more for saying it plainly. “Then give me something,” I say, lifting my palms helplessly. “I won’t sit here like furniture while you decide what happens to me.”

His face closes. “No.”

My eyes sting as I try to hold my own. “I’m not asking to run.”

“You are asking for movement. That means visibility, and that leads to risk.”

“I’m asking for air.” My hands shake, and I curl them into fists. “Shops. A church. A bookstore. Half an hour in a place that doesn’t smell like your walls.”

His eyes go dark. “You’re not walking free through town while half the region would like to know whether the listed girl is still alive.”

I’m seconds away from stomping my feet on the ground. “I’m not a ghost. All I’m asking is for access to the outside world for a little while.”

“No,” he agrees. “You’re the center of a dispute.”

The anger comes up fast and hot. “Then stop talking to me like I’m a filing.”

His brows crease into a frown. “I’m the only one in this house not doing that.”

I roll my eyes at that. “Congratulations.”

I mean it to cut, but he moves around the desk so fast I almost don’t register it before he’s right in front of me, close enough that I have to tip my head back to keep looking at him.

“You want freedom?” he asks. “Earn it in pieces. Learn the rules. Stop making me guess whether you understand the danger.”

“I understand it,” I shoot back. “I understand it every time a door locks behind me.”

His hand comes up to my jaw, and his hold is possessive in a way that makes fury and heat rise together in my body. “You understand the cage,” he says. “Not yet the wolves.”

Something inside me snaps, and I tilt my head upward to capture his mouth.

I kiss him because I’m angry and humiliated and shaking and because he’s standing there talking to me like my life belongs on a board between armed men. I kiss him to shut him up.

For one stunned second, he doesn’t move.

Then his hand slides to the back of my neck and he kisses me back hard enough to make my knees threaten me. It’s dark and delicious and full of the awful fact that I have wanted to do this since he first looked at me like he knew exactly how difficult I was going to be.