Page 21 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

His mouth is hot. Mine hurts where the split lip hasn’t fully healed, but I can’t stop. His other hand catches my waist. I grab his shirt. He backs me one step, then another, until the desk edge hits my hip.

He breaks the kiss first, and we both breathe like we’ve been running. His forehead nearly touches mine. “That,” he says in a voice gone rough, “was a terrible idea.”

“Yes,” I whisper.

Neither of us moves. Then I push at his chest and step back. “I still want terms.”

For a second, I think he’ll refuse out of sheer male pride. But all he does is study me while his jaw works. A moment later, he says, “Two outings a week. Daylight only. Car, driver, and two-man detail. Route cleared in advance. No improvisation. No disappearing into shops alone. If I cancel, you don’t argue in public.”

I stare at him. “That’s it?”

“Don’t consider it a gift,” he says. “It’s nothing more than a concession, and if you break it once, it ends.”

I swallow. “Fine.”

His mouth curves without warmth. “You say that now.”

I straighten my coat with fingers that don’t feel entirely steady. “I always mean it when I say it.”

“That,” he says, looking at my mouth once before forcing his gaze away, “is the part I don’t believe.”

I leave before I do something else reckless.

That night, unable to sleep, I step into the corridor outside my room for water and stop when I hear voices drifting up from the service stairs below.

Two women. Staff. “…told you, he changed the whole dinner seating because of her.”

“That means nothing.”

“It means something. The listed girl’s already under his skin.”

A pause. Then, lower, “God help anyone who tries to take her now.”

I go still with one hand locked around the banister, and for a second I can hear nothing but the blood beating in my ears as the truth settles in hard and cold.

Maksim’s protection hasn’t ended anything. It’s only changed the shape of the fight, and somewhere beyond these walls there are still men willing to come for me, only now, they’ll come knowing exactly whose hands they’ll have to tear through first.

6

MAKSIM

An hour after she leaves the study, I’m still at the desk, and the papers in front of me might as well be blank.

They matter. Tomorrow at eleven, I sit across from men tied to Moretti and hear how far they plan to push. I like my board clean. I like knowing where a man will step before he gets his act together enough to call it a move. I like having boots on the soil before anyone thinks to test the ground. Tonight, none of that is landing right because her scent is still in here, caught in the wood, the leather, the front of my shirt.

The blue folder she left behind sits at the edge of the desk, my thumbprint still pressed into the corner.

A knock comes at the door.

“Come in.”

Leonid steps inside.

I point at the folder. “Be careful with that. She found it once. She’ll look again.”

He leaves, and I’m alone again with my thoughts.

I turn the paperweight once, then again. I need to be working. I fold my arms, lean back, and stare at the far wall, asking why the hell I’m still sitting here if my head’s someplace else. The office smells of smoke, old paper, leather, and the whiskey I poured twenty minutes ago and haven’t touched. Under it, her scent still lingers. Clean skin. Iris, amber, cold rose, expensive and warm. Faint now, but not faint enough.