Page 33 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

I look out over the grounds while the dark lifts off the trees. I learned young that the day goes cleaner when you get ahead of it before other people start making demands. So I listen first. Gates. Gravel. Wind moving through the branches. Then I run the same check on myself. Breathing even. Pulse steady. Hands loose. Head clear. When the house starts moving, I’m already in front of it.

Then I hear the soft turn of the handle.

I turn my head and catch the shape through the glass before I place it. Slim frame. Bare legs under a robe, or one of those thin night things that don’t belong outside a bedroom. Hair loose. One hand still on the handle.

I’m on my feet before she can pull back. I cross the room and open the door fast enough to catch her right there on the other side, mid-step, like she hadn’t decided whether to come in or walk away.

She stops short in front of me, close enough that I get the first hit of her all at once, sleep-warm skin, that faint clean scent I keep finding in places she’s only just left, and the soft parting of her mouth when she realizes how close we are. Good. Too fucking good.

My hand lands on the frame beside her head. I lean one shoulder against the frame and look her over again. Thick chestnut hair has fallen loose from the knot, brushing her mouth. I stay there a second, then drop my eyes to her stance, one hand tucked behind her back. That gets my attention fast.

“Useful,” I say with a hint of edge in it. “That’s what we’re calling it now?”

Her face flushes, and she shifts, and the pages in her hidden hand whisper against each other.

I hold my hand out. “Give them to me.”

Her chin comes up at once. “You haven’t even asked what they are.”

“I know what they are.” I keep my voice even, though my pulse just kicked harder for reasons that have nothing to do with the papers. “Legal copies from Leonid’s desk. You took them last night and came here to put them back before anyone noticed.”

Her eyes widen and her mouth opens, then presses closed again. I take it in slowly, the shift, the doubt that flickers, the way she tries to get it back under control. I like what I see. I take my time with it.

“I borrowed them,” she says brusquely, looking over my shoulder.

“You stole them,” I say, my eyes still on her mouth.

Last night, I was in the study with coffee going cold at my elbow and a file open in front of me. Leonid had left the folder on the round table by the window earlier, blue cover, legal hold markings, her name on the tab in his neat hand.

Elena came in to ask about one of the filings she and Leonid had been working through. I didn’t look up for long. I told her later. I was busy.

She stopped anyway. Her eyes went to the blue folder. Then to me. I followed the look, saw the shift in her face, and gave a small shake of my head. No. She said nothing. After a second, she turned and left.

Later, I put the papers away, slid the drawer shut, and went upstairs. Halfway to my room, I remembered I hadn’t locked the study. When I came back down, the drawer was closed. Nothing looked touched. I opened it, counted once, then again.

One file was missing.

I didn’t need Leonid to tell me which one. She’d already shown interest in that file once and decided that was reason enough to take it. After that, the rest was easy. She wouldn’t keep it. She’d read it, panic just enough, then try to put it back before the house got moving. The study door wouldn’t open, so she’d come here instead.

When I heard the handle shift, I already knew who was on the other side.

“I was returning them,” she snaps, her voice sharpening. “They aren’t the same thing.”

Defensive. I take it in. The straight line of her body, the tilt of her head, that mouth.

“You were sneaking into my room at dawn,” I say, pushing off the doorframe and walking back inside.

“That part was an accident.” She folds the papers tighter behind her back. “I thought this was the study.”

I glance at the balcony, the bed behind me, then back at her. “Do I look like a study?”

Color climbs into her face. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

I step closer. She doesn’t move, but her breathing changes. “You want to tell me why those pages mattered enough to steal?”

Her mouth goes tight. “Because nobody tells me everything.”

“That’s how people stay alive.” I stay where I am and keep my face unreadable, giving her nothing easy to hit.