ALEXANDER'S POV
I wasn't supposed to laugh.
And yet I did.
The sound caught me off guard — foreign, uninvited. It slipped out before I could stop it, short and sharp, cutting through the quiet of the morning like a mistake I immediately wanted to erase.
She froze. Eyes wide. Lips parted.
And for a split second, she looked almost… human. Almost innocent.
I shut it down fast.
The laugh. The thought. The flicker of something that didn't belong in me.
By the time she muttered something under her breath and disappeared into the bathroom, my expression was back to what it should've been — blank, controlled, untouchable.
That was the problem lately. I was slipping.
Losing precision. Losing focus.
Because of her.
This wasn't what I built my life for. I didn't rise from ashes and blood to be distracted by a woman who had no idea the kind of monster she was standing next to.
She wasn't supposed to matter.
She was a pawn — one carefully positioned to make the right people bleed.
I wasn't supposed to feel anything.
Yet when I caught the faint sound of running water from the bathroom, something clenched in my chest. Irritation, I told myself. That's all it was.
When she came out, wrapped in silence and fresh defiance, I didn't look at her — not directly. My gaze stayed on my watch, on my reflection, anywhere else but her.
"You should get ready," she said, voice clipped. "We have twenty minutes."
"I know," I replied, flat and cold.
No smile. No spark. No softness.
Just words. Controlled. Precise. Empty.
She moved past me to grab her things, and I caught the faint scent of her shampoo — subtle, distracting. I exhaled through my nose, forcing the thought away.
"You're staring again," she muttered.
I didn't flinch. "You overestimate your importance."
That shut her up.
Good.
The silence after that was easier to manage — sharp, necessary.
The kind of silence I understood.
---
The drive was quiet, but not peaceful.
Every sound — her shifting in the seat, the click of her pen, the way she exhaled when she thought I wasn't listening — was a reminder that she was still too close.
I focused on the view outside. Numbers. Strategies. Plans. Anything but her.
Because if I started thinking about her again, I'd lose the discipline that's kept me alive.
By the time we arrived at the building, my mind was exactly where it needed to be — cold, steady, armed.
I stepped out first, adjusting my cuffs. "Don't fall behind," I said without looking back.
Her tone was dry. "Wouldn't dream of it."
"Good. I don't tolerate delays."
Inside, the elevator ride stretched like silence between gunfire.
Her reflection flickered in the metal walls — calm, unreadable — and I almost admired it. Almost.
But admiration was dangerous.
And I didn't deal in feelings. Only results.
When the doors opened, I walked out without waiting. "Stay sharp," I told her.
She raised an eyebrow. "Always am."
"Prove it."
Her jaw tightened, but she said nothing.
Perfect.
That's how I liked it.
No softness. No unnecessary words. No misplaced emotions.
She could think whatever she wanted about me — arrogant, cruel, heartless.
At least those things were true.
What she'd seen this morning — that single moment of laughter — wasn't.
It was a glitch. A crack in the system. One that would never happen again.
Because Alexander Voss doesn't laugh.
He destroys.