"Camilla?"
She turned. Her eyes were hollow, shadowed by sleeplessness, her cheeks drawn in sharply. The sight struck me harder than I expected. My oldest friend, once so full of life, now looked like she had been dragged through hell and back.
Alex stepped in right in front of me, one hand firm at my waist. I caught his arm and gently moved it aside.
"It's okay," I said.
"What have you done?" she bit out, stalking toward me.
Alex's grip tightened instinctively, but I stepped out of his reach lifting my hands in a placating gesture.
"What do you mean?" I asked, even as my chest constricted around the words. The guilt at seeing her like this, knowing exactly what I had done, still gnawed at me.
"You've betrayed your own," Camilla snapped, her voice cracking as she closed the distance between us. "Your own blood. Your own family." She let out a sharp, humorless laugh. "And you still had the nerve to walk into this office like nothing happened."
"I did what I had to do," I said quietly.
She shook her head, disbelief flashing across her face before rage took its place. "No. You're just like every one of them. Don't pretend otherwise."
Her hand came out of nowhere.
I barely had time to react before she shoved me hard, my back colliding with the edge of my desk. Papers scattering across the floor. Alex moved instantly—
"Don't," I warned, sharp and final.
Camilla lunged again, fists wild now, her grief bleeding with fury. I caught her wrist, twisted, and used her momentum against her, the way her father had taught us both. She went down hard, the breath knocked out of her lungs as we hit the floor.
I was on top of her before she could recover, one knee pinning her thigh, my hands gripping her wrists, holding her still.
She struggled beneath me, tears streaking down her temples. "Why are you doing this?" she demanded. "You were supposed to be my friend! Why are you burning everything?"
"Because I have to," I said, my voice low and unwavering, even as my vision blurred. "They have to pay for what they did. For what they took from me." I leaned in slightly. "And I don't regret it. Not even for a second."
She froze beneath me, staring up at my face.
"I'm done being their plaything," I continued. "Done letting them use me so they can sit on my family's throne, when it should've been my father's in the first place."
Her resistance faltered. The fight drained out of her limbs as she lay there, trembling.
"Are you even hearing yourself?" she whispered, disbelief cutting through her voice. "They're your family."
I didn't loosen my hold.
"Then answer me this" I said quietly, my grip tightening just enough to remind her that I was still in control. "Why are you here?"
Her lips thinned as she stared up at me, something hollow settling into her sharp blue eyes. "I had to see it for myself," she said quietly. "To know if the rumors were true." A beat. "So you really did it," she added. "You really shot my father."
The door opened before I could respond.
I released her instantly when I heard Sergio burst in, his steps halting when he took in the sight of Camilla pushing herself up from the floor. She turned toward him, confusion flickering across her face, but she straightened right away, brushing invisible dust from her dress.
"I knew what I was walking into when I came here," she said, the fear from earlier slipping away, replaced by the familiar charm of Camilla I had once known. Even stripped of her memories, even worn thin and exhausted, she still carried that effortless allure. The kind that one was born with.
She lifted her wrists and held them out in front of her, while Alex pulled me away.
"Well?" she said lightly, though her tearstained cheeks said a different story. "Go on, then. Take me hostage."
Sergio didn't hesitate. He crossed the room and seized her wrists, his grip rough and unyielding. He stood a full head taller than her, his presence eclipsing what little bravado she had summoned.
Camilla didn't resist.
She glanced back at me once, a sad look flashing across her face as Sergio produced a pair of handcuffs and fastened them around her wrists.
Then she turned toward the man who had once been her lover, her brows furrowing in quiet confusion. He must have felt familiar to her, just as Alex had felt familiar to me the first night I saw him, at my grandfather's party.
Sergio was passing by us, when Alex murmured something in Russian. It was brief, precise. Sergio nodded, his jaw tightening in acknowledgment.
We watched them leave, the door closing behind them with a soft, final thud.
"Well," Alex said after a moment, his hands settling on my shoulders. His eyes moving over me, assessing, cataloguing. His jaw tightened when he noticed the bruising across my knuckles. "If that wasn't a clusterfuck," he added dryly, "I'd say that was hot."
I didn't even bother to dignify that with a response. I simply stepped out of his hold and crouched down, gathering the papers scattered across the floor from our fight. These were, after all, official business documents. Some of them even contracts I had to go through.
Alex joined me without a word.
There was nothing more humbling than cleaning up after a fight. It was like the quiet return to gravity. Much like the aftermath of sex, when the high had bled out of us, leaving only the small, necessary motions of putting ourselves back together.
"What did you say to Sergio?" I asked, leaning back against the desk as Alex rose to his feet, placing the papers beside me.
I had to admit, seeing him on his knees like that stirred something dark and satisfying in me. I can't deny it. Not now, when the adrenaline was still humming beneath my skin, when power still lingered in the air between us.
His hand came to my jaw, his thumb brushing slowly across my skin. He pulled me toward him, his lips pressing against mine, soft at first.
But when the kiss deepened, I stopped him.
My palm rested against his chest, firm. Waiting.
Alex exhaled, the sound edged with irritation, like I had denied him something he believed was already his.
"If you must know," he said quietly, those green eyes locking onto mine, "I told him to send her home."