I'm sitting in an office that, in theory, should calm me.
It's the kind of office where hard, final decisions get made. Dark, solid wood everywhere—the wide desk, polished by years of nervous palms; shelves reaching the ceiling, heavy with old books bound in thick leather, smelling of fine dust, time, and old money. The walls are dressed in a deep, sober green—the color of control and money. A deep, heavy armchair made of the finest leather. Everything is opulent without being showy. Masculine. Cold. Exactly the kind of space where I should feel in command.
I don't.
The light is dim, deliberate. An old lamp with a thick shade throws dense shadows over the furniture, leaving the rest of the room in darkness. I like the dark. It doesn't ask questions. It doesn't demand explanations. It doesn't look at me.
The vodka burns.
I drink it straight—no ice, nothing to soften it. It slides down my throat like a well-honed knife and, for a second, steals my breath. Exactly enough. Exactly what I deserve.
I'm full of nerves. Of rage. Of need. Of a longing that should never have existed.
I ask myself, again and again, how I could have been so stupid. How I let my guard drop so low. How I let her into my space, my rhythm, under my skin. How my instincts—instincts that usually never fail me—betrayed me so completely this time. I felt nothing bad in her.
A trap. That's what it was.
And yet…
My mind does exactly what it shouldn't. It circles obsessively back to the moments when her body responded to me. To those low, unfiltered sounds that escaped her without strategy. To the way she arched beneath me because she felt too much and didn't know what to do with it. To the sound of her moans that still harden me now. Damn it—I'm hard.
I think about the night I took her virginity.
I tighten my grip around the glass.
At least then, she was honest.
The thought hits me again, absurd and deeply unsettling: a virgin spy. Who the hell sends an unprepared girl, eyes still open to the world, into a nest like mine? Who bets on innocence in a game played only with blood and lies?
I pour myself another drink.
The vodka burns again—harder this time—scorching my throat down into my chest. I don't care. I'd drink until I could erase her image from my mind, but I already know the truth.
It doesn't work.
I see her the way she was when she looked at me without knowing what she was risking. I feel her the way she clung to me as if I were the only solid thing in her life. I remember her weight, her warm breath, the way she said my name at the peak of her orgasm without understanding the power it gave her over me.
I swear under my breath.
If it was a lie, it was the best performance of my life.
And if it wasn't…
I lift the glass to my lips again and drink until the alcohol no longer burns, until it simply numbs.
Voices can be heard outside the door.
Laughter.
The sounds come from a register completely different from the one in my head—too light, too alive—and for a moment I realize just how far away I am from them. This isn't my office. This isn't my territory.
I'm in the Volkovs' house.
A massive property, protected by high walls and metal gates that never fully open for anyone. A Gothic mansion, luxurious to the point of rigidity, where every column, every polished slab of stone tells the same story: you don't enter unless you're invited, and you don't leave unless you're allowed to. The interior is just as cold as the exterior—high ceilings, heavy chandeliers, inherited furniture, not bought, power that doesn't need to explain itself.
The laughter draws closer.
The door opens and Yelena comes in first, her head slightly tilted back, laughing, her hair loose over her shoulders, as if the world were still a safe place. Ivar follows her, easy in his stride, smiling the way he always does—that smile that always seems a fraction of a second too calculated to be real.
I watch them without saying a word.
For a moment, the house itself seems to tighten around us, as if it disapproved of this cheerfulness. Yelena is the first to notice me. Her laughter fades slowly, not abruptly, like a flame deprived of air. Ivar realizes right after her and shifts his posture, but the smile doesn't disappear completely. With him, it never does.
"You look like a man who's been drinking bad alcohol," Yelena says, trying to sound light.
I don't answer.
She approaches without hurry and, with an ease that suits her far too well, climbs onto the arm of my chair—light, self-assured, her body small, almost fragile. From the wrong angle, you might think I'm holding her. The illusion is disturbing.
She reaches out with her small hand and touches my chest, a slow, familiar caress, as if the place belonged to her. Everything in me screams to shove her away, to break the contact, to reclaim my space—but I restrain myself. She knows exactly who she is and what she means to the Volkovs. I don't need more enemies right now.
I let her touch me.
Ivar settles into the armchair across from me, relaxed, as if the scene doesn't surprise him at all. He takes the bottle without asking and pours himself vodka, confident, fully at home in his place. The glass taps softly against the table.
They're both watching me.
Inside my head, Alla's screams explode again, looping, obsessive—Ivar was there. Ivar was there. I hear them too clearly to ignore.
"Ivar," I say, in a tone that gives nothing away. "What were you doing in my hotel room?"
He lifts the glass, turns it slightly, as if the question were trivial.
"I was looking for you."
Yelena shifts on the arm of my chair, closer. Her caress travels slowly from my chest to the back of my neck, her fingers sliding into my hair with a certainty that says she knows exactly what she's doing. The small sound she makes—almost a purr—is soothing and wrong at the same time.
Ivar smiles faintly.
"Why didn't you act when you saw the gun?"
He shrugs.
"I did. But, to my shame, I was too slow, and I didn't manage to save Gaston. I didn't expect something like that from such a sweet girl as Alla."
Hearing her name spoken so casually by Ivar scrapes against my brain.
"Such a sweet girl—lethal, armed, trained, judging by how precise that gunshot was. And yet you walked out alive."
He sets the glass down. Slowly.
"I knew when to step aside."
Yelena presses into the back of my neck, her fingers sliding through my hair like a reward for my restraint. I let her. She knows exactly how much her touch is worth here.
"Strange," I say. "A loaded gun and only one shot fired. That, when there were clearly two enemies for her in the room. Just one bullet that hits exactly where it needs to… and you walk away."
Ivar leans his elbows on his knees, bends forward slightly.
"What are you implying, Duca? You saw the footage. She tried to seduce me, and Gaston ruined her plans," he says, laughing.
I don't blink.
"Even stranger," I add, "that you were the only one who knew my schedule that night."
His smile widens for a fraction of a second—then disappears.
"You've had too much to drink, Duca."
Yelena's caress slows, steadier now, almost possessive. She's almost purring.
"Or maybe," I say, "I've had just enough to see things for what they are."
Ivar picks up his glass again.
"Careful," he says calmly. "Mice who think they're cats end up on the menu fast."
I answer without shifting my gaze.
"Not as fast as cats who think they're attack dogs," I say quietly.
Silence drops between us, heavy.
Yelena smiles, leans down, and licks my ear—slowly—as if marking territory she believes belongs to her.
"Duca, you're saying things that cross a line," Ivar says, his voice abruptly stripped of its calm. "I'll let it go this time, because I know how important Gaston was to you. I knew him—and your father—since we were young."
He rises from the armchair and looks down at me with a cold kind of disappointment.
"Don't ever make the mistake of insinuating nonsense about me again," he continues, lowering his voice. "Because it will hurt."
He takes his glass and slams it against the table. The glass shatters with a short, violent sound that slices through the air.
"I'll take my leave," he adds, already turning away. "I'll let you younger ones enjoy yourselves."
The door slams shut behind him, sharp with irritation, and in the silence that remains, the only sounds are Yelena's soft moans as she kisses my neck.
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