Chapter 23
Mary
Islept like the dead.
Which is probably the most inappropriate comparison I could make, considering recent events, but there it is. Eight hours of uninterrupted, dreamless sleep in a bed that probably costs more than my yearly salary.
The sheets feel like they’re made of clouds and good intentions. The mattress cradles every curve without making me feel like I’m sinking into quicksand. Even the pillows seem offended by the idea of neck pain.
It’s so quiet here that I can hear my own heartbeat.
No Mrs.Chang shuffling around upstairs. No traffic from the street. No air conditioning units dying dramatic deaths in the middle of the night. Just… silence. Perfect, expensive silence.
I shouldn’t have slept this well.
I’m essentially a prisoner in a luxury penthouse, owned by a man who kills people for a living. I should be having nightmares. I should be planning escape routes. I should definitely not be stretching like a cat in imported sheets.
But here I am, feeling more rested than I have in months.
What does that say about me?
I sit up, and reality crashes back in waves. The USB drive sits on the nightstand like a tiny black harbinger of doom.
I rake a hand through my hair, pushing it off my forehead with the kind of sharp, annoyed flick that feels more like me than anything else in this penthouse.
The sheets are too soft. The mattress too perfect.
Even the way I swing my legs over the side feels surreal, like I’m trespassing in someone else’s life.
My toes sink into plush carpet before meeting the smooth wooden floor as I pad toward the bathroom.
Warm underfoot, like something out of a holiday resort.
I splash water on my face. I barely recognize myself.
My hair’s mussed from sleep. Skin clearer than it’s been in years, thanks to whatever designer soap Boris stocked the place with.
Wearing a pale silk pajama set I didn’t pick, didn’t buy, and somehow still love. The top has tiny buttons and delicate piping, and the pants glide over my hips like they were tailored.
When did I become someone who owns silk pajamas?
Don’t think about it. Don’t get used to it.
My body wants to sink into the comfort, but my brain keeps screaming it’s temporary. A loan. A trick. Sooner or later, this ends. And when it does, the silk won’t come with me.
I brush my teeth, then step into the shower. The water pressure is perfect, the temperature exactly right. Even the soap feels different; creamy, luxurious, leaving my skin softer than it’s ever been. It smells of bergamot and vanilla, clean and warm and somehow comforting.
Twenty minutes later, I emerge wrapped in a towel that’s impossibly soft. Time to face the designer wardrobe.
The blouse hanging on the back of the door has a Brunello Cucinelli tag. I don’t even want to look, but I do anyway. $1,250.
The pencil skirt beside it? Theory, $425.
God. I’m holding someone’s mortgage in hanger form. I lift the blouse like it’s made of spun glass, half afraid I’ll sneeze on it and owe the Russian mafia a down payment. The skirt gets the same treatment: two hands, no sudden moves.
I slip into the work clothes, carefully removing price tags as I go. The blouse fits like it was made for my body, the skirt hugs every curve without being inappropriate. The fabric feels like liquid silk against my skin.
I catch my reflection in the full-length mirror and freeze.
“Goddamn,” I whisper to my reflection. “You look expensive.”
Right. Expensive spy who could get killed at any moment.
Somehow, that strikes me as so absurd I actually laugh. A short, slightly hysterical sound that echoes off the marble walls.
Mary Sullivan, personal banking associate turned luxury assassin target. If this were a movie, I’d give it two stars for believability.
I smooth the blouse down over my stomach, tug at the skirt’s waistband like maybe I can make it fit better than it does. Adjust the borrowed luxury, pretending it belongs to me. Then I draw in a deep breath.
Time to face whatever fresh hell awaits me in the land of the living.
For one stupid second, I imagine the worst: a gun barrel, a masked man, my obituary reading Bank Teller Dies in Spanx. Then I shove the thought down and push the door open.
There’s a man in my living room.
I freeze. My heart slams so hard it feels like it might crack a rib. Blood rushes in my ears, loud enough to drown out thought. Every inch of me locks tight, like maybe if I stay perfectly still, he’ll disappear.
Every survival instinct I’ve developed over the past forty-eight hours screams at once.
I scream.
The man barely reacts.
Just slowly looks up from his phone like I’m a minor inconvenience, not a potential threat to national security.
It’s him.
Anton Malikov. Resident Bratva menace. Owner of the world’s most judgmental eyebrows.
He blinks once, cocks his head like I’m the one who broke into his apartment, and goes right back to scrolling.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I gasp, pressing a hand to my chest as if that’ll keep my heart from exploding. “Are you serious right now?”
He smirks. Doesn’t even pretend to hide it.
My heart’s still doing parkour in my chest, but my legs move anyway, like fear has clocked out and curiosity’s working overtime.
I walk into the kitchen. Slowly. Like I’m passing a wild animal. A very well-groomed, potentially homicidal wild animal.
And despite every rational part of my brain screaming danger, the rest of me is… not on board.
Because— Jesus.
He’s… different this morning.
Not different in his essence. He’s still big and dangerous and threatening.
But he’s cleaned up. Fresh shave revealing the hard line of his jaw.
Hair still damp from a shower, swept back in that casual way that probably takes twenty minutes to perfect.
He’s wearing a black button-down that fits him like it was tailored by angels with very specific fantasies.
He looks like he stepped out of a cologne ad. The kind where the tagline is something like “Seduce. Conquer. Destroy.”
My stomach does this stupid flutter thing that has no business happening before coffee.
“Morning,” I say, aiming for casual and landing somewhere between suspicious and mildly breathless.
He lowers his phone. Does a slow scan from my face down to my toes and back up… deliberate, like he’s taking inventory. “You look rested.”
He stops there, watching me a beat too long, like he’s trying not to get caught checking me out, then drops his gaze back to the screen.
“Your bed is… comfortable.”
That makes his chin lift a fraction. His eyes flick to mine again, darker this time, like the word alone dragged him somewhere else. Heat. Something dirty he doesn’t say. Then, just as quickly, it’s gone.
“Good.” That’s it. Just good. Like my sleep quality is a quarterly metric he’s tracking.
I head for the coffee machine, one of those hulking Italian beasts with chrome knobs and more buttons than my old high school calculator. I jab a random one, praying for caffeine. The machine sputters like I just insulted its ancestors.
“How did you get in here?” I ask, stabbing another button. Still nothing.
“I have a key.”
“Obviously. I meant, why didn’t you… let me know earlier?”
“Why would I do that?”
A hiss, then a loud clank. I wince, pressing my nose with the back of my hand like that’ll make me invisible.
“Because it’s polite? Because I might have been naked? Because normal people don’t just appear in other people’s living spaces like ghosts?”
“I’m not normal people.”
No shit, Sherlock.
“Still rude,” I mutter, giving the side of the machine a sharp knock like it’s the office printer that always jams on me.
“You’ll get used to it.”
The words come from directly behind me. I freeze. He’s close. So close I catch the faint bite of his aftershave, sharp and clean, cutting through the smell of burned coffee. My breath tangles in my chest.
Anton reaches around me, one big hand flipping a switch I somehow missed, the other guiding mine away from the buttons like I’m a toddler about to set the kitchen on fire. The machine whirs obediently under his touch, dark coffee dripping into the tiny porcelain cup.
The confidence in his voice is both infuriating and oddly comforting, like he’s already planning our long-term cohabitation arrangement.
I can’t look at him. I stare at the stream filling the cup, nerves crawling under my skin. He finally steps back, but not before his fingers brush mine as he takes the mug. Electricity bolts up my arm like I just stuck a finger in a socket.
He takes a slow sip, like it’s the best damn coffee he’s ever had, then sets the mug down just out of my reach.
“Make your own cup.” His mouth twitches, the barest hint of a smirk.
I blink at him. Seriously?
Fine. I shuffle back to the machine, replaying every move he just made like it’s a test I’ll fail if I breathe wrong.
Switch, knob, button. The machine hums, obedient this time.
Coffee drips steadily into the cup. I feel his eyes on me the whole time, and when I finally risk turning toward him, he’s leaning against the counter like this is a show he ordered on demand.
“Ready for work?” he asks, casual, as if he hasn’t just fried my nervous system for fun.
“I guess. How am I getting there?”
“I’m driving you.”
The matter-of-fact way he says it makes my spine straighten. “Every day?”
He doesn’t answer. Just takes a sip of coffee and watches me over the rim.
“I can take the bus,” I say. “Or an Uber. I don’t need—”
“People want you dead, Mary.”
The words hit the air like a slap. Casual. Conversational. He could be commenting on the weather instead of my mortality rate.
“Right. Dead. Got it.”
He sets down his mug and stands. All six feet three inches of him unfolding with predatory grace. Takes a step toward me.
Then another.
I back up instinctively, but there’s nowhere to go. The kitchen island traps me, and suddenly, he’s right in front of me.
“You seem nervous,” he observes.