Liam
Her breathing evens out, soft against the quiet of the suite. The moonlight cuts through the glass, painting her in calm where before there was chaos and desperation.
I should feel satisfied. I should be thinking about what comes next. The logistics of protection, the inevitable fallout, the information she carries that could shift entire markets if I use it correctly.
But none of that sticks.
All I can think about is her.
The way she looked when the mask came off, fierce and fragile all at once. The way she touched me like she was testing the edges of her own destruction and decided to fall anyway.
And the way I followed.
I drag myself out of the bed carefully, the air cooling the heat still lingering on my skin. The city sprawls beneath us, restless, alive.
I sit at the desk, open my laptop, and start piecing together the fragments I already know. Her name. The dossier. The scandal that erupted four days ago now. I’ve seen her on the news. The perfect scapegoat for a man with too much to lose.
Edward Hartley.
I type the name, and the screen floods with headlines: Senator distances himself from former consultant amid allegations of arms trafficking.
Then another: Grace Casey suspected of leaking classified material. Alongside a smaller praising Hartley’s as a family man committed to making things right.
I scroll through the reports, cross-referencing them with shipping records and whispers I’ve heard from my own contacts. It doesn’t take long before the pieces fall into place.
Hartley’s accounts, Kozlov’s shipments, the missing crates that no one was supposed to notice.
She wasn’t part of it. She was the cover.
I sit back, the realization settling heavy in my chest.
She’s not the traitor. She’s the evidence.
I close the laptop and glance back at her. She’s shifted in her sleep, one arm draped over the sheet, her face half-buried in the pillow. There’s a faint crease between her brows, like she’s still fighting something even in her dreams.
I move to the bed and sit beside her, my fingers brushing a strand of pale hair from her face. She has bleached it recently. It feels dry and rough and I can see where patches of her natural colour still remain. She rushed it. Likely did it herself in a bid to hide from the press.
She stirs, eyelashes fluttering, and for a moment I think she’s going to wake fully. But then her eyes open just enough to find me.
“Couldn’t sleep?” she murmurs, voice rough with exhaustion.
“Didn’t try.”
She hums quietly, the sound fragile and human. “Were you working?”
“Sort of. I was researching you.”
“What did you find?”
“Enough to know you were telling the truth,” I say, my voice low. “And enough to know the worst is yet to come.”
Her eyes meet mine, clearer now, sharper. “Then I guess I really did do the right thing. With the auction I mean. Selling myself to the Bratva.”
“I need details from you,” I say, brushing my thumb along her jaw. “I have a few contacts who can leak the real files, the truth, clear your name. But you are now part of the Bratva too. You can’t ever go back to that life.”
Her lips part like she wants to argue, but I don’t give her the chance. I lean in, closing the space between us, catching her mouth in a kiss that’s nothing like before. This is slower, deeper, threaded with the weight of everything we now know.
She kisses me back, soft at first, then with a quiet desperation that feels like surrender and defiance at once.
When she pulls away, her breath catches, and she looks at me like she’s trying to memorize something she shouldn’t.
“Go back to sleep,” I whisper. “You’re safe now.”
She hesitates, searching my face as if to decide whether she believes me. Then, finally, she nods and lies back down. Her hand finds mine beneath the sheets.
I stay there beside her, the city pulsing quietly below us, her warmth anchoring me in a way that feels dangerously close to belonging.
When she drifts off again, I lean in, pressing one last kiss to her temple.
Tomorrow, I’ll start putting the pieces together.
Tomorrow, I’ll decide what to do with the truth.
But tonight, as she sleeps in my bed with her mask gone and her secrets laid bare, I know one thing for certain.
I’ve already chosen a side.