Lev
The girl is lying.
I know it the way I know when a deal's about to go sideways or when one of my men is thinking about turning rat. Instinct honed by fifteen years of staying alive in a world where hesitation is a death sentence.
Valerie Novak doesn't belong here.
I dry off and dress in silence, my mind replaying the encounter. Her terror was real—pupils blown wide, pulse hammering so hard I could see it in her throat, breath coming in panicked gasps that made her chest heave. The kind of fear you can't fake because the body doesn't lie.
Cowards. I fucking hate cowards.
The ones who beg and grovel and piss themselves when death comes calling. My father beat that weakness out of me by the time I was twelve. Tied me to a chair in the basement and made me watch him gut a traitor, told me if I looked away, he'd do the same to me.
Real strength is facing death without flinching.
Valerie Novak is a coward. I saw it in every trembling breath, every stammered excuse, every sob that tore out of her throat when I pressed the Glock to her forehead. Pathetic. The kind of weakness that makes my skin crawl.
But then.
For one second, she wasn't groveling, and that's the second that interests me. I also noticed another anomaly the moment something shifted in her.
The instant she stopped begging.
It wasn’t courage. Not the clean kind. It was something colder, something that comes from surviving a violence you didn’t deserve and learning that pleading only entertains the predator.
One breath she was shaking. The next, her eyes went flat, like a switch flipped behind them.
Pull the trigger and explain to your daughter why there’s a corpse in your bathroom.
That wasn’t a maid talking.
That was a person who’s seen death up close and decided she’d rather bite than cry.
I don’t like surprises.
I like them even less when they show up inside my house wearing a uniform and a terrified smile.
I finish buttoning my shirt and stare at the door like I can still see her silhouette on the wet marble.
Who put you here, little mouse?
Who the fuck are you really?
I head to my office, mind circling the problem like a predator scenting blood.
My office is soundproofed, reinforced, and designed for war. Steel and mahogany desk. Computer system with encryption that costs more than most people make in a year. Filing cabinets that require fingerprint access. This is where I run an empire worth half a billion dollars.
And where I'm about to dig into a girl who shouldn't be here.
Her file is clean. Too clean.
Valerie Novak. Twenty-two. Columbia graduate.
Father Viktor Novak, deceased two weeks ago—home invasion, robbery gone wrong according to the police report.
Mother Anna, brother Ethan. Middle-class family from Brighton Beach.
No criminal record. No suspicious associations.
Marina Petrov's agency personally vetted her.
Everything checks out perfectly, which is exactly the problem.
In my world, nothing is ever this perfect unless someone scrubbed it that way.
She shouldn't have gotten through my vetting process. Shouldn't have ended up in my private bathroom on her first day unless someone wanted her there.
Someone sent her.
I pull up the security footage from today and watch her arrive.
Daniel drops her at the entrance, and she's barely holding it together—gripping her bag like a shield, hands shaking when Sofia greets her.
During the tour, she keeps digging her nails into her palms, eyes going distant like she's somewhere else entirely.
Fresh grief, probably. Her father died two weeks ago. That kind of trauma makes people sloppy.
But then I watch her slip away during her break, and the nervous girl disappears.
She moves through the house with purpose, heading straight for the east wing like she knows exactly where she's going. Tries three locked doors before finding mine. No hesitation. No second-guessing.
She wasn't lost.
She was hunting for something.
The bathroom footage shows her rifling through my things—drawers, cabinets, looking for something specific. An amateur job. Any professional would have known about the cameras, would have picked better targets. But she panics and hides behind the door like a fucking idiot.
Not trained. Just desperate.
Which makes her more dangerous, not less.
Whoever planted her here knows how to weaponize desperation.
I watch the rest of the encounter frame by frame. Her terror when I opened the shower door. The way she begged and sobbed and fell apart. Complete breakdown.
And then that moment.
I pause it, rewind, and watch it again.
One second of cold, flat defiance before the fear floods back in.
There you are, little viper.
My intercom buzzes. Mikhail.
"Boss. Sub-level three. We're ready."
The basement. Where Alexei Volkov is zip-tied to a chair, waiting to explain why he thought stealing two hundred thousand dollars from me was survivable.
"On my way."
I close the laptop and head downstairs, anticipation warming my chest.
This is the part I enjoy.
Sub-level three is accessed through the wine cellar—reinforced walls, soundproofing that could muffle a grenade, no windows. This is where I handle internal problems.
Tonight's problem used to be family.
Alexei sits in the center of the room, stripped to his underwear, already bruised from Mikhail's preliminary work. Blood trickles from his nose. When I enter, the fear in his eyes is immediate and satisfying.
"Lev—" His voice cracks. "Lev, please, there's been a mistake—"
"No mistake." I remove my jacket, hand it to Mikhail. Roll up my sleeves slowly, letting him watch. "We have video of you redirecting shipments. Bank records showing deposits. Three witnesses."
"They're lying! Someone's setting me up—"
I hit him hard enough to split his lip and send blood spattering across concrete. The sound of impact echoes off the walls, and satisfaction pulses through me.
"Who?"
"I don't know, but I swear—"
Another hit. His cheekbone cracks under my knuckles, and the feeling is better than whiskey, better than sex. This is what strength looks like. This is what happens when you're stupid enough to steal from me.
He's sobbing now, trying to talk through blood and broken teeth. "Please, we're family—"
"Family doesn't steal from family."
I spend the next thirty minutes breaking him piece by piece. Not in rage—I'm not angry. This is pure enjoyment. Watching someone realize begging won't save them. Watching the exact moment hope dies in their eyes.
My father taught me this when I was sixteen. Where to hit for maximum pain without causing unconsciousness. How to break ribs without puncturing lungs. The precise angle to dislocate a shoulder and make grown men scream like children.
Alexei tells me everything eventually. The gambling debts. The mistress. The desperate, stupid decision to take what wasn't his. He begs for mercy, for another chance, for his life.
I don't give it.
When he's told me everything useful, I put a bullet in his brain. The shot echoes, and his body slumps forward, blood pooling on concrete.
Clean. Efficient. Necessary.
Mikhail will handle disposal. He always does.
I wash Alexei's blood off my hands in the utility sink, watching pink water circle the drain. My knuckles are split and swelling. There's blood spatter on my shirt—I'll burn it later.
This is what I am.
And I fucking love it.
The violence centers me. Reminds me that in this world, strength is the only currency that matters. Weakness gets you killed. Fear makes you prey.
And somewhere upstairs, Valerie Novak is probably still crying, terrified of the man who pressed a gun to her forehead.
Good.
But that flash of steel? That moment where she wasn't afraid?
That's what keeps me interested.
I shower in my bathroom—the same one where I held her at gunpoint hours ago—and let the hot water work into my muscles. Blood and gunpowder wash down the drain, and my mind drifts back to her.
She's not beautiful the way the women I usually fuck are beautiful. No carefully maintained appearance, no expensive styling, no practiced seduction. She's all big brown eyes and soft mouth, the kind of innocence that doesn't last long in my world.
But in that shower, soaking wet with terror in her eyes, I noticed other things.
The way her pulse hammered visibly in her throat—fast and fragile, begging to be pressed. How her lips parted when she saw me naked, a little gasp of surprise she couldn't control. The flush that spread across her face even while she was terrified, red staining her cheeks and neck.
Heat. Just for a second before the fear swallowed it whole.
She's not experienced. That much was obvious.
The way she couldn't stop staring at my body, and then looked away like she'd done something wrong.
The shocked wideness of her eyes when they dropped below my waist. That's not practiced seduction.
That's a girl seeing something she's been told to fear and finding herself curious instead.
Virgin? Maybe. Or close enough that it doesn't matter.
Either way, she'd break so easily.
I finish showering and dress in comfortable clothes—black pants, black shirt. It's nearly 9 PM. I should check on Mila before I do anything else.
Sofia's in the west corridor, reviewing schedules on her tablet.
"Status?" I ask.
She looks up, unruffled as always. "Kitchen inventory completed. Staff rotations confirmed. The new girl started today—Miss Novak. She seems nervous but competent. Should I schedule her for Mila's evening routine starting tomorrow?"
"Not yet. Keep her on general duties."
Her eyes sharpen slightly. "Any concerns I should know about?"
"Just watch her. Report anything unusual."
"Of course." She makes a note. "Mila's already asleep. Elena said she went down easily tonight."
Something in my chest tightens. "No nightmares?"
"Not tonight."
Small mercy.
I head to Mila's room anyway, needing to see for myself.