Chapter Four - Alexei
The club is quiet tonight. Quieter than usual, at least. Low music drifts from hidden speakers, bass softened by thick velvet curtains and marble floors that have seen more whispered deals than dancing.
Smoke hangs in the air, curling upward in lazy ribbons, blotting the edges of the light. It suits me. I prefer shadows.
I sit in the corner booth, back to the wall, glass of vodka untouched in front of me.
My men know to keep their distance tonight; this meeting is mine alone.
Dimitri lingers somewhere in the background, close enough to intervene, far enough to let me breathe.
He knows better than to interrupt when I want clarity.
The door opens, and she enters.
Vivienne Wilder.
Her stride cuts through the haze, measured, practiced. She walks like she’s unafraid, though I know better. It’s in the tension of her shoulders, the way her eyes sweep the room once before locking forward again.
She’s pretending not to be afraid, and she does it well enough that most wouldn’t notice the difference. I appreciate the effort. Fear can be concealed. Only the foolish deny it exists at all.
I watch her approach, my eyes tracking every movement. Tonight, she wears black again: sharp, professional, but understated. No flash, no shine. The kind of choice that says she wants to blend, even as every man in the room turns to watch her pass.
She stops at the table.
“Ms. Wilder.” I motion to the seat across from me.
“Mr. Sharov.” Her tone is clipped, polite, cool as glass.
She sits without hesitation, back straight, hands folding neatly in her lap. I slide a glass toward her, vodka chilled, the rim sweating in the dim light. She doesn’t touch it.
“You don’t drink?” I ask, not as a question but as an observation.
“Not when I’m working.” Her eyes meet mine evenly.
A small hum of approval escapes me. Control, discipline. More and more interesting.
We start with pleasantries, the surface-level nonsense that greases the wheels of business. I ask about her last case, and she gives me the broad strokes without revealing more than she has to.
She asks if Sergei has been keeping quiet since his release; I smirk, tell her he’s learned the value of silence.
For a moment, it could almost be a normal conversation, two professionals at opposite ends of an industry pretending the table between them isn’t soaked in blood.
Then I shift.
“There’s a matter that requires perspective,” I say, voice low, even. “One of our associates has been accused of disloyalty. Mismanagement of funds. Whispered ties to rivals.”
Her eyes flicker—just once—but her expression holds. “What do you want from me?”
“Your opinion. Legal, practical. Where does loyalty end, and liability begin? It could be related to the earlier case I gave you.”
She takes a beat before answering, as though weighing not just her words but the shape of the silence between them.
“Disloyalty is difficult to prove in a courtroom. Unless there’s a clear paper trail, anything else looks like conjecture.
The accusation itself carries more weight than evidence ever could. ”
Her gaze sharpens. “If you cut him loose, you eliminate risk. If you protect him without proof, you show strength. Either way, the choice isn’t about the law, it’s about the message you want to send.”
Her tone is precise, her reasoning clean. More importantly, it favors us. Not the courts, not the law, not her conscience. Us.
I lean back, studying her face. She doesn’t flinch beneath the scrutiny. She’s telling me what I want to hear, or she’s telling me what she believes. I can’t decide which it is. Her mask doesn’t slip, not even at the edges.
Most people give themselves away without realizing it. A twitch of the mouth, a flicker of the eyes, the cadence of a sentence. Vivienne offers nothing. Just that cool, carved exterior. The more I look at it, the more I want to know what cracks underneath.
I reach into the briefcase beside me, slide a manila file across the table. “Then perhaps you’ll find this useful.”
She glances down at it, fingers brushing the edge but not opening it yet.
“What is it?”
“Information,” I say simply. “A file on one of our own. Sensitive. Potentially damning.”
It isn’t real. Not entirely. Pages doctored, details fabricated, a web carefully spun. It doesn’t matter what’s inside. What matters is what she does with it.
“You’ll review it,” I tell her. “Decide what should be done.”
Her eyes lift back to mine, steady, unreadable. “You want my recommendation, or the truth?”
The corner of my mouth curves into a slow smirk. Finally, something new. Not defiance, not submission—something else entirely. A challenge.
I tap the table once, softly, a signal I rarely give but one she’s earned tonight. “That,” I murmur, “depends on whether you know the difference.”
Her expression doesn’t change. Still, for the first time since she walked in, I feel the faintest edge of a game beginning.
The silence stretches between us, heavy as stone.
For a moment, I expect her to hedge, to smile politely and deflect.
That’s what most people do when they realize I’ve handed them something sharp enough to cut.
Instead, Vivienne leans forward slightly, fingers brushing the edge of the file but not opening it yet. Her eyes lock on to mine.
“The recommendation would be simple,” she says, voice smooth, low.
“Shred it. Pretend it doesn’t exist. Once information like this is acknowledged, it owns you.
The truth…” She pauses, her gaze unwavering.
“The truth is that it doesn’t matter what’s in here.
What matters is what you’ll do with it once you’ve decided who you trust.”
Her words linger. Not just the content, but the way she says them. Each syllable is precise, deliberate, carrying a weight that presses long after the sound fades. My men speak with fear, my enemies with bravado.
Her eyes don’t waver. Not once. I search them, probing for a crack, some tremor of uncertainty, but all I see is that cool mask.
Then deeper—just for an instant—I catch something wild.
A flicker beneath the surface, like a storm trapped under glass.
She reins it in quickly, but I know I didn’t imagine it.
It intrigues me in a way most women don’t. Beauty has always been easy. Bodies are plentiful, lips eager, smiles cheap. I’ve had all of it, and none of it lasts beyond the moment the sheets cool.
Danger, though—danger is rare. To find it in someone who doesn’t even realize how sharp her own edges are? That is something else entirely.
“You speak with certainty,” I murmur, letting the smoke from my cigar curl between us. “But certainty can be a liability.”
“Then maybe I should call it conviction.”
Her tone is flat, unbending, but it rings with something that refuses to bow. Conviction. She carries it like a weapon, though I don’t yet know where she intends to strike.
I let the silence settle again, listening to the faint thrum of bass bleeding through the walls.
Around us, the club breathes: glasses clink, voices murmur, laughter sharpens then fades.
None of it matters. Not compared to the echo of her voice, the way it threads through my thoughts and settles deeper than it should.
Finally, I nod once. “Very well. Keep the file. Review it. Bring me your decision when you’ve had time to weigh conviction against certainty.”
Her lips curve slightly—not into a smile, but into something sharper. Agreement, acknowledgment. She gathers the file without ceremony, slipping it into her bag. Then she rises, smooth and steady, every line of her posture deliberate.
“Until then, Mr. Sharov.”
Her eyes linger a moment longer than they should, as if daring me to stop her. Then she turns and walks away.
I don’t watch the sway of her hips, don’t glance at the untouched glass of vodka sweating on the table.
My eyes fix only on the door she disappears through.
The click of it shutting behind her carries louder in my ears than the music, louder than the chatter of men below.
Silence trails after her like a shadow, leaving a hollow in the room.
For a long moment, I stay still. My cigar burns low between my fingers, ash curling dangerously close to the leather of my glove. I don’t flick it away. I’m listening—to the absence she left behind.
Dimitri approaches from the bar, leaning one shoulder against the booth. “She didn’t touch the drink,” he notes, voice rough with smoke.
“No,” I reply, still watching the door.
“That means she doesn’t trust you.”
“That means she knows better.”
He huffs a low laugh. “Maybe. Or maybe she’s just cautious. Women like that usually are. They play it safe until they’ve had their fill of the game.”
“She isn’t playing safe,” I say.
Dimitri raises a brow. “No?”
I finally glance at him, smirking faintly. “Safe players don’t hold my eyes that long.”
His chuckle fades into a frown, the scar on his hand catching the light as he drums his fingers against the table. “You’re giving her too much credit, Brother. She’s a lawyer. They live for performance.”
“Performance,” I echo, tasting the word. Maybe. Or maybe she’s been performing for so long she doesn’t remember where the mask ends. Either way, it interests me.
I stub out the cigar, stand, and adjust my jacket. The club hums on, thick with music and heat, but the air feels thinner without her sitting across from me.
“Watch her,” I tell Dimitri, voice low, final. “More closely than before.”
His mouth twists. “I don’t know if that’s possible.”
“I pay you to do as I ask, don’t I?”
I don’t wait for his answer. I step away from the booth, heading toward the balcony that overlooks the city. The glass doors are cold against my palm as I push them open, the rush of night air biting sharp against my skin.
The city sprawls beneath me: streets glowing, traffic weaving, neon bleeding into the dark. Usually it feels like mine, every block tethered to me by invisible strings. Tonight, it feels further away, as if something has shifted, pulling the ground just slightly off-balance.
I light another cigar, the ember flaring against the dark. Smoke unfurls in the wind, carried away before it can hang heavy.
My thoughts circle back, inevitably, to her. Vivienne Wilder.
Her voice, low and deliberate. Her eyes, unblinking, carrying storms she pretends don’t exist. The way she asked if I wanted her recommendation or the truth—like she knew the difference mattered more to me than the answer itself.
I exhale smoke into the night, slow and steady.
I’ve seen a thousand women pass through these halls. Some bold, some trembling, some thinking they can tame the wolf at their door. Vivienne doesn’t tremble. She doesn’t preen or chase.
She intrigues me. Not because she’s beautiful, though she is. Beauty is nothing. Danger is everything. She doesn’t even know yet how dangerous she is—to me, to herself, to everything she touches.
I draw deep on the cigar, the taste rich, bitter. The city hums beneath me.
Vivienne Wilder is hiding something. I can feel it in my bones.