Chapter 14 – Karik
It had been a week since the wedding, and we barely saw each other. I let her sleep in her old room because she wasn’t comfortable sharing my bed. I could’ve easily forced her to, but I didn’t.
She spent most of her time in that room, as though she were still my prisoner. Although a part of me didn’t mind her withdrawal, another part wished she’d accept her reality.
I wasn’t going to push her to act like the wife she was. But there was also a limit to what I could take. If she dragged this attitude on for too long, I might be forced to intervene.
Two days ago, I caught her staring at me from the doorway. I’d just stepped out of the shower, a towel around my waist, bare-chested. The look in her eyes was familiar. It was the same look I had in mine the night I stood at her door, watching her sleep.
Desire.
It was all over her face. The craving. The need. It was subtle, but present. She stared at me as if she were pleased by the sight, maybe even aroused by it. My assumption wasn’t far-fetched, because if she wasn’t drawn to me, she wouldn’t have bothered to feed her eyes.
The shock in her gaze when I caught her staring was satisfying. The way her breath hitched and the speed with which she immediately disappeared curled my lips into a faint smirk. Even now, thinking about it prompted the same reaction.
Ellie was just as drawn to me as I was to her, but she wasn’t ready to admit it. That was one reason she chose to sleep in separate rooms. She didn’t trust herself around me. Good. That was the plan anyway, a subtle seduction until her own body betrayed her.
I told her a week ago that I wasn’t going to touch her until she begged me to. At first, I thought I might have been overly confident in my claims. But after seeing that flash of desire in her eyes, I knew for sure that it was only a matter of time.
Some feelings were meant to be acted upon. Not suppressed. This was one of them.
Since it was obvious now that she’d planned to avoid me as much as she could, I decided to change the game. Ellie was bored most of the time, and I wasn’t ready to release her phone or give her another one.
To keep her mind occupied, I allowed controlled access to certain information. I had some documents and old case fragments taken to her room yesterday. Nothing that compromised me directly, but enough to help me understand her thinking.
I knew she was smart, so I was waiting to find out what she’d make out of those cases.
After work that evening, I headed straight to her room, using the case files as an excuse to be around her. Agata told me that she wasn’t in there, that she’d been in the library the whole day.
I wasn’t surprised.
This was the closest she’d been to being productive since her arrival. Of course, she jumped on it with all she had.
I changed my route and strolled down to the library. It was quiet inside, with soft light filling the space. At the table by the round window, she sat, surrounded by scattered books and loose documents.
Her hair was piled high in a messy bun, a few strands escaping to frame her face. A pen was tucked behind her left ear, forgotten as she buried herself in work. Her eyes stayed locked on the pages in front of her, her fingers shuffling through the papers with focused urgency.
She was wearing an oversized T-shirt with long sleeves that swallowed her hands. The top three buttons were undone, revealing a glimpse of her skin.
I walked inside, between two towering shelves on both sides, each packed with meticulously arranged books. My shoes scuffed against the floor as I neared her table, one hand in my pocket.
She heard my footsteps but didn’t look up. Either she deliberately refused to acknowledge my presence, or she was simply too engrossed to notice me.
In my opinion, the former was the most likely.
“I don’t know what you had in mind when you forwarded these files to me, but…” she began, her eyes scanning the papers in front of her, “…the inconsistencies here are alarming.”
She had heard me come in but chose to ignore me. Deliberately.
“Good evening to you too,” I said, my voice laced with sarcasm.
“This.” She tapped a finger on the file before her, ignoring my greeting. “This is very similar to the Vetrov case, and I think that’s why you had it brought to me.”
Guilty as charged.
I stared at her in silence, watching the enthusiasm flicker in her gaze.
“What’d you find?” I asked, indulging her.
She rose to her feet, the file in her hand as she walked around the table. The shirt stopped high above her knees, its hem brushing against her alluring thighs.
Before the sight awakened something within me, I looked away almost immediately.
“Listen, the witness places himself at the northern depot at 14:30,” she began, stopping in front of me.
I listened in silence.
“But the transport record for that date shows the depot was under a full lockdown from 13:00 to 17:00. Routine inspection. Nobody in or out.” She turned a page. “So either the inspection record is falsified, or the witness statement is. One of them is wrong.”
I stroked my jaw, settling onto the nearest couch. “There’s that. And there’s also the fact that the witness might’ve misremembered the time.”
“Misremembered? Are you kidding me?”
“It happens. People misremember all the time.”
“Yeah,” she said, her tone sharp and offensive. “But not dockworkers about depot lockdowns. Those usually cost them shift pay. There’s no way they’d misremember.” She paused, holding my gaze.
“What’re you insinuating?”
She crossed her arms. “That someone wrote that statement for him. Same way someone wrote Vetrov’s.”
I stared at her in awe, legs crossed, my mind brimming with pride and respect.
“Tell me I’m wrong.” It was a dare. The kind you make when you know you’ve done the work and tied up all loose ends.
After a moment, I said, “You’re wrong.” Not because she was. But because I was enjoying her analysis.
“Oh, yeah? Then why was the file closed without addressing the inconsistencies in the timeline?”
I let out a quiet sigh, rising to my feet. “Files close for reasons that may or may not have anything to do with inconsistencies.”
She walked over to me, closing the gap between us. “Files like Daniel Vetrov’s?”
I stopped in my tracks, cornered by her small frame. In the silence that followed, I looked at her, catching the flush in her face from the force of the argument.
“Tell me, Karik,” she said, holding my gaze. “How many innocent people are rotting in prison because of whoever you’re protecting?”
Silence.
She stood her ground before me, those hazel eyes boring into mine, defiance flickering in their depths. The stillness stretched on, and with each passing second, the moment built toward something neither of us had planned.
My eyes traced the curve of her mouth before dipping to her chest. Her peaks were poking from underneath her shirt, visible and enticing. The sight ignited a fire within me, one threatening to consume me whole.
Her scent was intoxicating, fanning the flames burning inside me. The longer we stared at each other, the more clearly I saw the desire in her eyes. The air was thick with tension and something darker—something sexual.
I watched her chest heave with controlled breaths, her pale skin glistening under the soft light. My heart raced in anticipation as an invisible force slowly brought our heads together.
She was tense, and for some bizarre reason, so was I. I leaned in closer and closer until I could mirror her face. She didn’t pull away. She didn’t push me back either. Her fresh breath was warm against my skin, my lips barely an inch from hers.
I could almost hear the sound of her heart pounding against her ribs. The previous defiance in her eyes had now dissolved into something vulnerable.
Her body trembled when my lips grazed hers for a fleeting moment. And just when things were about to escalate, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
The stupid sound was immediate, landing between us like something physical.
She flinched, blinked, and then stepped back, as if snapping out of an enchantment. My face twisted into a faint frown as I watched her quietly walk back to her table.
I reached for the buzzing phone in my jacket and realized the caller was Sergei.
This better be important.
I answered the phone and headed out of the library. “Speak.”
The shift in the room didn’t vanish. It stayed unresolved, proof that our attraction to each other was mutual.
This opportunity would present itself again, sooner or later. When it did, there’d be no interruptions. I’d make sure of that.