Chapter Ten - Aleksandr
The surveillance room is empty except for me.
Two in the morning, the estate quiet, most of the staff asleep or stationed at their night posts. I should be in bed myself, maintaining the discipline that keeps me sharp. Instead, I’m sitting in front of a wall of monitors, rewatching footage from three days ago.
Elena Lawrence bypassing security at the east facility. Frame by frame, I watch her work.
The forged credentials scan cleanly at the entrance.
She moves with purpose but not haste, pushing her cleaning cart like she’s done this a hundred times before.
The guard barely glances up. She’s invisible because she’s designed herself to be—unremarkable, forgettable, exactly what people expect to see.
Smart.
I advance the footage. She reaches the third floor, pauses at a junction to check for cameras. Spots one, adjusts her route to avoid direct sight lines. But she misses the secondary camera in the corner, the one hidden in the smoke detector housing.
Not perfect, then. Good, but not flawless.
She enters the server room using stolen credentials tied to a dead logistics contractor. I’d fired him six months ago for incompetence and had his access revoked. Apparently not thoroughly enough. The oversight bothers me more than her using it.
Inside the room, she works fast. Laptop out, cables connected, files downloading. Her fingers move with practiced efficiency across the keyboard. She’s done this before, or something close to it. Database management, financial analysis, the kind of technical work that requires real skill.
The Lawrence family wasted her potential. Kept her locked away in London doing nothing when she could have been—
I stop the thought before it goes further.
Two employees enter. She lies smoothly, maintaining her cover despite the surprise. I watch her body language—tension in her shoulders, but her voice stays steady. The performance is nearly perfect.
Nearly.
When they leave, she exhales hard, the first real sign of stress showing through. Then she gathers herself and keeps working.
I advance to the moment she runs. The alarm hasn’t even triggered yet, but she knows something is wrong. Instinct, maybe. Or she’s been listening for changes in the building’s atmosphere, reading subtle cues most people miss.
She runs fast. Takes stairs two at a time, cuts through corridors with surprising knowledge of the building layout. She must have studied blueprints, memorized routes, planned multiple escape paths.
Thorough preparation for a mission that was always going to fail.
I watch her burst through the side exit into the alley. Watch her nearly make it to the waiting car. So close. Her fingers actually touch the door handle before Viktor’s team intercepts.
The capture is efficient. Professional. She fights despite knowing it’s useless, screams once before they silence her. The whole thing takes less than thirty seconds.
I replay that section three times.
Not because I need to verify anything. The capture went exactly as ordered: she’s alive, with minimal damage, contained before she could alert anyone.
I replay it because I want to see her fight.
Want to see the moment she realizes she’s caught but refuses to surrender anyway. The way her body keeps struggling even when logic says she’s already lost.
Fight or burn.
I recognize that instinct. I was raised on it. My father beat it into me from childhood—never submit, never show weakness, break before you bend.
It’s the same instinct I see in Elena Lawrence every time she looks into the camera.
I switch feeds to the current surveillance. The guest room in the east wing where she’s been for the past thirty-six hours since I had her moved from the cell.
She’s standing at the window, forehead pressed against the glass, staring out at the grounds. Her posture is defeated in a way I haven’t seen from her before. Shoulders slumped, arms wrapped around herself. She looks small in that silk nightgown, vulnerable in ways that should satisfy me.
They don’t.
I prefer the fury. The defiance. The version of Elena Lawrence who threw accusations at me in the cell despite having no leverage, no power, nothing but stubborn refusal to break.
This version—quiet, isolated, accepting her cage—feels wrong.
The clean solution is execution.
I lean back in my chair, considering it the way I consider all necessary violence. Dispassionately. Strategically. Without sentiment clouding judgment.
She’s seen too much. Knows the connection between shell companies and Lawrence asset seizures. Understands my operational patterns well enough to infiltrate a secured facility. If released, she becomes a liability that could damage carefully constructed legitimacy.
Any other man in my position would have already ordered it done. Quietly, efficiently, body disposed of where it would never be found. Problem solved.
My father would have done it without hesitation. Without even questioning whether alternatives existed.
I’m not my father.
Something stops me every time I consider the order.
Not mercy. I’m not capable of mercy in any way that matters. People die on my orders regularly—threats eliminated, examples made, consequences delivered. Death is a tool I use without guilt or hesitation when necessary.
What stops me is reaction.
I switch back to the footage from her interrogation in the cell. Watch myself circle her, grip her chin, tangle fingers in her hair. Watch her pulse jump in her throat, visible even on camera. Watch the way she doesn’t pull away despite fear spiking so high I could smell it.
Something sharp pulls low in my gut every time she looks into the camera. Every time her jaw tightens with suppressed fury. Every time her eyes flash with defiance she can’t quite control.
I remember the auction. The way she raised her paddle with absolute certainty, throwing down millions without hesitation. The fury on her face when the gavel fell. The pride that wouldn’t let her run even when staying meant enduring my attention.
I remember her standing in my facility corridor, disguised as cleaning staff, throwing accusations about criminal activity directly at me. Stupid and suicidal and somehow magnificent in her audacity.
I remember her in the cell, exhausted and terrified but still demanding to know why I hadn’t killed her. Still fighting even when fighting was pointless.
Fight or burn.
Killing her would erase something I want intact.
The realization settles uncomfortable in my chest. Want is dangerous. Want creates vulnerability. My father taught me that by showing me what happened when powerful men let desire override judgment—they got weak, got sloppy, got dead.
I should kill Elena Lawrence because wanting her alive is already a problem.
I won’t.
I pull out my phone and send a message to Viktor: Transfer complete. She stays in the east wing permanently. Increased surveillance, no outside contact, no restraints unless necessary.
The response comes back within seconds: Sir, are you certain? Keeping her here long-term presents significant risk.
Risk. Yes, but what kind?
The risk that she escapes? Impossible with current security. The risk that she talks? To who? She’s completely isolated. The risk that keeping her becomes complicated in ways I can’t predict?
That’s the real concern. The one Viktor is too professional to state directly.
I type back: I’m certain. Make sure all staff understand she’s under my personal authority. Anyone who touches her without explicit permission answers to me.
He replies: Understood.
I pocket the phone and return my attention to the monitors. Elena has moved away from the window, sitting on the edge of the bed now. She looks lost. Alone.
She will remain under my roof. Under my authority. Not as a prisoner, though that’s technically what she is.
The possessiveness that comes with the thought should concern me more than it does.
***
I’m supposed to meet Dimitri and my cousins at eleven. Some new club that opened in the city center, the kind of place where Bratva money mingles with oligarch excess and everyone pretends not to notice the violence simmering under expensive suits.
I almost cancel. I’d rather stay here, watching surveillance footage, making sure Elena is—what? Comfortable? Adjusting? Not planning something stupid?
But canceling would raise questions I’m not ready to answer. Including to myself.
So I go.
The club is exactly what I expected—too loud, too crowded, too many people trying too hard to look important. Dimitri is already drunk when I arrive, arm around a blonde whose name he definitely doesn’t know.
My cousins Alexei and Mikhail are at the VIP table, discussing some territorial dispute in Petersburg that I only halfway care about.
I order vodka I won’t drink and settle into the manufactured chaos.
“You look distracted,” Dimitri observes, words slightly slurred. “Trouble?”
“When isn’t there?”
“Fair point.” He leans closer, conspiratorial. “Speaking of trouble, did you hear about the Lawrence girl? Apparently she’s gone missing. Father is frantic, calling in favors, trying to find her.”
My hand tightens on the glass. “Is that so?”
“Yeah. Disappeared a few days ago, no trace. Some people think she ran off, trying to escape the family’s collapse. Others think—” He pauses, grinning. “—think maybe someone took her. Someone with a grudge against dear old Walter.”
Alexei laughs from across the table. “Who would bother? She’s nobody. The bastard daughter, barely acknowledged by her own family.”
“Still,” Mikhail adds, “would send a message. Taking his daughter while he’s already bleeding out financially? That’s poetic.”
They’re discussing her like she’s a chess piece. A tool for applying pressure. Which is exactly what she should be.
So why does hearing it make my jaw clench?
“She’s with me,” I say.
The table goes silent. All three of them stare.
“What?” Dimitri recovers first. “What do you mean she’s with you?”
“Elena Lawrence. She broke into the east facility three days ago. Stole data, tried to run. I have her at the estate.”
More silence. Then Alexei whistles low. “Bold move. What are you planning to do with her?”
“That remains to be determined.”
“Ransom?” Mikhail suggests. “Leverage against the father?”
“No.”
“Then what?” Dimitri’s grin turns sly. “Unless this isn’t about business at all.”
I level him with a look that wipes the smile off his face. “Careful.”
“I’m just saying,” he continues, backing off slightly, “keeping a woman at the estate without clear strategic purpose seems… unusual for you.”
He’s not wrong. I don’t bring problems home. Don’t mix business with personal space. The estate is sanctuary, controlled territory where I’m supposed to be able to think clearly without complications.
Elena Lawrence is definitely a complication.
“She’s a security risk,” I say. “Easier to contain her than eliminate her and deal with the fallout.”
“Fallout from killing a bastard daughter nobody claims?” Alexei raises an eyebrow. “What fallout?”
Before I can answer, Mikhail leans forward. “Is she pretty?”
The question shouldn’t irritate me. It’s a reasonable thing to ask about a woman I’m keeping in my home, but something dark and possessive rises in my chest.
“That’s irrelevant,” I say coldly.
“So, yes.” Dimitri grins again. “She’s pretty and you’re keeping her locked up at the estate. Brother, this is—”
“This is strategic containment of a security threat,” I interrupt. “Nothing more.”
“Right. Of course.” His tone says he doesn’t believe me. “So when do we meet her?”
“You don’t.”
“Protective already?” Mikhail laughs. “This is going to be interesting to watch.”
I signal for the check, suddenly done with this conversation. Done with their speculation and assumptions and the uncomfortable truth underneath their teasing.
I feel something protective for her. More than I should. More than makes sense for someone who’s supposed to be a contained threat.
She broke into my facility. Stole my data. Put herself completely at my mercy through her own actions.
She should be nothing to me. A problem to be solved. A liability to be managed.
Instead, I’m sitting in a club thinking about the way she looked at the window, small and lost and alone. Thinking about how to make her comfortable without admitting that’s what I’m doing. Thinking about her in ways that have nothing to do with strategy.
Want is dangerous.
I want Elena Lawrence alive, safe, under my roof where I can… what?
Watch her? Protect her? Possess her?
All of the above, apparently.