Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Artyom
The hallway feels too narrow with her this close behind me. I can hear the click of her heels, slow and measured, every sound like a reminder of what just happened in the room. The air between us is still heavy, charged in a way that makes it hard to breathe.
I can still see her when I blink—the curve of her body in the half-light, the defiance in her eyes when she dared me to look.
The sight of her standing there, bare and unafraid, did something to me I don’t have a name for.
It crawls under my skin now, sharp and restless, refusing to fade.
She hasn’t said a word since we left the suite, and I don’t blame her.
If I open my mouth, I might say something I can’t take back.
We reach the elevator, the doors sliding open with that soft, mechanical sigh. She steps in first, her reflection catching mine in the mirrored walls. The black dress clings to her like sin and highlights all her curves. I should look away, but I just can’t.
Part of me still aches from stopping.
I wanted to make her come more than I’ve wanted anything in years—to feel her lose control because of me, to see what she’d sound like when she stopped fighting it.
But if I had, I wouldn’t have left that room for anything.
There’s no way I’d have been able to walk into this damn cocktail, shake hands, and pretend to be sane after that.
She stares straight ahead, arms crossed loosely at her waist, pretending not to notice that I’m watching her. The muscles in her shoulders are tense, her jaw set. I can feel the resentment rolling off her in waves. I deserve it. Maybe that’s why I don’t try to break the silence.
The ride down feels longer than it should. When the doors finally open, the hum of voices and faint music spills in like a release valve. The cocktail’s already started.
The room is all glass and chandeliers, the kind of wealth that doesn’t have to prove itself anymore.
People in tailored suits and diamonds stand in small clusters, speaking in low tones that don’t match their smiles.
The city at night glitters through the windows behind them—gold and blue and restless.
I feel Kira stiffen beside me the moment the first pair of eyes turn our way. They always look. They always whisper. Every room we walk into seems to shrink around her, like it can sense she doesn’t belong to this world and resents her for daring to stand inside it.
I rest my hand lightly at the small of her back, guiding her forward through the noise and the perfume and the low hum. She doesn’t pull away, but her body is a wire beneath my palm, trying not to give me the satisfaction of knowing she feels my touch.
“Smile,” I murmur without looking at her, my tone soft enough to sound harmless but meant as an order.
She doesn’t. Her chin lifts instead, a silent refusal that almost makes me laugh. Fine. I can do the smiling for both of us.
Heads turn as we make our way through the crowd.
The familiar faces of too many enemies pretending to be friends.
Luciano De Luca is near the bar, a glass of scotch in hand, watching everything like a man who already knows how it ends.
Patrick O’Callaghan laughs too loud at something no one else seems to find funny.
Boris Petrov isn’t here yet, but I can feel the echo of his name in the curious, expectant way people look at me.
When I stop near a small circle of Camorra and Irish men, Kira does too. She stands half a step behind me, her expression composed, eyes sharp. She’s learning. That quiet defiance looks good on her, even when she’s furious with me.
I introduce her like nothing’s wrong. Like she didn’t nearly throw something at my head an hour ago.
“This is Kira Jones,” I say evenly, my voice carrying just enough weight to quiet the nearest conversation. “My fiancée.”
The word lands heavier than I expect. I see it in the small shift of her shoulders, the breath she doesn’t quite let out.
She doesn’t look at me, just keeps her gaze fixed ahead, chin slightly lifted the way she does when she’s trying not to show her nerves.
I keep my tone smooth, my face neutral, as if I can will the whole room to believe what neither of us fully does.
Luciano De Luca gives a polite nod, his gold ring catching the chandelier light. “A pleasure, Miss Jones.”
She returns the gesture, her lips curving into a smile that looks perfect from a distance but close up doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Likewise,” she says softly, each syllable too careful.
A man with a slick smile steps forward, extending his hand. “Miss Jones, it’s an honor,” he says, his tone just shy of patronizing.
Kira glances at me once, then takes his hand. “Thank you,” she says, voice steady, though I catch the faint tremor in her fingers before she pulls away.
Another man leans in, drink in hand. “So this is the fiancée,” he says to no one in particular, his eyes running the length of her dress. “I was expecting someone older.”
Her smile doesn’t falter. “I get that a lot.” She reaches for a passing tray, takes a glass of champagne like it’s armor, and lifts it slightly toward him. “Must be the good genes.”
He blinks, caught off guard, then laughs. She doesn’t.
“Miss Jones,” one of Luciano’s lieutenants says with a polite nod. “You look lovely this evening.”
“Thank you,” she replies, a touch more confident now, the words smoother, easier. Her smile holds steady, her posture loosens by degrees.
They keep talking—small compliments, empty questions about New York—and she starts answering without hesitation.
Her voice finds its rhythm, her movements slow.
By the third handshake, she’s stopped fidgeting altogether.
The smile still isn’t warm, but it’s convincing, and when one of the men laughs too loudly at something she says, she tips her head just slightly, pretending it doesn’t bother her.
From across the circle of conversation, I can tell she’s settling in, adapting. The nerves are still there, hiding under the surface, but she’s learning how to use them.
After a few minutes, I murmur an excuse and step away to grab a drink.
The crowd parts easily, but I still feel her presence like a pulse at the edge of my vision.
Mikhail’s across the room near the bar, half-listening to one of Luciano’s men while his eyes follow me with that same smug amusement.
He knows the game, sees more than I want him to.
I can already feel his grin forming, waiting for me to slip, to look at her again.
I ignore him and focus on the glass in my hand instead, but it doesn’t help.
The taste of her is still somewhere on my tongue.
The bartender nods when I approach. “Whiskey?”
“Neat,” I say.
When I turn back, she’s not where I left her. At first, it’s just the absence that hits—a flash of empty space where she was standing. Then I find her across the room, a few steps away, cornered between the bar and a tall man in a charcoal suit I don’t recognize.
He’s leaning in, one elbow braced casually against the counter, his glass tilted in her direction. Too close. The proximity is meant to look accidental but isn’t. His smile is slow, practiced—the bastard thinks he can get away with anything.
My pulse spikes before I can stop it.
Kira’s trying to stay composed, her body caught halfway between politeness and retreat.
She’s holding her champagne like it’s a prop, the rim brushing her lip but never reaching it.
Her other hand is pressed against the bar, fingers curling slightly, nails faintly tapping the marble.
Her shoulders are straight, her chin tilted in that way she does when she’s trying to pretend she’s fine, but her throat moves when she swallows, quick and shallow.
He says something. I can’t hear it over the noise, but I see the way she forces a small smile, the kind that doesn’t reach her eyes. It’s enough to tell me everything.
The glass in my hand feels heavier. My grip tightens until the stem creaks, so I set it down and the sound makes the bartender flinch.
The man shifts closer. His body angles toward hers, his head dipping like he’s trying to speak privately. I can see the faint twitch of irritation pull at her mouth as she leans back, just an inch.
Something inside me snaps taut. Heat floods my chest, sharp and immediate, a warning shot fired straight through my veins. By the time I reach them, I can already hear his voice.
“So you’re the new fiancée,” he says, tone dripping with lazy arrogance.
He’s standing too close, leaning in slightly, his drink tilted toward her like he’s showing off. I catch the faintest slur in his words. Drunk, maybe, or just stupid.
My hand finds Kira’s waist before I say a word. I feel her flinch, but then she goes still. My palm fits against her hip easily, and I let it stay there, firm enough that no one mistakes what it means. The man’s grin falters for a second before returning, sharper.
“Artyom Morozov,” he says, stretching my name out like a joke, his voice full of that fake politeness that begs me to punch him. “Didn’t realize your girl was so friendly.”
My tone comes out calm, but it doesn’t sound like me—it sounds too even, too sharp around the edges. “And I didn’t realize how rude some people can be.”
His smile flickers, just for a second, before he hides it behind another sip of whiskey. “Relax, Morozov. I was just being polite.”
“Polite,” my voice is flat. I take a step closer, enough that he has to tilt his head up to meet my eyes. “That what you call cornering a woman?”
He laughs under his breath, a soft, taunting sound. “Didn’t look like she minded.”
Kira’s breath catches beside me, barely audible but it’s there, that small sound that tightens something in my chest. I don’t look at her. I’m watching him instead—the lazy smirk, the raised brow, the hand that keeps playing with the rim of his glass like this is all a game.
He leans back on one heel, all that easy arrogance folding into the set of his shoulders. “You’ve got a temper lately,” he says, the words smooth as oil. “Maybe Boris is right—New York’s made you soft.”
The name lands like a thrown stone; it knocks loose something quiet and ugly in the room. His smirk is slow, practiced, the small lift of the lip that says he expects me to flinch, to nod, take the humiliation and hand it back to him like a polite favor.
Everything else recedes: the laughter at the far table becomes a soft varnish, the clink of ice in his glass a distant metronome.
The world narrows to the space between his wrist and my fist, to the color draining from his face, to the sudden awareness of my own hand moving as if pulled by a string.
My breath is a thin, steady thing in my chest. The blood at my temples drums loud enough to drown people out.
My body goes very still, but the stillness is taut, the silence before something breaks.
The last of my control snaps, and my fingers close around his wrist with a force that surprises me, a sharp, mechanical motion.
The sound is an impossibly final snap, a sound that marks a line you can’t step back over.
His glass explodes at his feet, and for a second the bright, glittering shards look obscene under the chandelier light.
Conversations stop midsentence, laughter cuts off, everyone’s attention slides to us like hands drawn on a map. I hold him there for a heartbeat longer because I want to make sure the message lands. His eyes are huge now, white around the iris, pure shock and the color leaves his face in streaks.
“Next time,” I tell him, voice low and even, the words stripped of irony, “think twice before touching anyone’s fiancée.”
I let go and he stumbles back, clutching his hand, gasping through clenched teeth. The silence stretches. Then, somewhere near the bar, someone laughs under their breath. The tension breaks like a knife sliding off glass.
I turn to Kira. Her eyes are wide, her lips parted, chest rising fast. She looks at me like she doesn’t know whether to slap me or run. Maybe both.
I should walk away and leave it at that. But driven but some invisible force, I take her face in my hand and kiss her hard.
The room doesn’t exist when my mouth meets hers, it’s just the soft, shocked sound she makes when I pull her closer.
My hand finds the back of her neck, fingers sliding into her hair, holding her there, not hard enough to hurt but firm enough that she can feel what I mean without words.
Her breath catches against my mouth, her hands coming up between us like she can’t decide whether to shove me away or hold on.
The taste of her hits and something in me snaps loose all over again.
The noise of the room dulls until it’s just the beat of her pulse against my thumb and the tremor that runs through her chest when she exhales.
Her lips part under mine, a breath, a protest, I don’t know which, and for one impossible second, I want to keep going, to drown in it until there’s nothing left to prove.
But reluctantly, I pull back.
Her eyes are darker now, pupils wide, the edges of her anger blurred by something that looks a lot like confusion. Her lips are flushed and swollen, her chest rising too fast. She looks wrecked. Beautiful.
I drag my thumb along her jaw, steady, deliberate, letting the contact linger just long enough to make sure she feels it. My voice drops low, meant only for her. “Now they’ll stop wondering.”
Her voice comes out low, trembling with anger. “You used me to prove a point.”
She jerks away, and I let her go. The crowd starts to move again, like nothing happened, but I can feel their eyes on us, the whispers already starting.
I don’t care. Let them talk. Luciano’s watching from across the room, one brow lifted, amused. Mikhail is somewhere behind him, shaking his head slowly, a ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth. Kira takes a step back, her hands shaking, and I know I’ve crossed another line.
I go to the bar, pick the drink I left earlier on the counter, and down it in one breath. The burn helps.
She’s still standing there, trying to compose herself. When our eyes meet again, I expect her to look away, but she holds my gaze with that quiet, furious defiance that has been undoing me from the start.
I can’t decide if I want to protect her or destroy everything that makes her strong.