Chapter 17 #2
By late afternoon, we had fallen into a rhythm that might have been comfortable if not for the fact that I had kissed him and he had stopped himself before I could decide whether to be grateful or murderous.
We worked side by side. He gave me access to more of the Orlov map, still edited but less insultingly so.
I found two timing discrepancies and one shell layer that had been deliberately made to look abandoned.
Ivan watched me find them. He also watched when my attention started to fray. The first time, he set coffee beside me. I reached for it without looking, took a sip, and froze. It had cream in it this time and I turned my head slowly to stare at him.
He was looking at the screen.
Coward.
“This is correct,” I said.
“Yes.”
“You are very bad at being less suspicious.”
“I was not trying.”
“Ivan.”
He looked at me then.
“What?”
“How do you know how I take my coffee?”
“Observation.”
“From when?”
He did not answer. I stared at him for a long second, then turned back to the computer. I filed it away. This felt different though.
More personal.
More dangerous.
More like something I did not want to open until I was sure I could survive what was inside.
Around six, he corrected me. I had found a route into the Orlov shell layer that looked clean enough to use without much noise. It would let me validate the document timing, possibly tie it to one of the old firms connected to Daniel’s case. It was narrow, but it was there.
Ivan saw where I was going before I finished laying it out.
“No,” he said.
I looked up. “No?”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to—”
“I do.”
“Do not do that.”
“Do not take that route,” he said more firmly than ever, and my body went still before my brain had any interest in cooperating.
“That route is usable,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Then why not?”
“Because usable and safe are not the same.”
“I’m aware.”
“You are aware theoretically. You are ignoring it practically.”
Heat moved through me.
“You don’t get to tell me what to ignore,” I said.
“In my apartment, on my systems, while men are trying to kill you?” His gaze pinned mine. “Yes, I do.”
My pulse ticked up a notch.
“You keep forgetting I’m not yours.”
His expression darkened, just a little, just enough that I should have shut up, but I kept talking anyway.
“I’m not one of your men,” I continued. “I’m not some asset you moved behind a wall. I’m not your responsibility just because you decided you wanted the job.”
He stood up slowly. I should not have found that as effective as I did.
“I have forgotten none of that,” he said.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then stop acting like you own the right to make decisions for me.”
He stepped closer. I remained seated for a moment, which felt like losing some kind of invisible war, so I stood too.
“Do you want the professional answer or the honest one?” he asked.
“Both.”
“The professional answer is that you are currently under threat from an organized crime network with the resources and motive to kill you, and you are being reckless.”
“And the honest answer?”
His eyes dropped to my mouth once, then back.
“The honest answer is that if you take one more unnecessary risk because you cannot stand not being the one in charge, I will put you over my knee and make sure you remember the difference between bravery and disobedience.”
The room went silent.
Completely.
My body lit up so fast that I couldn’t even attempt to deny it. I just hoped he wouldn’t notice how much of an effect that had on me.
“You did not just threaten to spank me during a work discussion,” I said.
“I did.”
“You’re insane.”
“Possibly.”
My face was hot. My pulse was fluttering like a hummingbird. Every inch of me felt too aware of him, of the space between us, of his hands, of the memory of his mouth and the fact that he had already stopped once because he was trying to be careful.
I wanted him to stop being careful.
I wanted him to be wrong enough that I could leave.
I wanted him to be right enough that I could stay.
“Daddy issues much?” I snapped.
His gaze darkened with want. The word had slipped out before I could stop it.
Daddy.
Ivan moved closer until the edge of the desk pressed lightly against the back of my thighs.
“Careful, solnyshko,” he said softly.
I knew enough Russian to understand that single word from my research into the Orlovs.
It meant ‘little sun.’
My stomach dropped and my thighs clenched. I hated both reactions.
“I’m not calling you Daddy.”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Not until you mean it.”
I stared at him.
The audacity was beyond what I could actually handle right now. I opened my mouth to tell him exactly where he could put that assumption, and he kissed me again.
His hand slid into my hair, not pulling exactly, but gripping enough to hold my head where he wanted it.
I made a sound against his mouth that I would later deny in court, and he swallowed it like he had been waiting for it.
My hands went to his shoulders, then his neck, then the front of his shirt.
His mouth left mine.
“Tell me to stop.”
I glared at him. “No.”
His eyes darkened.
“That was not the instruction.”
“I know.”
“Kit.”
“If I want you to stop, I’ll say stop.”
He held my gaze, then nodded once.
“Good girl.”
I kissed him again so I wouldn’t have to answer.
His hands were on my waist. Mine in his hair.
My back against the desk, one of my legs caught between his, the hard line of his body pressed to mine with just enough restraint to make me understand how much of him he was holding back.
He kissed my throat once, right beneath my jaw, and my head tipped before I could stop it.
“You like being handled,” he murmured against my skin.
“I like not being analyzed while I’m being kissed.”
His teeth grazed lightly over my pulse and I shivered.
“You like both.”
“Fuck you.”
“Eventually.”
My breath caught. He lifted his head, and the look in his eyes made every thought I had scatter like startled birds.
Not now, that look said.
But not never.
By the time he stepped back, my mouth was swollen, my sweater had slid off one shoulder, and every sensible part of me had abandoned the apartment in protest. Ivan pulled away first, his expression one of abject reluctance.
“I have a call,” he said, voice rougher than before.
“Very professional.”
“It is to my brother, Sergei.”
“Very terrifying.”
“A little.”
He adjusted his glasses, which should not have been hot, but it was for some insane reason.
“I’ll be in the other room,” he said. “Do not do anything reckless.”
I lifted both brows. He looked back at me, his eyes full of warning. Then he walked away.
I stood very still for five seconds.
Then ten.
Then I looked at the door he had disappeared through.
Then at my bag.
This is where a reasonable woman would have sat down, eaten the rest of her perfect food, obeyed the admittedly sound instruction not to take an unsafe route, and accepted that she was, for the moment, safer in Ivan Morozov’s expensive apartment than she was alone in her own.
But… I had never been especially reasonable.
Also, I needed something from my apartment.
Not needed needed.
Needed in the way a person needed one solid object that belonged entirely to her when everything else in her life had started to feel arranged by a man who knew too much and kissed too well.
I had a backup drive at home. A real one.
On it was Daniel’s old data set, plus some material I had never moved into the active Orlov file.
I had left it because I hadn’t planned on being extracted from my apartment like evidence in a federal case.
That was a good reason. There was another reason too.
I wanted to know if Ivan would actually make good on his threat.
I packed quietly, taking my laptop, my phone, and my knife.
Ivan’s voice drifted faintly from the other room, low and Russian and I slipped through the front door.
I took the elevator down, left through the side entrance, and used a rideshare ordered through a burner account that had never touched my legal name.
The entire trip to my apartment, I told myself I was doing something rational.
I needed the drive. I needed my own system.
I needed to confirm a piece of Daniel’s timeline that had been sitting just outside my reach all day.
My apartment was quiet when I got there. I grabbed the hidden drive and pulled one handwritten note from the bottom of Daniel’s file. I spent no more than five minutes inside. When I returned to Ivan’s apartment, the place was quiet.
Too quiet.
He sat at the desk, his hands folded loosely in front of him. My stomach dropped, but it wasn’t because he looked angry. He didn’t, which somehow was worse. He looked calm.
“Productive trip?” he asked.
I shut the door behind me. The lock engaged automatically, which suddenly felt less like security and more like punctuation.
“What trip?” I asked.
Ivan removed his glasses and set them on the desk. My pulse slammed up into my throat at once.
“Kit.”
Just my name. He didn’t yell or raise his voice or anything like that.
He just used that low, absolute tone that made my body remember every stupid thing it had thought in the shower, against his desk, under his hand at my jaw.
I lifted my chin, feigning defiance that suddenly felt very risky in that moment.
“I went to my apartment.”
“I know you did.”
“I needed a drive,” I said, my mouth going dry.
“You could have told me.”
“You were on a call.”
“You could have waited.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“No,” he said. “You wanted to see if you could leave.”
“You don’t own me,” I said.
“No.”
“You don’t get to punish me for going to my own apartment.”
“I do not get to punish you for going to your apartment.”
I blinked. That was not the answer I expected. Then he stood up.
I held my ground.
“I get to punish you,” he continued, voice quiet, “for lying to me about it while Orlov men are actively looking for you.”
My pulse beat too fast.
“Ivan—”
“No.”