Chapter 13 #2
I lock up anyway. Every muscle from my shoulders to my ankles goes rigid, and the adrenaline tastes metallic at the back of my throat. His fingers are an inch from my skin when Valentin moves.
He steps between us, not around me but directly between the courier and me.
His body turns so Dmitri would have to reach through him to touch me, and his hand closes around the table’s edge.
His shoulder blade presses against mine.
He goes still after that, solid, deliberate, and absolutely clear about what just happened.
Dmitri pulls back his hand. He looks at Valentin with the patient expression of a man who just collected useful intelligence. “She was fine.”
“Don’t touch her.” Valentin’s voice is level. Every word arrives measured and exact, but the anger underneath shows. His grip on the table edge has gone white, and he’s stopping himself from putting his hands on the courier instead of the furniture.
Dmitri studies him then pockets the phone. He glances at me, then back at Valentin, and the look carries a new assessment, one that reads Valentin’s reaction as information worth reporting. “Kirill will find that interesting.” Dmitri stands. “Possessive handlers make sloppy decisions.”
“Pass that along.” Valentin doesn’t move from between us. “And pass along that Katya’s channel stays open. If Kirill wants the routing confirmation, he goes through me.”
Dmitri considers that for two seconds longer than comfortable. “Through you, huh?” He glances at me with an expression I can’t read. “Kirill will find that interesting too.”
He leaves through the same side door. The man in the chef’s coat follows him.
The woman in the server’s uniform appears briefly in the kitchen pass, watches us for two seconds, then turns and walks toward the service exit.
Through the window, I watch the black SUV pull away, and a second vehicle I didn’t notice before follows it at fifty meters.
Nadia’s earpiece clicks twice. “Both vehicles are clear. Courier route diverges east. No secondary tail on our sedan.”
Valentin doesn’t move for a second after the door closes.
He’s still standing between me and the empty chair where Dmitri sat, his hand on the table, and his shoulder blade still touching mine.
He’s breathing too fast for a man who prides himself on control.
He just told Kirill’s courier to route all communication through him personally.
He inserted himself between me and Kirill’s network in a way that exposes him, protects me, and gives Kirill the sort of information a smart enemy knows how to use.
He weighed me against his operation and chose me.
“We should go.” My voice sounds steadier than the rest of me.
He nods, steps back, and flexes his hand once, like registering stiffness, then puts it at his side. We leave through the front. The sedan is waiting. Nathan is in the driver’s seat. He was close enough to respond if anything went wrong.
In the car, neither of us speaks for three blocks. My hands are still shaking from the adrenaline, and I press them against my thighs to make them stop. The green blouse Katya would have worn through this without a tremor smells like restaurant bread and my own sweat.
Valentin sits beside me with his hands on his knees and his attention on the road ahead.
I tremble slightly, remembering Dmitri’s hand reaching for my wrist and Valentin’s intercession.
He must have realized I wouldn’t be able to maintain the front if that man had touched me.
All I’d seen were Grant’s hands reaching for me in that moment, and I’d been poised to flee.
Valentin just showed Kirill’s courier exactly how much I matter to him, so Kirill will know within hours. “That cost you operationally.”
He doesn’t look at me. “Yes.”
“The courier saw it. He’s going to tell Kirill you’re protective of your asset in a way that suggests I’m more than an asset.”
“I know.”
“Kirill will use that.”
“I know.”
He says those words twice without defensiveness or regret. I want to shake him. I also want to kiss him again, which is a problem I don’t have time to solve in the back seat of a sedan.
Nathan drives without comment. He takes the long way back, checking for tails. His silence is either discretion or chastisement. I can’t tell which, and Valentin seems unsure too.
He showed his hand to protect my wrist from a touch that hadn’t landed, and he’s not going to pretend otherwise. I can’t stop thinking about that. “Would Sergei have done that?”
He turns his head a fraction. “Sergei would have let the courier finish, then moved assets to compensate.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
He looks at me for the first time since the sedan started moving. In the dark car, with the streetlights passing over his face and Nathan driving without asking questions, he looks younger than he looks in the compound. He just broke his own rules, and the lack of regret is visible. “You know why.”
I turn back to the window. Grant held on because holding was the point. Dmitri reached because verification was the point. Valentin stepped between us because he couldn’t watch someone else reach for me, and he didn’t flinch at the cost.
I don’t know what to do with a man who breaks his own rules to keep a hand off my wrist. Grant wrapped every cruelty in reasonable language. Valentin told Kirill’s courier to back off and didn’t bother explaining it away.
I’m starting to believe him. Not the promises or the plan. The man.
Believing him scares me more than Kirill.
My stomach starts to churn. Fear is catching up with me, and I shake.
Valentin frowns. “Are you all right? You’re suddenly pale and sweating.”
“I…” I clamp my mouth and shake my head instead. If I try to speak, I’m going to vomit.
He clearly sees my distress and reaches for his phone. He sends a text and says, “Anya will meet us at the house.”
I nod as my stomach tries to violently revolt. It makes me gag, but I manage not to vomit. Not having eaten since lunch helps, but maybe that’s also why I’m feeling so off. No food and an adrenaline crash, maybe? Whatever the cause, I just want it to be over quickly.