Chapter 11
Kazimir
Alyona’s laughter breaks off sharply, like something snapped under pressure, and the sound echoes longer than it should in the command center. When she refuses, something inside me fractures with enough force that I feel it along my jaw, down my spine and into my hands.
No.
The word is pure defiance, but my body hears it as provocation.
My breath turns shallow, tight in my chest, and I have to brace myself against the table to keep from closing the distance between us in one stride.
There are two instincts battling for control inside me, both equally dangerous.
One wants to take her face in my hands and silence her with a kiss hard enough to make her forget everything that is happening.
The other wants to assert control in a way that would leave no illusion about who decides how this ends.
Neither instinct is safe with Liev watching.
“Alyona,” I say, forcing my voice into something level and cold, becoming the boss I am in the shadows. “This is not a discussion.”
Her eyes flash, bright and furious. “You don’t get to decide my life.” Arms crossed, she looks tempting. The sweatsuit she has on hugs her curves, and the zipper is low enough to show a sliver of cleavage.
I step closer, deliberately invading her space, lowering my voice so only she hears me. “I already have.”
I’ve seen her topless behind a bar, in heels and tights, hips swaying as she serves customers with sly smiles and heavy lashes.
But having her here, under my roof, with the intoxicating scent of vanilla and citrus makes me want her more than ever.
Liev moves forward sharply. “Kaz—”
I lift a hand without looking at him, never taking my eyes off her. “This is between her and me.”
That only makes her angrier.
There’s a clatter of sound, and I resist the urge to look over, but can see enough out of the corner of my eye to tell me that Liev has finally made a move.
A move to defy me. Nika has the older man pinned against the table, wrist trapped, jaw working in anger.
Alyona flinches, prying her gaze away from me to look desperately at the father she thinks abandoned her.
“You think you can just lock me up and parade me around like a shield?” She snaps, realizing that he won’t or can’t come to her rescue. “You’re not my father. You’re not my anything.”
The words shouldn’t matter. They do anyway.
I reach for her then.
Not roughly, but with enough authority that there is no mistaking who initiated the contact. My hand closes around her wrist as I pull her away from the table and toward the hallway. She stumbles half a step, shock flashing across her face, then she plants her feet and resists.
“Kazimir!”
There are more sounds of a struggle, but Nika will come out on top. Liev has gotten soft in his administrative capacity; despite the muscles he keeps around with nightly workouts and morning runs.
“Let go of me,” Alyona hisses, struggling against me, body soft and panicked.
I don’t.
The hallway swallows us in shadow and quiet; the door closing behind us with a muted finality that sends a ripple of tension through my blood. I turn her to face me, backing her up until her shoulders brush the wall. For a moment we are so close that the air between us is charged and dangerous.
It’s the alley all over again, only in reverse.
This time, I’ll be able to watch the ecstasy on her face. I’d make her suck her desire off my fingers after making her moan around them and thank me.
My hand slides from her wrist to her chin, and with firm fingers I tilt her face up to mine. Her skin is warm beneath my touch, her pulse racing where my thumb rests, and the awareness of her hits me hard and fast, like a blow I wasn’t braced for.
“You will obey me,” I tell her quietly.
She bares her teeth at me, breath coming fast, eyes blazing with something that looks too much like fire. “I’ll never be yours.”
The words slice deeper than she could know.
Something dark and hungry coils tighter in my chest, and I lean in just enough that my mouth brushes her ear. “That,” I murmur, my voice low and rough, “sounds like a challenge.”
Her breath catches, traitorous and sharp, and I feel the tremor that runs through her despite her defiance. For a heartbeat, the world narrows down to the heat of her body and the tension humming between us. I know I could take this somewhere neither of us could come back from.
I release her abruptly.
“Take her,” I say, stepping back and gesturing to a man hidden in the dark corner without looking at him.
She lunges forward like she might say something else. Perhaps something meant to wound me. But he’s already there, and his grip is firm and professional as he guides her away. She twists in his hold, fury pouring off her, voice carrying down the hall.
“You think this ends with you winning?” she throws back at me. “You don’t own me.”
I meet her gaze steadily. “Not yet.”
The door closes behind her a moment later, the sound solid and final, and the echo of it settles somewhere deep in my bones.
I turn back to the command center and find Liev staring at me with an expression I don’t recognize. It’s something between anger and fear. He was breathing hard, but seems more in control now. Nika has a bruise blooming on his jawline. He watches Liev closely, every lean muscle tense.
“You locked her in a room,” Liev says flatly.
“I secured her,” I reply. “There is a difference. Do you want her getting out just to be hunted down like a fawn?”
“She’s my daughter.”
“And she’s being targeted,” I counter. “Which makes her my responsibility, whether you like it or not. This is my territory, Liev, my problem. If they get her, I have to give up my ports. If she’s under my protection…”
Nika stands off to the side, silent, his posture deferential, but his eyes flick to mine briefly. He knows more than he’s saying. He’s smart enough to keep it that way.
Liev drags a hand down his face. “Start talking. Now.”
I inhale slowly, arranging the truth into something I can afford to give him.
“Hinto saw us at dinner,” I say. “Public setting. Private room. He drew conclusions.” It’s a guess; an assumption based on what I saw, but a good one. I could have my men confirm it, but that would waste time.
I need Liev to believe this and understand that Hinto’s threat wasn’t empty.
“Why would he think Aly is important to you?” Liev asks sharply.
“I don’t know,” I answer blandly. “But that doesn’t matter. The point is, it is what he thinks. So he’s going to take her. Unless she’s here with me, under my protection.”
He scoffs. “You expect me to believe that there isn’t more to this? That you didn’t cut off the line because something else was happening?”
I can see his fury, determination, and panic. Liev suspects that I’m up to something, but he can’t put it together. He would never guess that Hinto’s assumption was right—going after Alyona was a good idea.
Because if she isn’t mine, I want her to be. And he or his men saw it that night.
I meet her father’s gaze without flinching. “Yes.”
His shoulders drop incrementally, but it’s enough. I’ve known Liev long enough to recognize when logic is overriding his instincts.
“Hinto is probing my boundaries,” I continue. “Savannah is an obvious pressure point. He doesn’t know Alyona. He knows optics, proximity, leverage. He knows she was at my table that night.”
“And your solution,” Liev says, his voice edged with disbelief, “is to make her your fiancée.”
“It makes her untouchable,” I reply. “Publicly. Privately. To everyone who matters.”
Liev laughs once, sharp and humorless. “He won’t touch what’s yours. That’s what you think?”
The implication hangs between us, heavy and dangerous.
“That’s what I know,” I say evenly.
He steps closer, his anger sharpening into something more focused. “Then swear to me you won’t touch her.”
The room seems to still.
“At all,” he adds.
For the first time since this began, I hesitate.
Alyona’s face flashes through my mind, defiant and flushed. The way her pulse jumped under my fingers when I lifted her chin, and the way her breath betrayed her even as her words cut. The idea of not touching her feels like agreeing to cut off a limb.
A week ago, it would’ve seemed doable. But now that I know what she feels like… just how soft, pliant, wet she is for me…
“I can agree to that,” I say finally.
The lie settles heavy in my chest.
Liev studies me, searching for something in my expression, and I give him nothing he can use. After a long moment, he nods once.
“Then we proceed,” he says. “But if you break that promise—”
“I understand,” I say.
Nika’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly, but he says nothing.
The meeting breaks apart shortly after, men reentering the rooms, screens shifting through other metrics, the low hum of the command center fading into the background.
Liev marches up the stairway, back taut and fists clenched. He doesn’t say another word to me. He slips into a sedan that’s waiting in the drive and disappears into the night.
Nika murmurs a few parting words: an explanation that he’s going to brief security on how to handle the new addition, what to watch for, and what’s coming.
Once my pulse stops pounding in my ears from the adrenaline rush of sin and sacrifice, I stand outside the door where Alyona is. She is locked up, but close enough that I can feel her presence through the wood like a live wire under my skin.
She’s pacing. Her steps are fast, her stride is short, walking the length of the room before turning. No doubt weighing the consequences of staying my captive or trying to climb out of a window. My hand lifts, hovering inches from the handle, and I force it back down.
If I go in there, I will not stop.
This is the only way to keep her alive, even if it costs me everything else. I stand there in the quiet, breathing hard, knowing that the line I’ve drawn will not hold forever.