Chapter 14
VLAD
Nighttime in Manhattan always reminds me of a living machine.
I sit in the back of the car and track the motion beyond the glass. Sometimes the constant flow loosens ideas that refuse to budge at a desk. Dmitri knows the drill; he just drives and lets me do my thing.
“Volkov looked ready to chew glass this afternoon,” he says, merging onto the FDR. Wind slaps sleet across the windshield, the city lights smearing into neon watercolors. “We could’ve twisted harder and got a third of the company, easily.”
I lean back, one fingertip tracing condensation on the window. “If you wring a sponge too dry, you get dust, not water. If I had pushed for more, he might’ve taken things personally. Well, more personally. Five percent was enough.”
“Was it?” He glances at me in the rearview mirror. “Tens of millions left on the table, for Teresa.”
I let the name settle between us, a pebble dropped into deep water. “You think I played a bad hand?”
Dmitri shrugs. “I think you exposed your tell. Anyone with eyes could see you tied that debt to her life, not the bottom line. Volkov’s no idiot. He knows now what you truly value, and that’s Teresa. If he wants to get at you, he knows where to hit the hardest.”
Shit. He’s right. Aleksander now knows my weakness. The thought irritates like grit under a contact lens.
“He wanted us to do the job for him,” I say. “That’s what confuses me. You hire the Angels of Death when you want certainty, not theatrics. Aleksander doesn’t usually outsource his vendettas.”
Dmitri taps the indicator, sliding into the center lane. “Maybe he wanted the poetry of it. You delivering his justice, forced to kill the woman to whom you’d given shelter. Old-world drama.”
“Drama and cruelty.” I exhale, watching the glass fog. “Either way, he’s not finished. We know he wants her dead, and he’s not going to stop just because I bought him off.”
A black SUV slides in two cars back—matte paint, no markings.
Something in my gut tenses. Too many vehicles look alike at night, I remind myself, but instinct makes me note details.
Roof rack, dent in the right fender, driver wearing a beanie low enough to hide his eyes.
When Dmitri changes lanes, the SUV follows.
On the next merge, it hangs tight again.
“Tail?” Dmitri asks, reading my silence.
“Possibly.”
My mind drifts to Teresa and the way she curled into me last night, warm and trusting.
I should be thinking logistics—extra cameras, backup escape routes—but instead my brain chooses the memory of her subtle jasmine scent.
I wonder if she’s sleeping or pacing the living room of the flat, hating the silence.
I imagine her in my bed instead, sheets tangled around her thighs, moonlight painting her soft skin. Hunger stirs—unhelpful, hot, immediate.
Focus.
“We tighten the perimeter tomorrow,” I tell Dmitri. “Double coverage on her building, restrict her transit to vetted drivers only.”
“Got it,” he answers. Then, “You planning to tell her?”
The SUV exits toward Queens Plaza. False alarm. I unclench fists I didn’t realize were balled. “Tell her what? That the only reason she’s still breathing is because I slapped a price tag on her name?” I shake my head. “She’s better off believing the debt was business.”
But maybe she needs to know the truth.
Dmitri offers a noncommittal grunt, snow flurries dancing in the headlights. The Queensboro Bridge looms ahead, steel girders slick with ice. The city keeps moving, oblivious to the two men recalibrating a private war beneath its lights.
I lean back and close my eyes, letting the hum of the engine settle my nerves. Teresa’s face lingers behind my eyelids. I promised her safety, but the world is full of men like Aleksander, men who find whatever loopholes they need to get the blood they want.
I think about calling her, just to hear her voice, convince myself she’s safe for another hour.
I don’t.
Instead, I try to relax, wondering which will hit first—Volkov’s next move or my need to feel her skin beneath my hands again.
Dmitri eases onto the West Side Highway, city lights stretching like a string of lanterns along the Hudson.
I crack open the minibar tucked beneath the armrest—Japanese whiskey, something peaty enough to burn through my torrid thoughts—and take a slow pull.
The warmth rolls down my throat, cutting off the winter chill.
My mind slides straight into a scene that has haunted me since last night.
Teresa. In my bed. I remember how her breath hitched when my palm dragged to the hem of her panties, the soft gasp as I skimmed lace, the way her hips rose—unashamed, inviting—when I laid my body over hers.
In my mind she looks up at me, hair a dark halo on white sheets, lips parted, begging without words.
I kiss down her sternum, tongue tasting salt and something sweet, hands coaxing her thighs apart as she trembles in anticipation. When I finally press inside, her nails rake my shoulders as she moans my name in raw want.
The rhythm builds, every thrust feeling like I’m staking a claim, making her mine. She shatters around me, her walls gripping my thickness, her pulse fluttering under my lips where I kiss the hollow of her throat, claiming that too.
I take another swallow of whiskey, pulling myself back to the feel of the leather seat and the low purr of the engine. Ghost heat still sparks under my skin. Damn it. Desire I can manage, but what’s twisting under it—something dangerously close to tenderness—is harder to file away.
Dmitri’s voice jolts me out of my reverie. “You really left money on the table, boss. I’m doing the mental math in my head. Don’t want to rub it in, but—”
“I have enough money.”
“I get it, and not to press the point, but we’ve hardly gotten Volkov off our back. He’s lost an heir and now face. He won’t stop.”
“I know.”
The whiskey sharpens my thoughts. Tens of millions, maybe more, I could have squeezed, used to strengthen offshore stockpiles, hire twice as many guards for her building.
Instead, I sold peace at a discount. Why?
Because the idea of turning her life into a cash negotiation felt obscene. I wanted her off that damn list.
The thought of her walking around with a bull’s-eye painted by my pen makes my stomach crawl. Losing money bothers me less than losing her. The realization sits heavy, like a secret I haven’t admitted to myself yet.
Am I falling for her?
I push the question aside as we pass a squat brick warehouse lit by sodium lamps.
The sign over the gate reads Mayflower their rigs come and go at all hours, and nobody blinks.
A thought sparks.
Dmitri tracks my gaze in the rearview. “Need to move a couch?”
“More like I need a discreet relocation.” I tap the window. “Those trucks have reinforced paneling, GPS blind spots, compartmentalized storage. We could hide the Crown Jewels in one without popping a scanner.”
“Thinking of moving her again?” He raises a brow. “Penthouse?”
I consider it. My building is a fortress—ballistic-glass exterior, private elevator with biometric lock, armed concierge who answers only to me. Teresa would be safer there. Safer under my roof, my cameras. Safer with me.
If she’s within arm’s reach, I can protect her. And if she’s in my space, maybe she’ll feel the weight of that protection and stop looking over her shoulder every five seconds.
“Could work,” Dmitri says, flipping on the turn signal. “But bringing her home changes the optics. Word might get out.”
“She’s already my responsibility. Might as well keep her close. I’ll think on it.”
“Do it fast. If Volkov finds a loophole—say, hires an outside hitter to finish the job—she’ll need walls thicker than a co-op on Seventy-Eighth.”
The city blurs by, headlights carving tunnels through drifting flurries. I imagine Teresa in my kitchen tomorrow morning, wearing one of my shirts, barefoot on heated marble.
She’d be safe.
Watched.
Mine.
We turn north toward the bridge, salt crunching under the tires. Behind my eyelids the fantasy flares again—her lips parted in sleep, trust so complete it almost hurts to see. I open my eyes and glance back at the warehouse fading behind us.
Maybe tonight I’ll call the building manager, prep the guest suite. I’m not going to wait for Volkov’s next move to decide how far I’m willing to go. Because the truth is settling whether I welcome it or not… what I bought from Aleksander was nothing more than a reprieve.
The snow starts coming down faster, the city keeps churning, but inside the car a decision is already taking shape, solid and inevitable.
If Teresa is my responsibility, then she belongs where I can reach her, where no one can come between us.
And God help anyone who tries.