Chapter 6 – Kirill
Andrew Davis’s handshake was firm, his green eyes calculating as they assessed me across his mahogany desk.
The man was everything I expected—sharp suit, sharper mind.
He reminded me of Vladimir in some ways, except colder.
More distant. Like he’d traded his humanity for power and never looked back.
“My head of security speaks highly of your work,” he said, his voice carrying the weight of someone used to being obeyed. “Says you found vulnerabilities in our system that we didn’t even know existed.”
“Your system’s compromised.” I kept my tone professional, detached. “Has been for months, maybe longer. You need a complete overhaul—hardware, software, protocols. Everything.”
His jaw tightened. “How much?”
I named a figure that would’ve made most people flinch. Andrew didn’t even blink.
“Done. I want it installed by the end of the week.” He stood, extending his hand again. “I trust you’ll be discreet. My daughter lives here. Her safety is paramount.”
His daughter. Barbara. The woman whose taste I could still feel on my lips, whose scent had invaded my penthouse and refused to leave. The woman who’d lied to my face and let some bastard named Bass control her life.
The woman I couldn’t stop thinking about, no matter how hard I tried.
“Discretion’s part of the package,” I said, shaking his hand.
If only he knew how indiscreet I’d already been with his precious daughter.
***
Late afternoon sun slanted through the surveillance room’s windows, painting everything in shades of gold that felt too warm, too soft for what I was about to do.
The room hummed with electronic life—six monitors flickering with live feeds, cables coiled like serpents beneath the console, red indicators blinking in a steady rhythm.
I sat at the main terminal, fingers poised over the keyboard with an anger that had become my constant companion since walking out of Barbara’s bedroom two days ago. Confusion churned beneath the anger, a toxic mix that made it hard to focus on the screen in front of me.
She was standing behind me. Close enough that I could feel her presence like static electricity raising the hairs on my arms. Close enough that her scent—jasmine and something sweeter, something uniquely her—wrapped around me like smoke.
I tried to ignore it. Tried to focus on the code scrolling across the screen, the patterns I was looking for, the evidence I knew was buried in these files. But my awareness of her was a physical thing, demanding attention I refused to give.
“You don’t have to watch,” I said without looking at her, my voice coming out harder than intended. “This is technical. Boring.”
“It’s my house.” Her voice was quiet but firm. “I want to know what you’re doing.”
What I’m doing is trying not to think about how you looked in my bed. How you sounded when you came. How you tasted.
I shoved the thoughts away, fingers flying over the keyboard with more force than necessary. The clicks were sharp in the quiet room, punctuated by the low hum of equipment and the distant sound of birdsong outside. Peaceful sounds at odds with the war raging inside me.
“Suit yourself.” I pulled up the security logs, eyes scanning lines of code that most people wouldn’t be able to read. “But if you’re going to stand there, at least stay quiet. I need to concentrate.”
She didn’t respond. Just shifted her weight, arms crossing over her chest. I could feel her gaze on me, burning into the back of my head, and it took every ounce of control not to turn around. Not to look at her.
Because if I looked at her, I’d see the face that had haunted my dreams for two nights straight. And I’d remember how she’d felt against me, how perfectly we’d fit together, how right it had been before her phone rang and shattered everything.
I pulled up the footage files, sorting by date and timestamp.
The loops were subtle—Marcus and his team hadn’t been lying when they said the system was top-of-the-line.
It was good. Just not good enough. Whoever had programmed these loops had known what they were doing, had taken care to make them blend seamlessly with legitimate footage, and I had an idea who was responsible.
But I was better.
My fingers moved across the keyboard like a pianist playing a familiar piece, muscle memory and skill combining into something that looked like magic but was just years of practice.
Code was a language I spoke better than Russian, better than English.
It made sense in ways people never did. It didn’t lie.
There. A fragment in the metadata that didn’t match. A timestamp that had been altered, then covered, then altered again. Amateur hour, really, once you knew what to look for.
I isolated the segment, watching the file size indicator climb as it loaded. Twenty-two seconds. Right in the pattern I’d identified before. This one was from three weeks ago, late at night, camera angle covering the west wing hallway.
The hallway that led to Barbara’s bedroom.
My hands stilled on the keyboard. Behind me, Barbara shifted again, and I heard her breath catch slightly. Could she see what I was looking at? Did she know what I was about to find?
I should play it. Should watch it right here, right now, with her standing behind me. Force her to see that I knew. That whatever game she was playing, whatever lies she was spinning—I was going to uncover every single one.
But some instinct stopped me. The same instinct that had kept me alive in situations where I shouldn’t have survived. The same instinct that told me this footage contained something she didn’t want anyone to see.
Something she especially didn’t want me to see.
Without playing it, I highlighted the segment and hit export.
The file copied to my encrypted drive in seconds, safely hidden behind layers of protection that would take a government three months to crack.
I’d watch it later. Alone. Where I could think clearly without her scent clouding my judgment.
“Find something?” Her voice made me flinch, though I covered it by reaching for my coffee.
“Just corrupted files.” The lie came easily. Too easily. “Your system’s worse than I thought. This is going to take longer than a week to fix properly.”
“How much longer?”
I forced myself to turn and look at her. Mistake. Huge mistake. Her eyes met mine, and just like always—I felt it. That spark. That electric current that ran from my chest straight down to my gut, pooling there like liquid heat.
The same heat I had no business feeling for a woman who was lying to my face. Who belonged to someone else. Who was so tangled up in whatever nightmare she’d created that she was willing to forge her own security footage.
I hated her for it. Hated that I couldn’t trust her. Hated that even knowing all of that, I still wanted her with an intensity that bordered on obsession.
“Two weeks,” I said, forcing my gaze back to the screen. “Maybe three, depending on what else I find.”
“Fine.” She moved toward the door, and I felt the loss of her presence like a physical ache. “Let me know if you need anything.”
I need you to tell me the truth. I need you to explain why you’re so afraid of a phone call. I need you to let me help you.
But I didn’t say any of that. Just nodded and turned back to the monitors, listening to her footsteps fade down the hallway until I was alone with the humming equipment and my spiraling thoughts.
***
My penthouse felt like a tomb.
I’d driven back in silence, the encrypted drive burning a hole in my pocket like evidence at a crime scene.
The sun had set while I worked, painting Chicago’s skyline in shades of purple and gold that I barely registered.
All I could think about was that file. Those twenty-two seconds that Barbara had worked so hard to hide.
I poured three fingers of vodka—straight, no cranberry juice to dilute it—and sat down at my personal workstation.
The monitors here were bigger, better, connected to systems that didn’t officially exist. This was where I did my real work.
Where I hunted Douglas, piecing together the puzzle of betrayal that had nearly destroyed me.
And now, apparently, where I was going to watch footage of Barbara’s mysterious boyfriend.
The vodka burned going down, but it didn’t settle the rage simmering in my gut. Didn’t quiet the voice in my head that kept asking why I cared. Why it mattered if she was in trouble. Why I couldn’t just take Andrew’s money, install his system, and walk away from the mess that was Barbara Davis.
I plugged in the drive and opened the file.
The footage was grainy—late night, minimal lighting, shot from a ceiling camera with a slight distortion. But it was clear enough. Clear enough to see Barbara standing in the hallway outside her bedroom, wearing a robe similar to the one that had slipped off her shoulder two days ago.
Clear enough to see the masked man grab her arm.
My entire body went rigid.
He shoved her against the wall, hard enough that her head snapped back. Fuck, I could even hear the impact even through the recording. She tried to pull away, and he grabbed her harder, fingers digging into her arm with enough force that I knew there would be bruises.
Then he pulled a gun.
Pressed it against her ribs while leaning in close, mouth moving in words I couldn’t hear. Barbara’s face was turned slightly away from the camera, but I could see the terror from the way her whole body had gone still.
I shot up from my seat, the chair clattering backward. My hands clenched the armrest hard enough that the leather creaked, my knuckles going white. The vodka glass sat forgotten on the desk as I watched the footage loop back to the beginning.
Watched him grab her again. Shove her again. Point the gun again.
Every muscle in my body screamed to move. To get in my car. To drive back to that mansion and demand she tell me who the fuck that was. To find the bastard myself and return every ounce of violence he’d inflicted on her with interest.
But I forced myself to stay still. Forced myself to breathe. To think.
No boyfriend pointed a gun at his girlfriend like that. No boyfriend manhandled someone they supposedly cared about with that level of casual violence. That wasn’t a relationship. That was something much worse.
That was control.
“Fuck.” The word came out strangled.
I watched it again. And again. Each time, rage built higher in my chest, pressing against my ribs like it was trying to break free. Each time, I saw new details. The way she didn’t fight back. The way she seemed to know exactly what was coming. The practiced nature of her fear.
This wasn’t the first time. This was a routine. A pattern.
How long had this been happening?
My phone buzzed. Drew’s name flashed across the screen, but I ignored it. Couldn’t talk to anyone right now. Couldn’t pretend everything was fine when I’d just watched—
I slammed my fist on the desk, making the monitors jump.
She’d lied to me. Stood in that surveillance room while I exported this footage, probably knowing exactly what I’d find. Probably terrified I’d discover her secret. And instead of trusting me, instead of asking for help, she’d just let me walk away.
Let me think she was just another rich girl with a bad boyfriend.
But this wasn’t a bad boyfriend. This was something else entirely. Something darker. And the “Bass” on her phone—whoever the fuck he was—wasn’t calling to sweet-talk her or plan their next date.
He was calling to terrorize her.
I opened a new window, fingers flying across the keyboard. If I could get a better angle, clean up the image, maybe I could identify him. See a tattoo, a scar, something that would give me a name. Because once I had a name, I could find him.
And once I found him—
My hands stilled on the keyboard.
Vladimir’s voice echoed in my head, “Don’t kill anyone.”
But watching that footage, watching that masked bastard put his hands on Barbara, point a gun at her like she was nothing, every cell in my body screamed to break that promise.
You shouldn’t care about a cheater like her, the rational part of my brain insisted. She lied. She’s hiding things. She’s not your responsibility.
But my body didn’t care about any of that.
My body only cared about the fear in her eyes. The bruises that were probably hidden under her sleeves. The way she’d kissed me like I was oxygen and she was drowning.
“No boyfriend points a gun like that,” I muttered to the empty room, taking another pull of vodka straight from the bottle. “Unless he’s something much worse.”