Chapter 7 Alexei
“What the fuck have you done?”
She looks up from the chair, and Christ, she's sitting there like she owns the place. Unbound. The restraints dangle empty from the chair arms. The knife, her knife that I'd tossed across the floor, now rests across her lap, retrieved despite my careful placement.
I've barely slept. When I finally gave up on trying, I went to my study to pour myself a vodka.
That's when I saw it. The fountain pen sat two inches to the left of where it should be.
I keep it precisely parallel to the desk edge.
Always. A habit from childhood, when knowing if something had been disturbed meant the difference between safety and a knife in the dark.
My father beat that paranoia into me until it became as natural as breathing.
So I knew for a fact the pen had been moved.
I stared at it in the pre-dawn darkness, vodka forgotten in my hand. Someone had been in my study. Someone touched my things, violated my space, walked through my defenses like they didn't exist.
Chert voz'mi. I pulled up the security feeds on my phone, scrolling back through the night. There, the same fifteen-second gaps I'd noticed earlier. I'd noted them as suspicious, but hadn't connected them to her. Too focused on my mother's call, on Sofia's tears about my brother.
What the fuck.
I took the stairs two at a time, rage building with each step.
And now, she sits before me like a queen on her throne, legs crossed and a small smile on her perfectly composed face. The rough cotton nightdress has been transformed into something that actually fits, taken in at the waist, shortened to show her legs, a slit up one side.
The scent hits me. Not just bleach anymore, but something else. Her. She's changed this sterile room just by existing in it.
"Answer the fucking question," I growl, stepping into the room.
She tilts her head, studying me with those blue eyes that give nothing away. A slight pause, then: "You left me here for hours. I got bored."
Bored. She got bored and decided to remake herself using implements designed to extract confessions from hardened killers.
"You used my knives to make yourself a dress."
She clears her throat softly before responding. "The tools were right there." She gestures at the wall where my collection hangs. Serrated blades, hooks, instruments that have drawn screams from men twice her size. "Seemed wasteful not to use them."
I can't stop staring at the transformation. The fabric hugs curves it was meant to hide. She's turned my punishment into armor, my cruelty into something almost elegant. The precision of the cuts, the way she's gathered the excess material. This isn't amateur work.
"Stand up."
She rises, graceful as a dancer, the knife in her hand. No fear. No hesitation. The light from the single bulb overhead turns her skin to pearl.
"Give me that."
She holds it out handle first. Too easy. Too compliant. I take it, searching her face for the deception I know is there. Can't find it.
"Someone was in my study tonight."
Her expression doesn't flicker. "Really?"
"Don't." I step closer, and she holds her ground.
Her skin radiates warmth I can feel from here.
"A pen moved. Cameras had fifteen-second blackouts.
The same ones I documented earlier. Not random glitches.
Deliberate sabotage. And you." I gesture at the empty restraints, her tailored dress, the casual way she's been sitting here.
"You clearly weren't in this chair the whole time. "
"I've been in this basement since you left me. Your cameras will confirm that."
"My cameras show blackouts at precise intervals. Someone created them with a device. Professional equipment."
A beat of silence. "Faulty wiring? This place doesn't exactly scream modern renovation."
The deflection makes my jaw clench. "Where's the device?"
"What device?"
"The one that opened these locks. The one that created those camera blackouts." I circle her now, predator assessing prey, looking for the tell that will give her away. Ty dumaesh', chto ya durak? You think I'm an idiot? "You didn't do this with just good intentions and a prayer."
"Maybe whoever broke into your study is simply resourceful." She meets my gaze steadily. "Or maybe you're seeing patterns that aren't there."
"Oh, you were there alright."
"Prove it," she says. "Prove I was anywhere but here."
The challenge hangs between us. She knows I can't. Whatever she did, however she managed it, she's covered her tracks perfectly. My fingers tighten on her knife.
Every minute she sits there so calm, she owns more of this situation. More of me.
I grab her arm and start hauling her toward the stairs. My grip will leave bruises.
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere with better lighting."
"Alexei—"
"Move."
I drag her up through corridors that are just starting to stir with the morning shift. Guards stare at her transformed dress, then quickly look away when they catch my expression. Good. They know better than to look at my things.
Her suite door crashes open under my hand. I shove her inside, lock it behind us. Morning light filters through the barred windows. Harsh white, unforgiving, revealing everything.
"Strip," I command, turning to face her. "I'm going to search you properly. Find whatever you're hiding."
She goes completely still. "What?"
"You heard me. Take it off. You're hiding something. A tool, a device, something that let you escape and break into my study. Strip, or I'll do it for you."
"I told you—"
"You told me nothing." I move fast, crowding her against the wall, her own knife at her throat. Not cutting, just promising. "This ends now. Strip."
Her pulse jumps under the blade, but her voice stays steady. "You'll have to do it yourself. I'm not making this easy for you."
Something dark flares in my chest. Upryamaya devchonka. Stubborn girl. Fine. If she wants to play it this way.
I reverse the knife, hook the blade under the strap she so carefully fashioned. Hours of work about to be destroyed.
"Last chance."
"Go ahead." Her chin lifts, defiant to the end. "Destroy something else of mine. It's what you're good at."
The knife cuts through the cotton like it's nothing.
One strap falls away, then the other. I drag the blade down the center, and the fabric splits apart, revealing pale skin beneath.
She doesn't flinch. Doesn't cover herself.
Just watches me with those blue eyes as the ruined dress pools at her feet.
She's wearing nothing underneath. Of course she isn't. I gave her nothing to wear beneath the rough cotton. Another small cruelty that's backfiring now, because she's naked and unashamed, meeting my gaze like she's fully clothed.
She smells like defiance and something uniquely her. Not fear, never fear with this one.
"Hands on the wall. Spread your legs."
She complies slowly, deliberately, making me wait for every movement. Her palms press flat against the wall, feet shoulder-width apart. The harsh morning light plays across her skin, highlighting the goosebumps raised by the cold air. Her skin is cold under my palms, but warming quickly.
I search her thoroughly, trying to keep my touch clinical. My fingers tremble as they skim her ribs. I tell myself it's anger.
Her arms first. Running my hands from shoulders to wrists, checking for anything taped or hidden. Nothing. Her torso next.
I note each curve professionally. My body doesn't understand professional. My cock hardens despite every command to stop. This is about finding evidence. Nothing else.
Christ, her skin is soft.
Nothing hidden. Nothing but smooth skin that warms under my touch.
Her hips, the curve of her waist, down her thighs where her knife had been strapped. The skin there still shows faint marks from the sheath. The back and outside of her legs, behind her knees, her calves, ankles, between her toes.
Nothing.
"Turn around."
She does, facing me now with that same calm that makes me want to shake her until something real falls out.
I search again. Her front this time. Trying not to notice how her nipples harden in the cool air, how her breathing changes when my hands skim certain places.
The hollow of her throat, her collarbones, the space between her breasts.
Under her breasts, along her ribs where I find a thin scar. My fingers linger there, wondering what other violence she's capable of.
Every inch I search, she owns more of me. This is supposed to be about control, but not hers.
Still nothing.
My eyes drop to her thighs, to the space between them. The only place I haven't searched. She could hide something there, inside…
I reach down. She tenses. The first real crack in her composure.
But I stop. Something holds me back. It feels wrong, violating in a way that everything else hasn't been. Too intimate. Too much like something else entirely.
My hand drops. She knows she's won this round.
"Find what you're looking for?" she asks, voice soft but edged with victory.
"Get dressed."
"You destroyed my dress." She doesn't move to cover herself, just stands there like a goddess carved from marble. "The one I spent hours making."
"Then wear something else." I gesture at the wardrobe where identical shapeless dresses hang. "Unless you plan to stay naked."
"You want me to put on another sack so you can cut it off later?"
"I want you to stop being a problem."
"Then you shouldn't have kidnapped me."
She pulls a fresh dress from the wardrobe, the cotton sliding over her skin with a whisper. The shapeless fabric swallows her curves, turns her back into the prisoner she's supposed to be.
"You don't leave this room," I tell her, backing toward the door because if I stay, I'll do something stupid. Something my cock is demanding despite every rational thought. "Guards on the door at all times. Cameras watching constantly. Every second."
She sits on the edge of the bed, looking up at me with those eyes that see too much. "You searched every inch of me and found nothing. Maybe I'm telling the truth. Maybe I never left that basement."
"And the pen?"
A slight pause. "Maybe you moved it yourself and forgot. You seem… stressed."
The mockery in her tone makes my jaw clench. She's won and she knows it. I can't prove anything. Ona menya unichtozhit. She'll destroy me.
I slam the door on my way out, engaging every lock. In the hallway, I pause.
She broke into my study. I know she did, but I can't prove it. She stood naked in front of me and somehow maintained control. It wasn't me who was in charge in that room. It was her, naked and searched and still winning. I was the one who was exposed.