7. Aleksandr
ALEKSANDR
The sting from her hand fades quickly, though the echo of it doesn’t.
By the time I’m halfway down the drive with the engine purring beneath me like a satisfied animal, I finally register how tightly my jaw is locked.
Not from pain. Pain is a familiar friend.
This is something else. Something far more unfamiliar that sits low in my gut, burning slowly, spreading outward in controlled, simmering waves.
My cheek throbs in a dull, incessant rhythm where her palm connected, the faint pulse of heat radiating every time I flex my jaw. The metallic tang of blood still lingers at the corner of my mouth, a subtle reminder every time my tongue brushes the cut her nail had left behind.
She hit me.
Not one of my men. Not some desperate enforcer with nothing to lose. Not even an enemy who spent years maneuvering themselves into a similar position to land the blow when I least expected it.
Katerina Borchin—the woman I’ve kept locked inside for weeks now whom I’ve been studying, prodding, testing without her knowing. The woman whose defiance has been a daily amusement and something I’ve unexpectedly looked forward to…
She hit me.
I glance into the rearview mirror, expecting to see the tight, controlled scowl I normally wear after being challenged. Instead, I find something far worse. My mouth has tugged upward. Not into a smirk, but into a smile.
Wider than any I’ve worn in years.
The realization actually unsettles me. A foreign sensation crawls down my spine, prickling under my skin in a way I haven’t felt since I was young and foolish enough to allow anyone the opportunity to surprise me.
The only people who have ever looked me in the eye the way Katerina did, with that unflinching and furious fire in their eyes, have all wound up bleeding out at my feet.
Most people fold when they see me coming. They bargain or beg, they try to disappear quietly when it becomes clear there’s no other option. Very few have ever dared to meet my gaze and swing first. And if they have, they have never lived long once I recalibrated.
If I’m honest with myself, the audacity of it sends something dark and electric through me.
This isn’t the tame, transactional kind of desire I’ve indulged in for years with pretty women who know their place and understand the rules of how I operate and leave before dawn with a generous envelope of cash and no illusions that the night before was anything but.
This is… different.
This is the slow burn of wanting something that fights back. Of someone who looks at me like I’m a problem to be handled, a man to be broken if necessary.
I exhale slowly through my nose, forcing my fingers to loosen on the steering wheel. The leather creaks under my grip. I hadn’t realized how hard I was holding it.
This is exactly the kind of complication I trained myself never to indulge in.
Binding myself to her legally had already been… rather impulsive in the grand scheme of things. A move that under any other circumstance, I would have mocked another man for. Stupid, one might argue.
I can practically hear the phantom voices of my colleagues already in the back of my mind, the ones who watch from their glass towers and pretend not to shit themselves whenever my name crosses their desks.
Volkov’s gone soft.
Volkov’s thinking with his cock.
Volkov’s letting a pretty piece of ass get under his skin.
The Iron Pact—those three sanctimonious bastards I am forced to call equals—would love nothing more than to see me stumble because of this. To prove that the great Aleksandr Volkov is not immune to human flaws that I preach so heavily against.
Any woman becoming a liability, let alone a distraction, is a weakness they, namely Malyshko, would pounce on without hesitation and burn me for it.
My jaw flexes.
Truth be told, I expected resistance from Katerina. Theatrics… tears, maybe. Long, drawn-out defiance like what I’d witnessed the first day she arrived and not whatever strange demure facade she’s been hiding behind ever since.
What I didn’t expect was how quickly she signed those papers. With the pen steady in her hand, she’d signed her name on the dotted line next to mine with the obvious attitude of daring me to follow through with it. Like she was the one setting the terms and not the other way around.
That alone should have been warning enough.
Now I’m forced to grapple with the fact that I can’t get her out of my head.
I want to peel back every layer she’s built around herself so carefully.
Every practiced expression, every measured word that leaves that pretty mouth.
I want to know what exists beneath the sharp tongue and controlled composure she presents to the world.
Whether the defiance is armor or instinct.
Whether she’s afraid or whether she truly believes she can survive me.
She fascinates me.
That, far more than the slap itself, is what leaves me the most unsettled. Fascination is a liability. It dulls instinct, slows decisions. It introduces hesitation where decisiveness should take precedent in the name of survival.
Men in my position do not indulge curiosity. They remove problems before they grow roots and become even bigger issues later down the line. I should already be deciding how to correct her behavior and reassert control to ensure tonight never repeats itself.
Instead, I’m thinking about the look in her eyes when she struck me.
I touch two fingers to the raised mark on my cheek.
The skin is still warm, faintly swollen.
The pain arrows straight down my spine, coiling low in my gut, and—fuck—settles heavily and insistently between my legs.
My cock twitches to life, already half-hard, traitorously awakening from nothing more than the memory of her palm cracking against my face.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
The outline of her hand will fade by tonight, but unfortunately, not before this meeting.
My jaw tightens slightly at the thought of walking into that room marked.
Malyshko notices everything. He will clock it immediately and file it away behind that irritatingly neutral expression of his and wait for the moment it becomes useful to use against me.
Or I will need to explain myself and confess that I’ve recently acquired a wife.
I exhale slowly, eyes returning to the road as the estate disappears behind me.
I will need some kind of explanation. Admitting to the truth that a woman has managed to occupy space in my home where no one has been allowed to linger for years is not an option. Not to Malyshko or to the Pact. Most certainly not to myself.
By the time I pull into Malyshko’s estate, I’m already wound up tightly.
The gates move slowly as they part, the intricate metalwork illuminated by the cold white security lights that sweep across the hood of the car like an interrogation light. Armed guards stand posted on either side of the opening, their silhouettes rigid, rifles resting low at their sides but ready.
My tires crunch softly over gravel as I drive forward, the sprawling estate unfolding ahead of me in calculated grandeur.
The house rises from the darkness like a fortress, its angular architecture softened by the expensive landscaping that fools no one familiar with men like us. Nothing here exists without purpose.
My eyes flick to the rearview mirror.
Headlights flare behind me as Bashir and Shkanova, my enforcers, roll in behind me in close formation.
I slow once I roll up to the circular drive.
As soon as I park and cut the engine, silence floods in instantly.
For a moment, I remain seated with both hands resting on the wheel, watching my reflection ghost faintly across the windshield.
Both of my enforcers climb out of the car behind me. Bashir adjusts the front of his coat, broad shoulders stretching the dark wool, before coming toward my car. Shkanova lags a step behind, his posture relaxed in that deceptive way of his as he scans the outer walls of Malyshko’s estate.
I adjust myself as I climb out of the car, trying to ease the ache between my legs with a brief squeeze meant to dismiss the sensation before it draws any more attention than it already has.
It doesn’t help.
If anything, the friction makes it worse, an irritating reminder of just how thoroughly my control has slipped tonight. I exhale slowly, forcing my expression back into something neutral before either of my enforcers can read too much into it.
The cold night air bites through my coat as I slam the door shut.
Bashir’s eyes flick to my face immediately. They linger for half a second too long on my cheek before snapping away again. He says nothing, he knows better than to, but the subtle pull of his brows tells me everything I need to know about his silent assessment.
Cameras pivot overhead as we move toward the entryway. Dozens of motion sensors embedded discreetly along the exterior walls blink faintly red in the darkness, tracking our approach with clinical precision.
Malyshko’s paranoia remains impressive.
I roll my shoulders once, loosening tension I refuse to acknowledge. The meeting ahead demands focus, not the lingering thoughts of heated eyes and a hand striking my face hard enough to leave a mark.
“Stay close,” I murmur as we step onto the stone landing.
Both Bashir and Shkanova answer quietly in acknowledgment, their footsteps falling into practiced rhythm behind mine.
Whatever Malyshko has called this meeting for isn’t trivial. I refuse to walk into this distracted.
However, as much as I pride myself on being the type of man who would never allow himself to be distracted by a woman, my thoughts betray me.
They drift uninvited back to my estate, to the upper floor where I know with absolute certainty Katerina is pacing her room.
I can picture it with unsettling clarity.
She won’t be sleeping tonight. Not after what happened.
Fear will have settled in by now.
I wonder what she’s expecting.