Chapter 007 Viktor
I had not slept.
The vodka burned untouched in the glass as I stared at the fountain pen. Two inches left of its precise parallel line to the desk edge. Impossible. I had placed it there myself before descending to the basement hours earlier. No one entered this room without my permission. No one.
Childhood lessons flooded back—my father’s belt, the sharp crack across knuckles for any misalignment. Precision had been beaten into me as survival. A shifted object meant danger. Meant an intruder.
My pulse hammered. I pulled up the security feeds on my phone. There. The same fifteen-second blackouts I had noted earlier and dismissed. Not random. Deliberate. Someone had breached my compound, my study, my control.
Chert voz’mi.
I took the stairs two at a time, rage coiling tighter with every step.
The basement door crashed open against concrete.
She sat in the restraint chair like a queen on a throne.
Unbound.
The leather cuffs dangled empty from the arms. Her own knife—the one I had tossed across the floor—now rested across her lap, blade glinting under the single harsh bulb. The shapeless cotton nightdress had been transformed: waist taken in, hem shortened to mid-thigh, a slit climbing one leg. Precise cuts. Expert work.
My punishment turned into armor.
“What the fuck have you done?”
She looked up slowly, legs crossed, a faint curve at the corner of her mouth. Composed. Always composed.
I stepped closer. The bleach scent of the room no longer dominated; beneath it lingered something warmer, uniquely hers.
“Answer me.”
She tilted her head, studying me. “You left me alone for hours. I got bored.”
Bored.
She had used the tools meant for screams to tailor herself a dress.
“You used my knives to make that.”
A soft clearing of her throat. “They were on the wall.” She gestured lazily to the mounted blades, hooks, serrated edges that had broken stronger men. “Seemed wasteful not to.”
I could not stop staring. The rough cotton now clung to every line I had intended to hide. She had turned degradation into elegance.
“Stand up.”
She rose fluidly, knife still in hand. No tremor. No hesitation. The overhead light painted her skin pearl-white.
“Give me the knife.”
She extended it handle-first. Too compliant. I took it, searching her face for the lie. Found only calm blue eyes.
“Someone was in my study tonight.”
Her expression did not shift. “Really?”
“Don’t.” I closed the distance until her warmth reached me. “A pen moved. Cameras blacked out in fifteen-second intervals. Deliberate. And you—” I flicked a gesture at the empty restraints, the tailored dress, the casual way she waited. “You were not in this chair the entire time.”
“I’ve been in this basement since you left me. Your cameras will confirm it.”
“My cameras show sabotage. Professional equipment.”
A beat of silence.
“Old wiring?” she suggested lightly. “This place isn’t exactly cutting-edge.”
My jaw clenched. “Where is the device?”
“What device?”
“The one that opened these locks. The one that killed the cameras.” I began circling her, predator assessing prey. “You think I’m a fool?”
“Maybe whoever visited your study is simply resourceful.” She met my eyes without flinching. “Or maybe you’re seeing threats where there are none.”
“You were there.”
“Prove it.”
The challenge hung in the cold air. She knew I could not. Whatever she had done, she had erased every trace.
My grip tightened on her knife.
Every second she stood calm, she stole more ground.
I seized her arm—hard enough to bruise—and hauled her toward the stairs.
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere with better light.”
“Viktor—”
“Move.”
I dragged her through corridors waking to the morning shift. Guards glanced at the transformed dress, then away when they met my glare. Good. They knew better than to look at what belonged to me.
The suite door slammed open under my palm. I shoved her inside and locked it behind us. Morning light filtered through barred windows, harsh and unforgiving.
“Strip.”
She went still. “What?”
“You heard me. Take it off. You’re hiding something—the tool, the jammer, whatever let you escape and violate my study. Strip, or I’ll do it for you.”
“I told you—”
“You told me nothing.” I crowded her against the wall, her own knife at her throat. Not cutting. Promising. “This ends now.”
Her pulse leapt beneath the blade, but her voice remained steady. “Then you’ll have to do it yourself. I’m not making this easy.”
Something dark flared in my chest. Stubborn girl.
I reversed the knife, hooked the blade under one strap she had so carefully fashioned.
“Last chance.”
“Go ahead.” Her chin lifted. “Destroy something else of mine. It’s what you’re good at.”
The blade sliced through cotton like breath. One strap fell. Then the other. I dragged the edge down the center; the dress parted and slipped to the floor in ruins.
She wore nothing beneath. I had given her nothing beneath.
She stood naked and unashamed, meeting my gaze as though still fully clothed.
Her scent—warm skin, faint defiance—filled the room. No fear. Never fear.
“Hands on the wall. Legs apart.”
She complied slowly, deliberately. Palms flat. Feet spread. Morning light traced every line: the gooseflesh rising in the chill, the faint bruises blooming on her arm where I had gripped her, the thin scar along her ribs, the old sheath marks on one thigh.
I searched her clinically. Or tried to.
My hands started at her shoulders, down arms to wrists. Nothing. Then torso. Fingers skimmed ribs, the curve beneath her breasts. Her breathing shifted when I passed certain places, but she did not move.
Her skin warmed beneath my palms. Too soft. Too alive.
I told myself it was anger making my hands unsteady.
Down the slope of her waist, over hips, the backs of her thighs, behind knees, calves, ankles, between toes.
Nothing.
“Turn.”
She turned. Faced me. Nipples tightened in the cool air. I searched again—collarbones, throat, the space between breasts, under them, along ribs where the scar caught my thumb.
Still nothing.
My gaze dropped lower. The only place left.
I reached—and stopped.
It felt different. Wrong. Too far across a line I had not expected to find.
My hand fell.
She knew she had won.
“Find what you’re looking for?” Her voice was soft, edged with quiet victory.
“Get dressed.”
“You destroyed my dress.” She did not cover herself. “The one I spent hours making.”
“Then wear another.” I gestured to the wardrobe filled with identical shapeless gowns.
She pulled one out. Cotton whispered over skin as it fell, swallowing curves, returning her to prisoner silhouette.
“You don’t leave this room,” I said, backing toward the door because staying longer would be dangerous. “Guards on the door constantly. Cameras watching every second.”
She sat on the bed’s edge, looking up at me. “You searched every inch and found nothing. Maybe I’m telling the truth. Maybe I never left the basement.”
“And the pen?”
A faint pause. “Maybe you moved it yourself and forgot. You seem… stressed.”
The gentle mockery snapped something inside me.
I slammed the door behind me, engaged every lock.
In the hallway I stopped, chest heaving.
She had broken into my study. I knew it. Could not prove it.
She had stood naked under my hands and somehow kept the power.
I had been the one stripped bare.