Chapter 7 #3
I did not touch her.
That was the point. The lack of touch became a thing in the room, heavy and hot.
“I might tell her to eat when she has skipped meals.”
Her tongue moved over her lip.
“To sleep when she is exhausted.”
My hands remained at my sides.
“To tell me when she is frightened instead of cutting people open with a brooch.”
“That seems less fun.”
“For you.”
“What about for you?”
“I found it . . . memorable.”
Her knees opened a fraction.
The movement was small. Deliberate.
I could have stepped closer. One inch would have put my thigh between hers.
I did not.
She reached up and caught my tie.
The same gesture as before. This time slower. Her fingers wrapped the silk and drew me down until my mouth hovered over hers.
“I’m giving you permission,” she whispered.
Her breath smelled faintly of my whisky.
Everything in me pulled toward her.
I wanted her mouth. I wanted my hand in her hair and her body bent over the desk, those fitted trousers dragged down over her hips. I wanted to discover whether her sharp tongue went quiet when praised or became worse. I wanted to put rules around her until she could rest inside them.
I wanted to ask her to call me Daddy.
No.
Not ask.
I wanted to hear the word escape because her body recognized me before her pride did.
My mouth stopped inches from hers.
Her grip tightened on my tie.
“Sal.”
The name nearly finished me.
I looked at her lips, then her eyes.
“No,” I said.
I took the whisky away from her because taking her mouth would have been easier.
Her fingers remained around my tie.
I removed them one at a time.
She let me. Barely.
Then I stepped back and carried the glass to the other side of the desk.
Her face changed as distance opened between us. Hunger became humiliation. Humiliation became anger.
The progression was fast. I recognized all of it because I felt my own version.
“You’re enjoying this,” she said.
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Yes. I enjoy that you want me. I do not enjoy denying you.”
“Then stop.”
“No.”
She stood.
I held up one hand. Not a command. A request for enough silence to do this correctly.
“If we explore what just happened,” I said, “we do not improvise it over whisky while your brother is a hostage.”
Her eyes flashed. “He is not a hostage.”
“He is a boy under guard because his father knows you love him.”
“Careful.”
“I am being careful. More careful than either of us likes.”
She folded her arms. “What does ‘explore’ mean?”
“It means we write everything down.”
For once, I surprised her.
“You want paperwork?”
“I want clarity.”
“Of course you do.”
“What does Daddy mean to you?”
The word entered the room.
She went perfectly still.
I continued before she could strike at me for saying it.
“What authority would you want to surrender? When? In private only, or in parts of daily life? Which rules would be practical—food, sleep, security—and which would be play?”
Her breathing changed.
I did not look away.
“What kind of discipline would you want, if any? A stern conversation. Corner time. Writing lines. Spanking. What is forbidden? What requires permission every time? What words stop everything? What do you need afterward?”
Her cheeks were flushed now, but she held my gaze.
“Afterward,” she repeated.
“Aftercare.”
“I know what the word means.”
“Then you understand why I asked.”
She looked toward the door, then back at me. “You want me to fill out a form before you kiss me.”
“No. I want us to understand what we’re doing before I take authority you’ve spent your life having stolen from you.”
That hit.
Her arms loosened.
I kept my voice level.
“The agreement would not bind you. It would bind me. It would be optional. Revocable at any time, for any reason, including no reason. It would have nothing to do with your shelter, money, protection, or Kiryl. Refusing me would change none of those things.”
“You make it sound clinical.”
“It would not feel clinical. Trust me.”
Her eyes dropped to my hands.
I let her imagine that.
“When we were doing it,” I said, “there would be nothing uncertain about what I wanted. Or what I expected.”
Her throat moved.
“But outside it,” I continued, “you remain free. If you say stop, I stop. If you say the agreement is over, it is over. I do not punish you for withdrawing consent. I do not make you earn care.”
The last sentence cost more than the others.
Rosalia had waited for care I made her earn through patience. Through silence. Through accepting scraps from a man who had convinced himself that providing money and protection excused emotional absence.
I would not do that again.
Yelena stared at me.
“You’ve thought about this,” she said. “You’ve done it before?”
“A long time ago.”
“With somebody else.”
“Yes. Of course.”
Her mouth tightened. Jealousy. Quick, bright, irrational.
It made something dark and possessive in me lift its head.
I put it down.
“What happened?”
“I failed her.”
That answer removed some of the fight.
Not enough.
“You don’t get to wake something up in me and then stand there explaining regulations,” she said.
There it was.
Not merely lust.
Something had awakened in her too. Praise had reached beneath the princess, beneath the strategist, beneath the woman who managed every room because nobody else could be trusted with it.
A Little might live there. Not weak. Not helpless.
A private self that wanted structure because structure meant she could stop watching every door.
And perhaps I had not killed the part of myself capable of meeting her there.
Perhaps Daddy had not died.
Perhaps I had only locked him away.
“Yelena,” I said softly.
“No.” She pointed at me. “Do not use that voice now.”
“What voice?”
“You know exactly which voice.”
I did.
She turned and reached the door.
“Yelena.”
She stopped but did not look back.
“When Kiryl is safe, we have the conversation.”
Her shoulders rose with one controlled breath.
“If I still want it.”
“Yes.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then nothing happens.”
Now she looked over her shoulder.
Her eyes were furious. Her mouth was soft from wanting a kiss she had not received. She was the sexiest thing I had ever seen, and she knew it.
“I hope you suffer,” she said.
“I’m suffering.”
“Good.”
The door closed behind her.
I waited until her footsteps disappeared.
Then I picked up my phone and called Tonio.
He answered on the third ring, voice low. “Tell me you have good news.”
“Change of orders.”
A pause. “From surveillance to what?”
“Extraction.”
He went quiet.
In the background, I heard a vehicle heater and the faint scrape of movement. He was still in Brooklyn, still watching the Sokolov house.
“You understand what happens if we take the boy,” he said. “Lev might tolerate eyes on his house while he decides whether to kill Gianni or us. He won’t tolerate us removing his son.”
“I understand.”
“It escalates the war again.”
“Yes.”
“Serafina ordered observation.”
“I’ll answer to Serafina.”
“Sal.”
“Until that boy is safe, every choice she makes under this roof has a knife held behind it.” I looked at the closed office door. “Get him out.”
Tonio breathed out slowly.
“I’m allowed to use force?” he asked.
“I don’t want any deaths.”
“And if not possible?”
“Kiryl comes first.”
“That answer is going to cost us.”
“I know.”
Another pause.
Then his voice changed. The warmth remained, but steel moved underneath it.
“I’ll need twelve hours.”
“You have six.”
“Eight.”
“Seven.”
“Done.”
The line disconnected.
I set the phone down beside the whisky she had tasted.
On the other side of the penthouse, a door closed. Soft. Controlled. Yelena making a point without slamming anything.
I touched the knot of my tie where her fist had tightened it.
Seven hours.
Then the knife behind every yes she gave me would be gone.
After that, if she still wanted to test the boundaries of my patience, I would show her exactly how much patience I had.
And what happened when it finally ran out.
Maybe I was making a mistake. I desperately hoped not.