Chapter 10
ANDREI
Alina is still in her room when my phone vibrates on the coffee table. I grab it before it has a chance to fully ring once.
“Talk,” I say.
Anderson’s voice comes through first. He’s as calm and controlled as ever.
“We’ve finished the initial sweep of your vehicles,” he says. “There were no trackers on either one, thankfully. We’ve also confirmed that the apartment’s perimeter is still intact. It’s been eighteen hours and there’s been no sign of any trouble.”
“Good,” I reply. “Who else is on the line?”
“Petya,” Anderson answers. “He’s with me.”
Petya, my lead enforcer, doesn’t waste time with greetings.
“I believe we may have an internal leak,” he says. “There’s no other explanation for the pivot. Someone on the inside is feeding your attacker information.”
I lean my free hand against the wall and close my eyes. I already expected this, but I don’t like hearing it out loud.
“They knew the timing,” Petya continues. “They knew which car you were taking. They knew where it would be staged. That information does not leave our circle unless someone opens their mouth.”
“And they wouldn’t have gotten near the car without clearance,” I say. “Alessandro and Pavel would never allow it.”
“No,” Petya agrees. “They wouldn’t.”
“And they didn’t,” Anderson adds. “From what we can tell, the explosive was placed earlier in the night. Perhaps, it was always meant to be a backup plan, and one they blew too early. Thank God for that, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
I exhale slowly through my nose.
“How many men had that level of access?” I ask.
“At least thirty,” Anderson says. “Including you.”
“That doesn’t narrow the field very much,” I reply in frustration.
“Maybe not, but it’ll help us determine motive,” Petya says. “This wasn’t sloppy or poorly executed. Whoever did this was expecting success.”
I look up at the bedroom door, which Alina must have shut when the phone rang.
That was thoughtful of her. Even so, I imagine she’s listening in on the other side, desperate for any information about what’s going on.
How can I blame her? She’s been dragged into something she could never fully understand.
“They adapted too fast,” I remind them. “You found blueprints to my hotel room. They were clearly planning an ambush there. When Alina left the ballroom, they pivoted. That means they had eyes inside the building, not just outside. And she’s involved somehow, whether she wants to be or not.”
“They likely didn’t want her involved,” Anderson adds carefully. “They took care to find her that night, as if they were worried about her being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Which seems to be exactly what happened. I hate to say this, Andrei, but perhaps she’s leverage for you.”
“No,” I protest, nearly growling out the word. “As far as I can tell, her only involvement is her father. She doesn’t need to be involved more than she already is. Her safety is second only to my own.”
Neither man responds to that.
“I want a full movement map,” I continue. “Every man who knew my schedule. Every call made within two hours before the blast. I want badge access logs, camera feeds, and vehicle records pulled and cross-referenced.”
“Already in progress,” Anderson says. “I’ll have that information to you as soon as I’m done running it.
“Good,” I reply. “I want the parking structure footage next.”
Petya exhales. “We’re pulling it now. It’s extensive.”
“It will be,” I agree. “Take your time, I don’t anticipate us having to move unless there’s a new threat.”
I end the call without ceremony and set the phone back down on the table.
For a moment, I sit still and let my anger simmer in my body.
My anger isn’t explosive. It’s cold and calculated, focused on results more than immediate pain.
Whoever betrayed me will receive every ounce of my anger when the time comes.
More and more, it’s looking like someone inside my organization decided I was expendable. That decision will cost them everything.
I move to the small kitchen table and open my laptop. The feed from the hotel loads slowly, grainy at first, then sharpening into clarity. Multiple camera angles populate the screen, each one timestamped and tagged. I watch without blinking as the footage rewinds.
There is the service ramp.
There is the staging area.
There is my car.
I watch it again and again. I slow the footage frame by frame, studying body language, posture, timing. Nothing stands out at first glance. That is intentional. Whoever did this would know they were being filmed.
A man steps into frame at 21:42 wearing a maintenance uniform with a badge visible. He pauses near the vehicle, bends as if checking a tire, then moves on.
I rewind the footage, pause, and enhance as much as I can from the crappy feed.
The badge belongs to one of my own subcontractors. He’s been cleared and vetted extensively. I make a note for Petya to interrogate him and move on.
Another angle shows a shadow near the stairwell into the garage. I can’t tell much from the shape, but they wait there for a long time. I tag the timestamp and keep going.
The pattern emerges slowly. This was clearly a coordinated strike. These men had unfettered access to the hotel, and moved easily without being noticed.
My jaw tightens as the pieces align. This was planned long before the engagement party. That means the party was just a convenient cover to get the men in place. The only thing that’s clear is that Alina’s protection was important to these men. That’s why they changed directions.
I close the laptop and lean back in my chair. The weight of the night settles into my bones. I think of Alessandro, the driver who never made it out of the car. He had a family. His wife had just given birth.
I don’t feel guilt, but I do feel responsibility. I will make this right.
The faint sound of movement pulls my attention toward the bedroom door. Alina emerges, watching me curiously.
“That sounded like an important phone call,” she says carefully.
I can’t help but smile. So she was eavesdropping, just like I thought. She’s more trouble than I could have imagined.
“Did you find out anything?” she asks.
“Nothing I didn’t already know,” I reply honestly.
She nods and sits in the chair next to me.
“I could help, you know,” she says. “I’m no computer whiz or anything, but I can help look through footage.”
“Alina,” I say evenly, “this is not something you need to be part of.”
Her lips press together, and she folds her arms loosely in front of her. She’s not being defensive, necessarily, just stubborn.
“I already am a part of it,” she replies. “Whether you want me to be or not.”
I rise from the chair and take a step toward her deliberately.
“This situation is dangerous,” I say. “And it is ongoing. You’re safer not knowing details. My enemies could use your knowledge against you.”
“What the hell else am I supposed to do?” she asks stubbornly, tipping her chin up at me. “We’re clearly trapped here, and I can only stare at books for so long.”
“I don’t want to argue about this,” I say firmly, turning away from her and shutting my laptop. Even if she manages to grab it, she’ll never figure out the password.
I leave her at the table and grab a beer from the fridge, before I sit back down on the couch, watching her. I expect her to argue with me, or to stomp away like she did earlier, but she just gets up slowly and comes over to me.
I brace myself for a fight, ready to turn down all of her arguments, when she stops directly in front of me. She doesn’t speak. Before I can ask what she’s doing, she climbs into my lap.
The couch creaks softly under the shift of new weight. Her hands slide around my neck and her fingers thread into my hair with a quiet confidence. Her body settles against mine like she’s done this a hundred times before.
Every thought in my head dies at once. My reaction to her is immediate and unmistakable. Heat floods low in my body, uninvited. I suck in a breath through my nose and grip the edge of the couch hard enough that my knuckles whiten.
“Alina,” I murmur, a desperate plea and a solemn prayer all at once.
“I know,” she whispers, like she’s doing this against her own judgment. Like she’s helpless to stop what’s happening between us.
My hands hover for a moment, caught between instinct and restraint. The smart thing would be to move her off me, to stand up and put space between us. To reprimand her. Instead, my hands settle at her waist, gripping her with enough force that she gasps.
The sound sends a jolt through me. I’m losing my control one tiny movement at a time.
Her lips brush against my jaw, not quite a kiss, but a test. My pulse beats hard against my throat. I tilt my head to give her access without consciously deciding to.
It’s so easy to give in to her. There’s no resistance left once she decides to ask for what she wants.
She shifts slightly, until our bodies are perfectly aligned and I can feel my hardness pressing against her soft heat. It steals what little bit of control I had left. My hips lift without permission, rubbing against her as she gasps again.
I let one hand slide up her back, underneath her sweatshirt, splaying between her shoulder blades. She lets out a quiet sigh, ending whatever resistance there was between us. Her lips crash against mine as her body grinds against me again, chasing a need she can’t name.
My tongue slips into her mouth, tasting and teasing and undoing her with every stroke while my other hand slides beneath the waistband of her sweatpants, where I know she’s already wet and hot for me.
Her fingers dig into my shoulders when I find the spot that makes her come undone. I circle her clit with my index finger slowly, eliciting the most impatient moans from her as she grinds her hips against my hand.
“More,” she whispers against my mouth, and I’m powerless to do anything but give her exactly what she needs.
Her hands move down to my pants, unsheathing me quickly as I pull her sweatpants and underwear down as far as I can get them with her straddling me. It isn’t romantic or purposeful. She positions me at her entrance quickly, sliding down onto me with one movement. We both groan at the contact.
Then her hips are bucking wildly, and she holds onto me for dear life as she rides my cock. Watching her come undone on top of me as my own pleasure builds is unimaginable. She’s wild and untamed in a way that I’ve never experienced before.
Her walls start to tighten around me as her pleasure overtakes her, and I’m falling over the edge, clinging to her for dear life. She kisses me sloppily, our breaths becoming one, as her body shudders with her own orgasm.
When we finish, she nearly collapses on top of me, and I hold her there for a while, not ready to let her go either. This is insane. It’s not who I am or who I’ve ever been. Sex has always been a well-planned and highly controlled element in my life. She makes me feel like I’m a teenager.
When she finally moves, the oxygen makes its way to my brain.
“We can’t make a habit of this,” I tell her, looking up to brush a lock of hair behind her ear.
“I know.” She nods, and then she gets up, walking toward the bathroom without a backward glance.