Chapter 8 #2
"No." I stop in front of her, close enough to see the pulse beating in her throat, and look down at her. "I'm angry because he made you laugh."
She blinks. "What?"
"I'm angry because you touched his arm. You smiled at him. You gave him something that—" I pause, my teeth gritting together, but I can’t stop what comes out next. "Something that should be mine."
The words hang in the air between us. Her eyes widen. "Andrei—"
"You're mine, Liesl." My voice sounds scraped raw. I barely recognize it as mine, and somewhere in the back of my head, I know she’s doing something to be that’s going to have consequences far beyond what I can see right now.
"While you're here. While you're on my estate, under my protection. You're mine. And I don't share."
Her eyes widen, round and large in her face. "I'm not yours," she says softly. "I'm your captive."
"It’s same thing."
"No. It's not."
"Yes." I loom over her, making her tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. "It is. You belong to me. Your safety. Your comfort. Your freedom. All of it is mine to give or take away. And that includes who gets to talk to you. Who gets to make you smile. Who gets to touch you."
It’s her turn to clench her jaw and glare up at me. That glimpse of fire in her makes me want to pick her up and set her on my desk, do all the things to her that we didn’t do in the library.
But I hold myself back, from that, at least. I can’t let that happen again. Just that touch, that taste, was enough to let me know I could get addicted to her. That there’s something about this infuriatingly sunshiny woman who was never meant to be here that could undo me entirely.
Too much is threatening to unravel around me for me to add anything else.
"That's not fair,” she whispers.
"I don't care about fair."
"This is crazy.” Her voice is so low I barely hear her. “You’re crazy. You can't just claim me like I'm property."
I can’t touch her. If I do, I won’t stop. “For now, you are, ptitsa. You are my property. So go back to your room, as I told you. Now.”
There’s a threat in my voice that I think she recognizes. One that says what will happen next if one of us doesn’t back down. A part of me wants her to fight back, so I can justify what I’ll do next… but instead her shoulders slump again, and she takes a step back, then another.
“Okay,” she whispers, and I feel a flood of disappointment at the loss of her so close to me. I’m hard, I realize, achingly so. Throbbing for her, the pressure in my groin painful, it’s so intense.
She goes to the door, opens it, and leaves. Just like that. I stand there, aching, staring at the closed door as I fight the urge to follow her.
She’s fucked me up. Turned me inside out. And I need to put this right before something worse happens.
I need to quell whatever her father is doing with Volkov and send her home.
My phone buzzes again. Viktor.
Viktor: Meeting in ten minutes. Kozlov situation is escalating. We need to discuss response.
Right. The meeting. The war. The actual problems that require my attention.
I run a hand through my hair and try to compose myself into something resembling the cold, calculating pakhan my men expect. It doesn't work as well as I hoped.
I can still taste her. I can still feel the ghost of her hands on my chest. I can still feel the way she clenched around my fingers as she came.
Fuck. I want to feel that on my cock.
I head to the meeting room. My men are already there, Viktor at the right-hand seat next to mine. They all stand when I enter and show respect, but I can see the questions and concerns in their eyes. The doubt.
"Sit," I say.
They do. Viktor spreads intelligence reports across the table. Photos of Volkov's men. Maps of territory, evidence of encroachment. "They hit two of our shipments yesterday," Viktor says. "Small stuff. They’re testing our response time. Seeing how we react."
"And how did we react?" I ask.
"We didn't. Per your orders to wait."
"The men are getting restless," Yuri says carefully. Across from him, I see Alexei sitting, thin-lipped but silent. His hand is bandaged where I put the car key through it last week. "They want to know when we're going to respond. When we're going to show strength."
"We show strength by choosing our moment instead of letting them choose it for us."
"With respect, pakhan," Mikhail says, "waiting looks like weakness. Especially when—" He stops and glances at the others.
"When what?" I ask quietly.
There’s silence.
"Say it," I command.
Mikhail shifts uncomfortably. "When you seem distracted by other matters."
"Other matters." My voice drops an octave.
"The captive," Yuri says bluntly. He’s older, someone who worked for my father for decades. He thinks he’s earned the right to speak up, and maybe he has, but as far as I’m concerned, he should be building up the heir to the man he was loyal to for so long.
Not giving the men more fodder for discussion.
"The men are talking. Saying you're too focused on her.
That you're letting her distract you from real threats. "
The rage that flares is immediate, but I control it. Barely.
"The men are talking," I repeat. "And what exactly are they saying?"
"That you reassigned a guard for talking to her," Viktor says. "That you watch her from your window. That you spend more time thinking about her than about Volkov.."
"And you?" I look at each of them. "What do you think?"
More silence.
"I think," Yuri says carefully, "that she is a complication we don't need right now.
That keeping her here is a risk. Being done with it would let you refocus on what matters.
" He pauses. “Her father has set himself against us. Whether the girl lives or not is of no consequence any longer. He will not restrain himself if she is alive or dead, it seems.”
My jaw clenches. It takes everything in me not to pull a weapon and shoot him where he sits, for suggesting I hurt Liesl. That alone should concern me, and it does. I force myself not to move. Reacting that way would only prove his point.
"What matters," I say slowly, "is maintaining control of this organization. Showing strength. Making strategic decisions instead of emotional ones. Yes?"
They all nod.
"Then trust that I know what I'm doing."
"Do you?" Alexei asks. My gaze snaps to him. I can barely believe he’s found his tongue after what I did to him. I’d almost respect it if I wasn’t so fucking pissed off. "Because from where we're sitting, it looks like you're losing control. And that makes us vulnerable."
The room goes cold, and everyone tenses, waiting to see how I'll respond.
He’s had one chance. I could take his tongue. Demote him to a silent position, one with no honor and no responsibility. I could kill him now for trying to undermine him again.
But again, that might only prove that I’m erratic. Emotional. That Liesl is a liability.
I lean back in my chair and study him. "You think I'm losing control.”
"I think you're human.” Yuri speaks up, cutting in no doubt to prevent another punishment directed at Alexei. "And humans make mistakes when they're distracted by beautiful women."
"She's a captive." I bite out the word. “Nothing more.”
"She's a complication."
"She's leverage." I narrow my eyes, and Mikhail speaks up from further down the table.
"She's a weakness. And our enemies will exploit it if we let them."
My anger flares, because he’s right. All of them are. Liesl is a weakness, a distraction. A complication that's making me irrational and possessive and everything a pakhan can't afford to be.
But I can't let her go. Not yet. Not when I can still taste her on my lips. And I can’t kill her. I’ve never harmed a woman. I can’t make her the first.
"Her father is playing games,” I say flatly. “Stalling. Using her as a pawn in whatever scheme he's running with Volkov. Until that resolves, she stays here, under my protection. And anyone who has a problem with that can take it up with me directly."
The challenge is clear. The room stays silent.
"Now," I continue, "let's talk about Volkov. Viktor, show me the shipment routes they hit."
The meeting continues. We discuss strategy and options, all the things a pakhan should be focused on.
But part of my mind is still upstairs, still trying to figure out how to protect my organization while protecting her.
Still trying to understand when she became something worth protecting at all.