Chapter 4 #4
When he finishes pouring, he glances at me once, then slides a second glass forward across the marble counter in my direction.
Still doesn’t speak.
Still just watches.
And I’ve had enough.
“I’m not interested in whatever performance you think I’m here to play,” I say evenly. “If you brought me up just to fluff your ego or feed your boredom, you picked the wrong girl.”
My voice is cool, but the fire behind it flickers just a little too bright.
Rafael pauses.
Then—he laughs. Low. Quiet. Real.
It catches me off guard.
He brings his drink to his lips and takes a slow sip before setting it down again.
“ Fluff my ego, ” he repeats, amusement tugging faintly at the corner of his mouth. “Is that what you think this is?”
I raise a brow. “Isn’t it?”
He studies me. Hard. Deep. Unapologetically.
“No,” he says after a long moment. “If I wanted that, I’d ask one of the girls who’s already used to pretending.”
I don’t flinch. But he sees something.
He always does.
He moves from behind the bar, slow and steady, drink in hand, and walks across the room like he’s strolling through a thought he’s not ready to share yet.
I stay still.
He glances at me again. “Where are you from?”
The question hits like a stray bullet. Too normal. Too calm.
“Does it matter?” I ask, not breaking eye contact.
He shrugs one shoulder. “Humor me.”
I offer the version I’ve rehearsed. “Upstate. Small town. Nothing impressive.”
“Parents?”
“Dead.”
A pause.
He studies me like he’s watching a painting in a museum—looking for what’s beneath the brushstrokes.
“How long have you been in the city?”
“Few years.”
“Alone?”
I lift my chin. “Is there a reason for these questions?”
Another long pause.
“I’m curious,” he says simply, voice smooth. “You work like someone who doesn’t need to. Like someone who chose it. People like that always have stories.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, keeping my expression even.
“I like knowing who’s in my space,” he adds.
“Your space,” I echo.
He smiles slightly. “Everything below this floor belongs to me. The walls, the floors, the people who walk across them.”
“And the ones who serve your drinks?”
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t need to. His silence says it.
Yes.
Everyone.
He walks past me then, not brushing against me but close enough that I feel the cold press of his control slip across my skin.
Then, slowly, he lowers himself onto the black leather couch that faces the windows.
He sits like a man completely comfortable. One arm across the back. Drink in hand. Watching the skyline like it’s a piece he helped build.
And he waits. Because now it’s my turn. To speak. To move . To lie. And every second I don’t? He learns more about me than I want him to.
He doesn’t speak. He just watches me from the couch, one arm resting across the back, drink dangling lazily between two fingers. Calm. Patient. Like he’s content to let silence do the talking.
And it almost does.
Because the longer I stand here, the more it presses into my skin—demanding something from me I don’t want to give.
I shouldn’t sit. I shouldn’t speak. But I do. Because not playing is more dangerous than stepping into the fire.
I walk slowly across the room and lower myself onto the edge of the armchair across from him, legs crossed, posture sharp.
I don’t touch the drink he offered.
He notices.
Of course he does. He always does.
He takes another slow sip of his own and turns his gaze back to the city lights, as if the conversation is entirely mine to start now.
So I do.
“Do you always bring people up here just to ask about their lives?” I ask, keeping my tone neutral, calm. “Or is this some rare honor?”
He glances back at me, amused.
“I don’t bring many people up here,” he says. “And I never ask questions I don’t want answers to.”
That gets a flicker of something in my chest. Not fear. Not yet.
Just heat.
From the way he says it. Like truth is currency, and I’ve yet to offer him anything worth trading for.
I tilt my head slightly, shifting the focus.
“And what about you , Mr. Romanov? You’ve asked me a lot of questions, but said very little in return.”
He smirks faintly. “Is that your way of saying you want to know me?”
“I think if I’m going to be standing behind you every night, it’s only fair.”
He studies me for a beat, and then leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, the glass dangling just above the floor.
“All right,” he says. “Ask.”
I blink once. “Just like that?”
“You asked to know. So ask.”
I don’t let myself hesitate.
“Why the casino?” I ask. “Of all things. It seems… a little too flashy for someone like you.”
His smirk deepens. “Flashy?”
I shrug, keeping my tone light. “You don’t strike me as someone who likes to be looked at. You strike me as someone who prefers to be watching. ”
He chuckles under his breath, a soft exhale of amusement.
“You’re not wrong,” he says. “But people talk more when they think they’re safe. And nothing feels safer than luck.”
I let that sit for a moment.
“And you?” he asks, voice low. “Do you like being watched?”
My throat tightens just slightly. The air shifts. But I keep my face even.
“Depends on who’s watching.”
Rafael’s eyes don’t leave mine.
“Good answer.”
He leans back again, calm and unreadable.
“But not an honest one.”
We sit like that for a while. Talking without saying anything real. Words wrapped in velvet, glances sharp enough to cut.
He doesn’t press. I don’t flinch.
But something is building. I feel it like static under my skin.
Then— a sound. Faint. Barely audible. Something outside the door.
A shift in pressure. A shoe scuff. The soft creak of wood.
I stiffen slightly but don’t move my head.
Rafael doesn’t react. Which means maybe it was nothing. Just the wind in the hallway. A passerby. A breath that doesn’t belong to me.
But the weight in my chest coils tighter anyway. Because I know better. The calm never lasts forever.
The sound outside fades. No footsteps now. No echo. Just silence.
But it lingers like smoke in my chest, burning in a place I can’t reach. I shift slightly in my seat, as if my body knows something my mind hasn’t caught up to yet.
Rafael studies me in that way he always does—head slightly tilted, eyes sharp but unreadable. He hasn’t looked away from me once since I sat down, and somehow, that unnerves me more than the faint sound in the hallway.
Then he speaks—voice low, smooth, unsettling in how casual it sounds.
“Does what I do scare you?”
The question lands like a blade pressed gently to the skin—no pressure yet, but the threat is there.
He doesn’t mean his job title. He means everything. The silence. The power. The blood beneath the suits and crystal glasses.
I breathe in slowly. My thoughts flicker like match tips.
Does it scare me?
Should it?
No.
But I know what answer he wants.
“What exactly is it that you do?” I ask, voice calm.
His lips twitch. “You’ve been standing beside my table long enough to know.”
My fingers curl slightly against the armrest. And still—my voice doesn’t waver.
“No,” I say. “I’m not scared of you.”
He leans forward again, resting his elbows on his knees. The drink is still in his hand, but he doesn’t touch it.
He just watches me.
“You should be.”
His voice isn’t a threat. It’s a fact.
The kind of truth that settles low in your bones and stays there. But I’ve heard worse. From monsters with softer smiles and less control.
I meet his gaze. “Then you should try harder.”
His eyes darken—just slightly.
That tension between us stretches thinner. Like piano wire.
He tilts his head a fraction.
“You think I’m not trying?”
I don’t answer. Because I don’t know what game we’re playing anymore. And maybe that’s the most dangerous part.
I glance toward the windows, my heartbeat steady but shallow, trying to pace itself under the weight of something I can’t name.
His voice cuts through the silence again.
“What do you think this place is built on, Natasha?”
He rarely says my name. But when he does, it sounds like a secret. A threat. A prayer.
“Blood,” I say without thinking.
He smiles faintly.
“No,” he murmurs. “Loyalty.”
Another pause.
Then—
“And what would you bleed for?”
Before I can answer—before I can even breathe — The door explodes open.
The sound is deafening.
A crash. A rush of footsteps. The cold rush of air sucked into the room like it’s gasping.
I shoot up from the chair before I even register what’s happening.
Three men. Balaclavas. Black. Tactical gear. Guns drawn. One has a knife. They don’t speak. No shouts. No demands. Just silent, brutal efficiency.
I move instinctively, kicking off my heels in one motion and sliding back behind the armchair just as one of them charges.
Rafael is already on his feet, flipping the glass table in one movement and sending it crashing to the floor.
I duck just as a blade slices the air beside my face—fast and too close.
My shoulder slams into the ground, but I roll, using the momentum to spring back up. One of the men lunges toward me, arm raised, blade flashing.
I twist my body. The knife catches the skin of my upper arm—just a graze, hot and sharp—but I don’t stop.
Pain is distant. Useless.
I slam my elbow into his side, hard, just enough to knock the breath out of him, and twist his wrist.
The blade drops.
I don’t grab it.
Because something else glints under the couch— metal.
A gun.
Just inches from my fingers.
My breath catches. And everything slows. The gun is there, just beneath the couch. Close enough to see the glint of steel, the outline of the grip. But not close enough to grab—not without fighting for it first.
Because the man I just slammed into hasn’t backed off. His blade is gone—lying somewhere behind me—but he’s not.
He lunges. And this time, he uses his full weight.
I barely dodge. His shoulder slams into mine, knocking me sideways and into the ground with a crack of my knees against tile.