30. Chapter 30
Sasha
By the next morning, I’d reached two conclusions.
Firstly, the warehouse could no longer be open to visitors.
Secondly, I had made a catastrophic error in introducing Addy to men who responded well to eye contact and baked goods.
There had been a brief time when I considered using that to my advantage. She was observant and quick-witted, and her disarming nature caused people to underestimate her. Smart enough to read a room, to adapt, to slip through cracks most people didn’t even see.
But I had miscalculated. For every strength she had, there was an equal and opposite risk.
She didn’t just disarm people; she invited them in. She didn’t just read situations; she trusted them too easily, too. In my world, friendliness wasn’t a skill. It was a vulnerability.
A liability.
And I didn’t build operations around liabilities. I eliminated them. Or I removed them from the equation entirely.
This meant I had to protect her from the consequences of her own actions, both for her sake and for mine, because losing her would destroy me.
We were in the kitchen, cooking breakfast after a spectacular night. I’d missed sex, of course, during my time in Blackwood, but sex with Addy was on a completely different level.
“You’re being quiet. I don’t think that’s a good sign,” she quipped.
I sighed and crossed my arms as I leaned back against the counter. Here goes nothing.
“We need to talk about yesterday.” I hesitated but then decided to rip the bandaid off. “You’re not going back to the warehouse.”
Addy cocked her head to one side. “I’m not?”
“I’m not negotiating this, baby.”
She studied my face like I was an interesting weather pattern. “Wow. We skipped right past ‘how did you sleep’ and landed on dictatorship.”
“Addy.”
“No, no. Let’s explore it,” she said, carefully placing the spatula she’d been flipping the eggs with on the counter and pulling the pan off the burner. “Is this a general ban on community engagement, or just me specifically?”
“You.”
Her eyebrows lifted mockingly. “Oh. I’m honored.”
“You can’t walk into a secured location and start distracting my men with fucking muffins.”
“But they loved them.”
I raised my eyebrows. “That’s kind of the problem.”
“They were hungry. No one can concentrate when they’re hungry.”
“Trust me, they’ve endured worse.”
“Well, I’m not having it.” She crossed her arms and glared at me. Adorable. “You’ll just have to deal with it.”
I studied her, trying to figure out why this was the hill she had chosen to die on. She stared right back at me, her defiance evident in the stubborn tilt of her chin and the gleam in her dark eyes.
“Why is this so important to you?”
Addy averted her gaze, chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment and looked at me again.
“Because it’s not about simply feeding them. I don’t care whether you’re criminals,” she explained, her tone growing more serious. “This is about all of you being people, despite of what you do.”
“There it is,” I muttered.
She raised her eyebrows challengingly. “You say it like it’s a flaw.”
“It’s not.” I hesitated. “ … but it is a liability.”
Addy huffed. “Having empathy?”
“In this environment? Yes.”
“You’re unbelievable.” She laughed under her breath, and I found myself wanting to both strangle her and kiss her senseless.
“You walked into a warehouse full of armed men.” I tried to keep my voice level. “And within two minutes, you had them all chasing after you like toddlers after a treat.”
“They didn’t seem opposed.” Addy shrugged.
I scrubbed a hand down my face. “They are my underbosses. My enforcers.”
“They need to feel valued too, you know.”
Maybe I just needed to take a more direct approach. Lay it out for her, plain and simple.
“No. What they need to do is drop bodies.”
She blinked. “Okay. That’s … less cute.”
I moved closer without thinking about it but she didn’t move back.
“You can’t assume people are harmless anymore.”
She probably never should have, but it felt smarter to not point this out.
“I don’t,” Addy fired back. “I assume they’re human.”
“And you think it makes them safe?”
“No,” she countered evenly. “I think it makes them predictable.”
That caught me off guard.
“You think you can predict them?”
“I think if you treat people like monsters, they act like monsters.” She shrugged. “If you treat them like people, sometimes they surprise you.”
“You are not conducting a social experiment in my organization.”
“I’m not conducting anything. All I did was bring muffins.”
“You hopped my enforcers up on sugar!” I closed my eyes briefly. “This is not helpful.”
Addy pursed her lips. “I didn’t realize you needed help.”
Oh, it’s on now, Little Devil.
I flattened her with a look, but she tilted her chin up defiantly.
“You don’t want them to like me.”
“That’s not the issue,” I growled.
“It’s part of the issue.” She narrowed her eyes at me.
“The issue is,” I replied carefully, “if someone decides you are leverage, I won’t stay calm.”
Addy watched me, searching my face for … something.
“You’re not worried about them. You’re worried about what you’ll do.”
I didn’t answer. Addy moved closer, close enough for her tits to brush against my front. I desperately tried to stop my body from reacting.
“I’m not made of glass.”
“I’m aware,” I grunted.
“Then stop acting like I’ll shatter if someone raises their voice.”
“I’m not concerned about raised voices.”
“What is it you’re concerned about?”
My hand came up before I could think better of it. I caught her wrist — not roughly, but firmly enough to make her stop. Her gaze dropped to where I was holding her wrist, then returned to my face.
“Do you really think physical restraint counts as winning an argument?”
“It counts as stopping it.”
Addy inhaled slowly, and I felt her pulse jump under my thumb.
“Are you jealous?”
Kind of, but that wasn’t the point. Why the hell did they deserve muffins?
I gave her a flat look. “Of whom?”
“Them.”
“I’m not jealous of my own fucking men,” I sneered. “They all know you belong to me, not to mention what I’d do to their dicks if they ever dared to touch you.”
She squinted at me, her head cocked to the side. “You look a bit jealous.”
“They were talking to you!” I exploded.
I knew how insane I sounded, but I couldn’t help myself. Why did she have to get on so well with everyone she met?
“Everyone talks to me.”
“That,” I said, tightening my grip just slightly, “is exactly the problem.”
Her lips parted, and I had to fight the urge to kiss her, to show her who she belonged to and who deserved all her pretty smiles.
“You can’t control how people feel about me.”
“No.”
“You don’t get to manage it.”
“Oh, I absolutely do.”
Addy’s free hand gripped my shirt now, fisting in the fabric like she didn’t even realize she was doing it.
“Is it really so bad if they like me? I’m just … talking.”
“You’re altering dynamics.”
“Good.” She shrugged. “Change can be really beneficial.”
I sighed. “You don’t understand the ripple effect.”
“Then explain it to me,” she pleaded softly.
“I just did.”
Now she was glaring again. “No, you threatened and glared at me. That’s not an explanation.”
I crowded her, backing her into the counter. Not violently but firmly enough for her to feel it. Her breath caught and her eyes widened.
“You want an explanation?” I murmured. “Fine. If someone interprets your openness as access and tries to exploit it, I will have to remove them.”
“Remove … them?”
“Yes.”
She swallowed audibly. “From the organization?”
I didn’t answer because I didn’t enjoy lying to her.
Her fingers tightened in my shirt, her nails digging ever so slightly into my chest. “Not everything can be solved by eliminating it.”
“I can solve most things this way.”
Addy shook her head. “That’s not the same as fixing them.”
“Fixing is not the goal.”
“What is?” Her tongue darted out, pink and perfect, wetting her lips.
“Control.”
She studied me for a long moment. “You don’t want control,” she said softly. “You want certainty.”
More than anything, it landed in a place I didn’t often let people reach because I had never been granted certainty.
I had always built it with my own hands, piece by piece, threat by threat, until the world around me behaved the way I needed it to.
Until nothing could slip through my fingers again.
“And yet you are neither of those things … But somehow still what I want more than anything else in the world.” I gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
The silence between us changed, becoming less combative but more charged. Her palm flattened against my chest, feeling the tension there.
“I’m not trying to undermine you. I just don’t want to be out of the loop. Alone and clueless.”
Her voice softened at the end, as though she hadn’t meant to say it out loud. For a moment, I caught a glimpse of something quieter beneath all the brightness.
Loneliness.
Not situational or temporary, but the kind that lingered and settled into a person, teaching them to fill the silence with noise, movement and words — anything to avoid sitting with it for too long.
“You’re not alone. You’ve got me. This system is delicate and based on structure. It’s like a house of cards: if one part collapses, the rest will too. If you knew what kind of threats and trouble we’re dealing with…”
If you knew how easily someone could look at you the wrong way and decide you were something they could take.
“Maybe you need a different system then.”
I huffed a laugh. “Yeah, maybe.”
My hand slid from her wrist to her waist unconsciously. Her pupils dilated, but she didn’t move away. Success in my books.
“You know you don’t scare me,” Addy murmured, never breaking eye contact.
“Mhhh.” I let my nose run along the side of her neck. “I should.”
“Probably.” She inhaled shakily. “But you don’t.”
My thumb pressed into the curve of her hip, anchoring her there. “You’re my priority, Little Devil. You’re not from this world and it’s my job to keep you safe. I need to keep you safe.”
Because you don’t always see it coming.
Because you assume the best before you consider the worst.
Because you walk into people like they’re harmless — and one day, one of them won’t be.
Addy smiled faintly. “That’s almost romantic.”
“It’s not meant to be but I’ll take it.”
“Everything about you is so … intense. It’s hard not to interpret it that way.”
This time, my hand moved to the back of her neck, my fingers threading into her hair just enough to tilt her face up.
“You will stay out of operational spaces,” I ordered. “For the sake of my sanity.”
“If you’ll stop treating me like I’m about to wander into fucking traffic blindfolded.”
“You kind of did.”
“That’s not blindness,” she retorted, a hint of sharpness breaking through. “That’s just … choosing not to expect the worst all the time.”
“This,” I murmured, “is exactly what worries me.”
“All I did was come visit you at your warehouse.”
“Same difference with this particular warehouse.”
She laughed softly, her breath warm against my mouth and shook her head. “You’re impossible.”
“And yet here we are.”
Her smile faded slightly, replaced by something quieter. Her fingers, which had been gripping my shirt as though it were a lifeline, loosened — not pulling away, just shifting up to trace the silver links of my necklace.
“You know what the worst part is?” she said, her voice softer now.
I frowned. “What?”
“It’s not even about feeling unsafe.” She huffed out a small, humorless laugh. “It’s about feeling … managed.”
Something in my chest tightened.
“Everyone’s always made decisions for me,” she continued, her gaze dropping briefly before lifting back to mine. “What I should do, what I’m capable of, where I fit.”
Her hand pressed lightly against my chest again, like she was grounding herself.
“And now I’m here, in this … insane, dangerous, very illegal situation,” she added, glancing around vaguely, “and I still feel like I’m standing outside of it. Like I’m … being kept somewhere safe and pretty while everything real happens somewhere else.”
I stilled.
“I don’t want to be out of the loop, Sasha,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to be the thing you hide away so you don’t have to worry. I want to understand what’s going on. I want to be in it — with you.”
The words landed with more weight than they should have. She wasn’t asking for control.
She was asking not to be excluded.
And whether I liked it or not, it was exactly what I had been doing.
Her lips were inches from mine, her fingers still fisted in my shirt like she was bracing for impact.
“You may have dragged me into this world, but you don’t get to decide who I am in it.”
I sighed. “And you don’t get to pretend this world won’t change you.”
“Maybe I’ll change it first.” She shrugged.
And there was this impossible, reckless, stubborn light of hers that made my chest tighten beyond my control.
She said it like she meant it. Like the world hadn’t already tried to wear her down into something smaller. Like she hadn’t spent years being told she was too much and not enough in the same breath.
Like she was still willing to believe she could take something broken and make it better.
And God help anyone who mistook it for weakness.
I tightened my grip, not enough to hurt her, but enough to make her exhale.
“You’re not changing my organization with muffins,” I murmured.
She raised her eyebrows playfully. “Watch me.”
I almost kissed her to stop the argument.
Almost.
But I knew I’d lose myself in her again, so instead I rested my forehead against hers and breathed her in to steady myself.
“We’re not finished with this.”
“No,” she agreed softly. “We’re not.”
Neither of us pulled away.
The argument remained unresolved, but the distance between us had disappeared, and it felt as thrilling as it was dangerous.