41. Chapter 41
Sasha
The bright morning sunlight spilled through the tall windows overlooking the water.
Pale gold reflected off the tiled floors and polished steel kitchen counters, creating a deceptively peaceful scene — like a painting intended to convince the outside world violence and power struggles didn’t exist beyond the gates.
It was, of course, a lie, but it was a pleasant one.
The villa had been crawling with contractors for the past week as they repaired all the damage from the ambush. I was sorely tempted to send Rafael the bills but Addy thought it would have been too petty.
I didn’t think there was such a thing as “too petty” but I wasn’t going to fight with her over the matter.
Addy stood barefoot in the kitchen, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows and flour smudged across one cheek, a detail she clearly wasn’t aware of. She was humming faintly to herself as she leaned over the counter, displaying the kind of concentration most people would reserve for bomb disposal.
The bomb, in this case, appeared to be dough.
I leaned against the doorway and watched her for a moment longer than necessary, committing the scene to memory, as I had begun to do with these small domestic moments.
The way the sunlight played on the edge of her shoulder, the way her hair was already falling loose from its half-up, half-down ponytail, and the faint furrow between her brows when she was thinking through something complicated.
“Good morning, baby.”
I stepped into the kitchen slowly, folding my arms as I glanced at the tray she was assembling with suspicious precision.
The front door opened behind us, and two men stepped cautiously into the villa as though they were approaching a wild animal that might bite them.
Misha and Danil.
Both of them froze the moment they noticed me standing in the kitchen.
Danil cleared his throat awkwardly. “Morning, boss.”
I quirked a brow at them and watched them with narrowed eyes. “Morning.”
After a pause and some awkward shuffling, Misha gestured vaguely towards the counter.
“We, um, we were told … there were pastries.”
Addy spun around immediately, lighting up and clapping excitedly. “Perfect timing!”
Both men visibly relaxed. I watched this exchange with the same baffled fascination I had felt ever since this pattern started two weeks ago.
My soldiers, men who had broken bones on my orders and enforced territory lines with brutal efficiency, now stopped by the villa every morning for baked goods as if it were a neighborhood café.
Addy slid a plate across the counter with the solemnity of someone conducting an official ceremony.
“Cinnamon rolls,” she announced, spreading her arms wide.
Misha took one carefully, while Danil snatched two.
“Thank you,” Misha uttered, his words interrupted by the bite he took.
“You’re welcome,” Addy replied cheerfully.
Danil bit into one and closed his eyes. “This is better than last week’s.”
“That’s because last week you said the frosting ratio was wrong. Which, by the way, was extremely rude feedback for someone receiving free sugar.”
“You asked for feedback.”
She glared at him, but there was no real heat in her eyes. “I thought you’d be nicer about it.”
Misha snorted with amusement and shook his head. I watched the three of them and how comfortable they were around her.
Too comfortable, perhaps.
“So,” said Danil, leaning against the counter and chewing thoughtfully. “Boss says our night rotation is changing again.”
Addy glanced up. “It should.”
“Why?” Misha asked.
Addy wiped flour off her hands and walked over to the island where a stack of papers sat beside my laptop — security schedules, dock manifests, logistics reports.
She flipped through them with the casual familiarity of someone who had already memorized half the data.
“You’re overlapping the north and south patrols by twenty minutes.”
“That’s reinforcement,” Danil replied automatically.
“No,” Addy said, shaking her head as she stepped closer. “It’s a hand off problem.”
She tapped the schedule. “You’ve got two teams on the ground at the same time, but no one clearly responsible. Each group assumes the other is covering transitions.”
Misha frowned slightly.
“If someone was watching patterns,” she continued, “they’d notice your coverage looks doubled — but your accountability is split. That’s where mistakes happen.”
Misha looked slowly toward me.
I lifted a shoulder and nodded once. “She’s right.”
Danil exhaled through his nose. “Motherfucker.”
Addy shrugged and went back to cutting another cinnamon roll. “Just seemed inefficient.”
Misha stared at her for a moment. “Maybe we should let you run operations.”
Addy laughed immediately. “Oh God, no! There are a million reasons why that’s a bad idea. I’m fine right where I am.”
But I could see the calculation in her eyes, her ability to recognize patterns, and the way her mind naturally dissected and reassembled problems into cleaner structures.
She thought she was simply listening while I read reports aloud and she stirred batter or kneaded dough, unaware that her half-attentive glances and casual questions were actually catching mistakes, gaps, and misalignments in our operations.
Unaware that what she was doing — what she did every day — was strategy.
The kind of strategy most men in this world never learned.
Misha and Danil finished their pastries, exchanged a quick nod with me, and headed back toward the door.
Danil paused before leaving. “You baking again tomorrow?”
Addy gestured at the mixing bowl. “Yup. I’ll be here.”
The door shut behind them, silence settling into the kitchen again as I strolled closer.
“You’ve turned my soldiers into sugar addicts.”
She shrugged, shooting me a mischievous little grin. “It’s called improving morale.”
“You also reorganized the dock security schedule before breakfast.”
“That was a fluke.”
“Was it?”
“Maybe don’t leave stuff out if you don’t want me looking at it.” She glanced at me sideways and scrunched her nose up. “Why are you staring at me?”
“I’m thinking.”
Addy snorted. “That’s rarely comforting.”
I leaned against the counter beside her, lowering my voice slightly. “You see patterns other people miss.”
“Yeah, most people just call it overthinking.”
“No. No.” I shook my head slowly. “You calculate.”
Addy looked up at me then, studying my expression like she was trying to decide whether I was serious.
“You’re the criminal mastermind here.”
I felt the corner of my mouth twitch. “And yet you’re the one who prevented a war between us and Rafael’s Familia.”
“That was situational diplomacy. An accident.”
“You also reorganized three operational systems last week.”
She waved me off. “Those were suggestions.”
“And every one of them increased efficiency.”
After a brief pause, she admitted, “… Okay, that one might have been on purpose.”
I studied her for a long moment. The sunlight caught the edge of her hair again, giving it a reddish shimmer, the flour on her cheek was still stubbornly present.
My little devil looked completely harmless … which was precisely why she was so dangerous.
“You do realize,” I drawled, “you’re essentially running half my decision-making process.”
Addy fell silent for a moment, then shrugged.
“Well,” she said, sliding another tray into the oven, “someone has to stop you from solving every problem with violence.”
“I don’t solve every problem with violence.”
“You mobilized an army over a misunderstanding three weeks ago.”
“That was different.”
“So you keep saying.” She rolled her eyes in exasperation.
I reached out and gently brushed the flour off her cheek with my thumb. “Don’t get yourself kidnapped again, and it won’t happen again … probably.”
“Said the original kidnapper,” she muttered under her breath.
A laugh burst out of me. Addy stepped between my slightly spread legs and wrapped her arms around my neck, leaning against me.
We stood in silence, just holding each other’s gaze. My hand settled at her waist, my fingers spreading and spanning her ribcage. Addy studied my face again.
“You can be pretty terrifying, you know that?” Her thumb stroked gently back and forth across the nape of my neck.
This time I didn’t bother trying to fight the smile. “So I’ve been told.”
“But you’re also lucky you met me,” she added, framing my face with her hands.
The luckiest motherfucker alive, in fact.
“I know.”
“Good.” She smiled, her brown eyes shining so bright and warm, I just wanted to stay in this moment forever. “But I’m lucky too.”
“We’re lucky to have found each other,” I corrected.
Unable to hold off any longer, I bent my head and kissed her.
As the smell of cinnamon filled the kitchen and the villa settled into its strange version of domestic peace, I realized something that still surprised me every time the thought surfaced.
She believed she was simply helping; she believed all she was doing was observing … but I knew better.
Addy was the most dangerous kind of strategist this world produced. The kind who didn’t realize she was playing the game.
And I intended to keep her beside me for every move.