He held my gaze for several seconds as if he was trying to understand me while I stayed silent. He nodded once and finally left, and the penthouse fell quiet again. But it was no longer just glass and polished floors; I had turned it into a command center. Surveillance monitors flickered in the study, and secure lines hummed faintly beneath the surface of normalcy.
But the only thing that mattered was that in the center of it all, Elisse moved like a storm waiting to happen. I walked outof the study and found her near the windows in the living room, standing barefoot on the cold, marbled floors. To my surprise, she was wearing one of my shirts, which was a little too big on her and fell mid-thigh. Her hair was loose and wild, and she was staring down at the city like she was memorizing exits in a world that was now allowing her to escape. She didn’t turn when I approached.
“You’ve increased security,” she said, making me realize how she noticed everything, no matter how much I tried to contain it from her.
“Yes.”
“I noticed.”
“I’m aware.”
She crossed her arms and finally turned around.
“So I gather my brothers are beginning to circle around us?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re just waiting for them to come?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes were sharper now than they had been days ago and a little less raw and a little more calculating. I kept staring, unsure of what she was thinking. Elisse knew exactly when to shut off her emotions and when to reveal them.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“No.”
“Why? It seems to me as if you thrive in tension.”
“I do. But that doesn’t mean I love it.”
Her mouth pressed into a thin line.
“You don’t look worried.”
“I’m not.”
“You should be.”
“I’ve considered the variables.”
“You need to stop treating this like a chessboard.”
“It is one. Everything in life is a chessboard if you simply let it be.”
Her gaze flared.
“I’m not some piece of chess that you can play around with.”
“You’re not, Elisse, and you know I am not playing with you.”
“Then what am I, Fyodor?”
I held her gaze.
“You are mine.”
The word slipped out before I filtered it, and her breath caught as specks of anger flickered in her eyes, but something else followed. She looked away first since that too had become a pattern. We moved around each other in strange, silent choreography while she prowled and I observed. She tested boundaries, and I held them. But somewhere between security briefings and controlled leaks, something had shifted between us. Dinner had become routine, even though it was neither scheduled nor announced. It was simply expected. The first night, she had refused to sit with me, but the second, she had hovered near the island even though she didn’t join.
