My hand moves to my belt.
This isn't smart. She's a potential threat. Someone I should eliminate or keep at arm's length until I know who sent her.
But I'm undoing my belt anyway, unzipping my pants, because the image of her soaking wet and terrified in my shower won't leave my head.
I lean back in my chair and stroke myself slowly, eyes half-closed, replaying the encounter.
The way her uniform clung to her body. The curve of her hips. The rapid rise and fall of her chest as she hyperventilated. The feel of her pulse hammering against the gun barrel when I pressed it to her forehead—fast and desperate and alive.
"You'd look so pretty like this,Milaya," I murmur to the empty room, grip tightening. "With my gun to your head. Crying and showing me that darkness you're hiding."
Would she fight? Or would that viper surface and take everything I gave her without breaking?
I imagine pressing her against the shower wall right there, hand wrapped around her throat, feeling her pulse race under my palm. Imagine the heat in her eyes before terror floods back in. Imagine making her show me that fire again—making her earn the right to survive.
My hand moves faster, and Russian falls from my lips without thinking.
"Pok??? ???," I growl.Show me."Show me what you're really made of, little mouse."
The image shifts. Her underneath me. Tears streaming down that pretty face. But her eyes—angry and fiery and daring me to break her completely.
"You'd take it, wouldn't you?" I'm speaking in English now, filth mixing with Russian. "Take my cock, take my violence, take everything, and you'd still look at me with those dark fucking eyes."
I imagine her on her knees in my office. Gun pressed to her temple. Mouth open. That flash of steel in her gaze even while she's choking.
"Khoroshaya devochka," I breathe.Good girl."Show me the viper. Ya khochu uvidet' tvoyu temnotu."I want to see your darkness.
I come hard, jaw clenched, her name mixed with curses in two languages.Fuck.The way she'd look ruined and still defiant.
Afterward, I clean up and sit back in my chair, satisfaction and anticipation warring in my chest.
Tomorrow, I'll start unraveling whatever web she's caught in.
And I'll push her until that viper surfaces again.
Because the mouse is pathetic and useless.
But the viper?
The viper might be exactly what I need.
I pull her file back up and start cross-referencing everything. Viktor Novak's death—listed as home invasion, robbery gone wrong. But the timing is suspicious. Father dies, and two weeks later his daughter shows up in my house with a burner phone, hunting through my private quarters?
No.
Someone sent her. The Italians? Someone testing my defenses?
I'll find out.
And when I do, I'll decide whether Valerie Novak lives or dies.
But first, I'm going to crack her open and see what's really underneath all that fear.
Because that flash of darkness—that fierce, fearless moment when she wasn't afraid to die—that's worth keeping her alive.
At least for now.
I text Mikhail:Full background on Valerie Novak. Phone records, financials, known associates. Everything. By morning.
