Her face drains of color. The mug trembles in her hands before she sets it down carefully on the low table. “He… what?”
She stands slowly, arms wrapping around herself as the reality sinks in. “He is going to drag all of it back…the debts, the night they invaded our house while I hid in the closet. The attempt to marry me off at eighteen. Everything I ran from.” Her voice is cracked and is full of exhaustion. “He knows how much that still haunts me. He’s trying to break me again. Make me the weak link so you’ll push me away.”
The vulnerability in her words hits me harder than any tactical loss ever could. She isn’t angry at that moment. She is tired. Simply bone-deep tired of carrying the weight of her past,of always waiting for it to catch up and ruin whatever fragile safety she has built.
This fiery, sexy woman who handed me the USB drive like a weapon, and who decoded Fadir’s desperate emails with ruthless precision, suddenly looks small under the lamp’s glow.
I cross the room in three strides and stop in front of her, close enough to see the faint tremble in her shoulders but far enough to give her space if she needs it.
“You’re not a liability,” I say quietly. “I knew your real name from the start. It never mattered. You’re not the girl who ran anymore. You’re the woman who's helping take down the man who tried to trap you. Fadir wanted to make you a weakness. He failed. My team buried the leak before it spread. He can’t touch you through your past. Not while I’m standing between you and him.”
She looks up at me, her eyes shining with unshed tears and something deeper, almost like relief mixed with the exhaustion of carrying secrets for so long.
“I’m so tired of it,” she whispers, voice breaking. “Tired of hiding who I am, of waiting for the next person to use my father’s past or my mother’s abandonment against me. Tired of feeling like I’ll always be theKuzmin girlwho almost got sold off to settle someone else’s mess. I just… I want it to stop.”
That honest confession, spoken in the quiet glow of the living-room lamp, is what finally broke the last barrier between us.
The air thickens, heavy and charged with months of carefully contained tension. Respect. Growing attraction. The slow, deliberate dismantling of every wall we have both built.
I reach for her slowly, giving her every chance to pull away. She doesn’t. Instead, she steps into the space between us, her hands coming up to rest lightly against my chest. I cup her face with one hand, thumb brushing gently over her cheek, and lean down.
The kiss is single, slow, and unplanned, and soft at first, almost tentative, as if both of us are testing whether this is real. Then it deepens. Careful. Deliberate. Long overdue. Months of late-night closeness, the public appearances, quiet dinners where her laughter surprised even her, and the way she reached out to touch the scar on my jaw...all of it pours into that kiss.
She tastes like ginger tea and the quiet strength I have come to crave. Her fingers curl into my shirt as she presses closer, a small sound escaping her that sends heat rushing through me.
I wrap my other arm around her waist, pulling her against me with easy restraint, feeling the warmth of her body, and loving the way she fits so perfectly despite the height difference.
When we finally break apart, breathing unevenly, I rest my forehead against hers.
For the first time, I admit it to myself fully.
I want her far beyond revenge, and far beyond the original tactical arrangement. She is no longer the girl I pulled out of Fadir’s warehouse and under his thumb. She was shaking and calling me a monster. She is the woman who has sharpened the blade against her own betrayer, who has sat across from me at midnight decoding his desperation, who has made the penthouse feel less empty.
She is the woman I will protect with everything I have.
I don’t say the words out loud… not yet. But the truth that settles deep in my chest is undeniable.
Fadir has tried to destroy her safety one last time.
Instead, he has pushed us across the finish line.
Tonight, in the quiet glow of the living-room lamp, with the rain still tapping against the windows, the slow war against him no longer feels like the only thing that matters.
Anja Kuzmin matters more. I lift her effortlessly, her legs wrapping around my waist as I carry her down the short hallway. The door clicks shut behind us, sealing us in the quiet darkness broken only by the soft glow of the city lights filtering through the windows.
I set her down gently beside the bed, my hands never leaving her body. She looks up at me, cheeks flushed, lips slightly swollen from our kiss.
I kiss her again, slower this time, letting my hands explore the curves I have only imagined in stolen moments. The silk of her top slips easily over her head, revealing smooth skin that warms under my palms.
She shivers as my fingers trace her waist, then her ribs, reverently mapping every inch. Her own hands are bolder now, tugging my shirt free and running over the hard planes of my chest. Her fingertips brushed the faint scars she had once asked about.
“Alexey…” She breathes my name like a prayer and a plea.
As her warm breath brushes over my cheek, I groan as my body reacts to her.
I lower her onto the bed, following her down, but careful to keep my weight braced so I don’t overwhelm her. We movetogether with a patience that surprises even me, months of restraint giving way to something deeper.
I kiss along her jaw, down the elegant line of her neck, all the while savoring the soft sounds she makes when my mouth finds the sensitive spot just below her ear. Her fingers tightened in my hair, guiding me, encouraging me.
