But I saw it.
Every glance she thought I missed.
The way her eyes kept drifting back to me, then snapping away when I caught them.The way she’d smooth my shirt over her thighs like it grounded her.
She felt it.Every second of it.Every inch.And I knew—down to the bone—that something had started between us.Something that didn’t stop just because we pretended it didn’t exist.And I wasn’t letting another man step into that.
The sound behind me shifted—glass against counter, a soft movement.I turned.
She stood near the kitchen, one hand wrapped around a glass of water.My shirt hung off her frame like it belonged there.Her hair had dried loose, dark and uncontained, falling around her shoulders like it had a mind of its own.
She looked softer in the morning light.Which didn’t make her any less dangerous.
“You’ve been staring out that window for twenty minutes,” she said, voice rough from sleep.“Should I be worried?”
I took a slow sip of cold coffee, buying the second it took to steady the edge in me.
“Depends.”
Her mouth curved.
“There he is,” she murmured, stepping closer.“I was starting to think the crazy Russian had died overnight.”
A breath left me—close enough to a laugh to pass.
“Disappointed?”
“A little,” she said.“He was kind of growing on me.”
I didn’t move when she came to stand beside me.I didn’t step back when her shoulder came within reach.
The tension came with her.Immediate.Alive.
She looked out the window.Then at me.
“They’re coming soon, aren’t they?”
I nodded once.
“Are you scared of him?”I asked.
Her head snapped toward me, sharp enough to cut.
“My brother?”
“Yes.”
A quiet scoff.
“No.”
I believed that.Antonella didn’t scare easily.That was part of the problem.
“What then?”
She hesitated.Too long.
Then, quieter, “The idea of him dragging all of you into something I should’ve handled before it got this far.”
