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I’m just opening my mouth to make his life unbearable when the heavy container door scrapes open.

Anton steps in first, then Alex, and then Tristan.

And just like that, every smartass thought in my head falls down a staircase. My heart gives this stupid, embarrassing little jolt that honestly offends me on a personal level, because fuck me sideways, it has only been two days since Tristan fucked my throat like he had something to prove, then bent me into the mattress afterward and fucked me like a madman as if he was trying to either ruin me or exorcise himself. Maybe both. And apparently that is still very much alive in my body, because one look at him and my stomach starts behaving like it’s auditioning for a goddamn romance movie.

Around us, our men greet them, voices echoing through the metal container, but the noise blurs at the edges. It all goes thin and distant the second Tristan’s eyes find mine.

And then—because the universe enjoys humiliating me—I feel heat rise to my face.

I’m blushing. I’m actually blushing.

I’m twenty-two years old, not fourteen anymore. This is outrageous.

“Are you good?” Alex asks as he reaches me, giving me one of those looks that says he has noticed far more than I would prefer.

“Fantastic,” I say brightly. “Never better. Living my best life.”

He raises a brow, but says nothing.

Traitor.

I stop pretending to pay attention to the room, because I honestly can’t concentrate on shit. Nervous isn’t even the right word for this. It’s worse. It’s like being trapped in the same room as your lifelong crush after he’s already had his hands all over you, and now your body doesn’t know whether to melt, combust, or throw itself out a window.

I’ve had the fattest, most catastrophic crush on this man for eight years, and now that we’re doing all this filthy, reckless, life-altering shit together, it’s somehow gotten worse. Like my feelings took one look at reality and decided to become even more humiliating out of spite.

Meanwhile Tristan, of course, looks perfectly composed.

Because naturally he does.

He moves towards the prisoners with the same cool, brooding precision he wears like a second skin, and begins questioning them. Some answer. Most don’t. A few just glare at him through swollen eyes and split lips, all doomed bravado and no common sense.

Our men shift around the room, tense and impatient, but Tristan doesn’t even blink. More than once, someone starts toward a prisoner when they refuse to answer, and each time Tristan shuts it down with barely a word. No shouting. No wasted movement. Just a look, a tone, and suddenly grown men twice as feral as they were a second ago step back into line.

He’s so disgustingly good at this.

“I’ve got everything I need from them,” Tristan says at last.

He glances at Anton, calm as ever, like he’s discussing paperwork instead of men tied to chairs in a metal container.

“They still haven’t said who sent them, but I don’t need that anymore.” His gaze flicks over the prisoners once, dismissive and cool. “Do whatever you want with the rest. Keep at least two alive, though. They’ll be useful later.”

“Sure,” Anton replies. “See you later at your office.”

Tristan nods, then heads towards the exit. His eyes meet mine, steady and unreadable in that deeply irritating Tristan way, like there’s a whole language living behind them that I still haven’t learned how to speak. There’s no smile. No obvious softness. Nothing anyone else in this room would clock as unusual.

My stomach drops anyway because what the fuck was that? What did that mean?

Was it nothing? Was it everything? Was it his way of saying he saw me? Was it a warning? A reassurance? A promise? Was it just Tristan being Tristan—maddeningly composed, maddeningly careful, giving me one glance and somehow managing to ruin my ability to think in full sentences?

God.

This is what I get for sleeping with a man whose entire personality is built out of restraint, expensive silence, and emotional terrorism.

I’m still doing this to myself when one of the men strapped to his chair decides to open his mouth as the container door closes.

“Asshole organization,” the man mutters, blood drying at the corner of his cracked lip. Either too stupid to know when to stay quiet, or too broken to care anymore. “Think you’re something. Our people will come for you, all of you.”

“This motherfucker.” Kyle, Anton’s right-hand man, growls—already moving forward, but Anton lifts a hand, stopping him cold.