But when I got up to leave the dining room, his gaze had followed me like a thread tightening around my throat.
Misha Petrov hadn’t come for small talk.
He came to measure what was his.
The problem?
He looked at me like I already belonged to him.
I gave up trying to lie still.
My limbs felt restless. My thoughts louder than the silence.
Gabriela had cried herself to sleep. The sound haunted the corners of my mind, soft and fractured.
But it wasn’t what drove me to leave the room.
It was him.
Sitting at our table like a ruler surveying conquered land.
Looking at me like I was something he’d lost once—and would burn the world down to possess again.
Barefoot, I slipped out. The tiles were cool against my skin, the air thick with tension.
Guards avoided the guest wing. Even they didn’t like lingering near his door.
I found him in the small study at the end of the hall. The door cracked open, golden light spilling into darkness like it had escaped something feral.
My heart kicked.
Earlier, I thought I could face him, say what needed to be said and leave with my spine intact. But standing in the doorway now, watching the quiet stillness in him, I realized something unsettling.
This wasn’t a man you cornered.
This was a man who made people disappear. And even in my father’s house, I wasn’t sure I’d leave the room breathing if he decided I shouldn’t.
A cold spike of dread crawled up my spine.
I turned. Quietly. Slowly.
I would fight for Gabriela. But not like this. Not alone. Not tonight.
I needed noise. People. Somewhere I could forget the way his eyes made me feel like prey.
La Cima was a bad idea.
But it was the only one I had.
The moment I stepped inside La Cima, the heat, bass, and scent of tequila wrapped around me like a bad decision I didn’t want to walk away from. I needed distraction.
Strobe lights flickered over designer drugs, silk shirts, and Bratva soldiers in fitted blazers pretending not to be watching everyone.
Yuri leaned against the VIP bar, a drink in hand, his smirk too polished, like he’d rehearsed it. A girl clung to his arm, her lipstick smudged, but his eyes locked on me. He shoved heraside, not gently, and the flicker of cruelty in his gaze made my stomach twist. “Thought you weren’t coming,” he said, pulling me close, his fingers digging into my waist a shade too hard.
“I was bored,” I said, forcing a smile, but his touch felt wrong, like a lie I’d been ignoring.
He laughed. “There’s my girl.”
