Chapter 240
ROO POV
The door closed. I remained standing, staring at the empty space where he’d been.
My gaze drifted back to the phone on my desk. Katya’s phone.
I picked it up again, thumb brushing over the cold screen. Control had always been simple before. Clean. Necessary.
Now it felt like a blade balanced too close to sothing fragile. The silence pressed in after Antonio left.
I stood there for a long mont, unmoving, jaw tight, fingers curled at my sides like I was holding sothing invisible together.
Then I reached for the cigarette case. tal clicked open. One cigarette slid free between my fingers.
Routine. Automatic. I struck the lighter and cupped the fla, inhaling deeply as the tip caught. Smoke filled my lungs, sharp, grounding. Familiar.
I paced slowly at first. asured steps across the length of the office, leather shoes whispering against the floor.
Smoke followed like a shadow, curling toward the ceiling.
Attachnt.
Antonio’s word echoed louder now that he was gone. I scoffed under my breath. A reflex. An old defense.
I’d survived decades without attachnts. Built an empire on the absence of them. Won had co and gone—so beautiful, so dangerous, so foolish enough to think proximity ant significance.
Katya nothing to , she was supposed to be nothing but an enemy kid. I stopped near the window, staring out at the estate.
It had always looked the sa to —territory, structure, control. But now my thoughts refused to stay where I ordered them.
Katya’s face intruded instead. Not frightened. Not pleading. Defiant. Brave in that reckless, untrained way that didn’t belong anywhere near my world.
I took another drag, longer this ti.
The kiss.
My jaw tightened.
I’d dismissed it easily back then. Told myself it was curiosity. Fascination. Admiration for her nerve—for the way she looked at , trying to provoke a reaction, like I wasn’t a monster carved out of blood and consequence.
I’d said it was about dominance. About reminding her who stood above who.That it ant nothing. Smoke left my lungs slowly as mory sharpened.
The way she hadn’t pulled away fast enough. The way I hadn’t either.
I turned, pacing again, faster now.If it had been anyone else, I would’ve forgotten it the mont it ended. Filed it away as a lapse. An indulgence.
But I rembered clearly every single day. The warmth of her breath. The hesitation. The split second where the world narrowed to just that space between us and I hadn’t hated it.
That was the problem. I crushed the cigarette into the ashtray harder than necessary and imdiately lit another.
Was this what attachnt felt like? Not tenderness. Not softness. But vigilance. Fear sharpened into control.
The need to know where she was, who stood too close, what touched her life without my permission. I hadn’t panicked like this when my own cars were bugged.
Hadn’t doubled protocols, hadn’t felt this... pressure in my chest. Because I was expendable.
She wasn’t. The realization settled heavily. I stopped pacing, hand lifting to my mouth as I dragged in smoke and held it there, eyes narrowing.
That was it, wasn’t it?
Not love. Not romance. I wasn’t that foolish. But possession didn’t explain it either.
It was the knowledge that she didn’t belong in this world and yet my world was already circling her like a closing fist.
And I was the one tightening it.
Antonio’s words ca back, quieter now but sharper for it.
Do you ever once consider telling her the truth I exhaled slowly. Truth was a luxury. A liability.
And yet the thought of her finding out from soone else—from a mistake, from blood, from betrayal—sent sothing cold and unpleasant through .
I stared down at Katya’s phone still sitting on my desk. A simple object. Ordinary. Dangerous only because it was hers, given by a forr police man.
"Fascination," I muttered to the empty room, testing the word like a lie on my tongue. It didn’t fit anymore.
I took another drag, eyes darkening, then stopped mid-inhale. The smoke burned longer than usual in my lungs.
I exhaled sharply and set the cigarette down untouched, the ember dying on its own. That alone irritated .
I didn’t abandon routines. I finished things. Always had. I turned back to the desk, settling in the chair. Katya’s phone still lay there, silent, inert, as if it hadn’t just rewritten the periter of my attention.
I stared at it for a second too long before reaching past it and pulling the tablet closer. This wasn’t concern. This was verification.
I woke the screen with a swipe and brought up the estate’s internal feed—rows of caras, hallways and staircases, corners and thresholds I knew by mory more than need.
My fingers moved faster than they should have.
Second floor. Empty corridor. East wing. Still. Garden path. Clear.
I narrowed the grid and switched to the third floor.There.
Katya. She was walking alone down the corridor, steps unhurried but uneven, like she didn’t quite know where she was going—or maybe she did and just didn’t want to admit it. Her shoulders were tense. Her hands were empty.
No phone.
My jaw tightened.
The cara followed her as she turned the corner toward the kitchen wing, disappearing briefly before reappearing under a different angle.
I checked the tistamp. Real-ti. I told myself to keep watching.
I didn’t.
The chair pushed back hard as I stood, movent sharp enough to echo in the office. The decision had already been made before I acknowledged it.
I grabbed my jacket, shrugging it on as I crossed the room, the weight of it grounding in a way the cigarette hadn’t.
By the ti my hand hit the door handle, my pulse had picked up—subtle, controlled, but present.
Annoyingly present.
I stepped into the hallway and headed straight for the elevator.
The doors took too long to open.
I stood there, still as stone, hands loose at my sides, but my foot tapped once against the marble before I caught it. I stilled it imdiately, irritation flaring hotter than it should have.
Nerves were for n who lacked control. The doors slid apart. I stepped inside and pressed the third floor.
The ascent felt slower than it ever had.
My reflection stared back at from the mirrored wall—composed, immaculate, untouched by doubt. If anyone had seen then, they would have seen nothing out of place.
But beneath it, sothing tight coiled low in my chest.
Not fear. Anticipation. Or maybe restraint stretched too thin.
I adjusted my cuff once, unnecessarily. Exhaled slowly through my nose, forcing my pulse to settle, my expression to neutralize.
I wasn’t going to comfort her. I wasn’t going to explain. I was going to observe. Reassess. Make sure nothing else had slipped through my fingers while I wasn’t looking.
That was all. The elevator chid softly as it reached the third floor.
The doors opened and I stopped dead.
Katya was on the floor. Not fully collapsed, folded in on herself near the wall, arms wrapped tight around her middle like she was trying to hold herself together.
Her head was bowed, hair falling forward, shoulders trembling in short, uneven jerks.
The air shifted in my chest, sudden and violent, like sothing had been knocked loose without permission.
"Katya." My voice ca out sharper than I intended, cutting through the corridor but so did soone else’s.
I looked up and it was Nonna.
††
Emotions creaking?
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