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The pain that strikes me is sharp and a reminder of what I can never allow myself.

I pick up my boots, ready to slip them on, but he’s already moving. I’ll give him points for timing, because dodging him is tricky while holding the damn things, but I manage it. I snap my foot out, my heel connecting with his upper thigh, and despite his grunt, he doesn’t stop. He grabs my ankle, twisting and sending me almost sprawling to the floor before I can recover.

“Asshole,” I seethe, slamming my other foot onto his wrist, making him release me. He curses me, but still, he doesn’t slow down, the towel around his hips falling to the ground.

I’m blaming that damn thing for him getting the upper hand.

When my foot comes back down, I slip, and he snatches me up and against him. I squirm, but he’s already turning us, pressing me against the wall with his full weight at my back. “Enough, Lane,” he hisses in my ear. “Enough. Just listen to me.”

I’m done listening. I try to buck him off, but he’s too heavy, and I’ve already expended too much energy as it is.

Damn it. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I do not need this right now.

“Let me go, Ilya. Now.”

“No.” Final. Short. His arms band around me tight, suffocating. “No, Lane. I’m not going to let you go. Because too many people have already done that to you, and I won’t fucking add to that list.”

At first, his words don’t penetrate as I struggle to make him release me, but when they do, they hit me so hard I go very still. Behind the shock, though, is anger. Very real and hot anger. The kind I don’t let myself feel because it makes me want to burn everything down in my way.

I grip it tight, wrestling it back down. Exploding now is not an option. Not yet.

“Do not think you know me, Ilya. I don’t want your placating words and fucking pity.”

“I don’t fucking pity you, Lane, and if you’d shut the hell up and listen to me for two seconds instead of trying to run, I’d be able to fucking tell you that. Jesus Christ, all I wanted was to have a bath and talk. It wasn’t even going to be that deep.”

“A ruse, you mean. To get information about⁠—”

“To finally know something about you other than you being an assassin and a giant pain in my ass. And do you think I like knowing that’s what you think of me? That you think I only want you here to use you? It fucking guts me, Lane. The moment I knew you were working with the Bratva Butcher, that you knew Rayea Antonova, that you were part of that damn school, I knew what they made you. What they convinced you. But the horrors of how you got there, I didn’t fucking know. And I would never wish that on my worst enemy. Let alone the woman I’m utterly obsessed with. The woman I want to make my own.”

My heart pounds, and I try to ignore his words. Reason them out. He’s saying what he thinks I want to hear, trying to make me lower my guard.

Or maybe he actually fucking cares and you’re pushing him away.

I curse that soft voice in my head. A voice that should be locked down so tight in my subconscious that it never appears again.

“You don’t⁠—”

“Don’t fucking tell me shit about what I want, Lane,” he hisses in my ear. “You seem to think that you are the only one whose thoughts and opinions matter in this discussion. It doesn’t. Do you know how much I used to despise you for making me want you? For making me feel this way? I couldn’t fucking breathe some nights with how much I wanted you. I sent men to look for you for years. Then, there you are, when I was so sure I could get past you. And now, here you are; I finally accept that you are what I want, what I need. What I fucking damn well deserve, and you want to leave because you’re freaking the fuck out about shit that doesn’t matter between you and me?”

“Ilya…” Why are his words making my chest hurt? Why am I staying so damn still for him?

He eases back enough to spin me around and slams me back against the wall, hovering over me, blue eyes stormy. “I thought being gentle and easing you into things would be for the best, but that was clearly a fucking mistake. You don’t need gentle, Lane. You need reasons, actions, and you need someone to prove to you that you’re not in this alone anymore. That you don’t have someone trying to pull the strings to use you. And that’s me. It’s going to be fucking me.”

I blink at him. What? What is he talking about?

At my confusion, he lowers his head until his mouth is a hairsbreadth from mine, eyes holding me captive. I’m unable to look away. What kind of spell does he have on me?

“I fucking hate that you’ve been through what you have, Lane. I’m not going to pry for more. Anything I imagine probably won’t be close enough to the actual truth. And eventually you’re going to see that here, with me, you’re fucking safe, but for now, you’re going to listen. You’re going to listen to what I want for a change.

“The only thing I want from you right now is to give us a shot. And behind these walls, in this one room, I want you. The real you. The one you don’t let anyone else see. Not all the fake hair, the manipulation of your face, or anything else you do. I want you to know that I want you for who you really are, not for what you do, or what you could do for me. I want to fucking try, Lane. That’s all I fucking want.”

He makes it sound so simple. He has no idea what he’s asking for.

“You want that until you realize what it means, Ilya.” I don’t raise my voice. I keep it simple, matter-of-fact. “Giving you that, giving you all the things you’re asking for, it may never be possible. And if, by some miracle, it does, do you understand the danger it will put you in? If you ever see the true me, know the full story, you will damn yourself and everyone in this house, including Mila, to their deaths if you ever slip up. Or decide that we’re done. I will kill you. I will have to kill all of them.”

I expect him to roar with rage that I’ve just threatened him or his niece, but he simply nods. “I know. I knew the moment you revealed everything, lisichka. But to borrow the words of my niece, I’m pretty damn good at keeping secrets. Especially ones that are so damn important.”