Page 28 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

Dmitri turns from the window. “You’ll get access when Maksim approves it and when I’m certain you won’t use it to damage this estate from inside.”

Heat climbs up my neck. He thinks I’m reckless, and that’s insulting. He thinks I’m amateur reckless, which is unforgivable.

“I’d never be that obvious.”

The corner of his mouth almost moves.

It makes me furious. I don’t want little echoes of Boston, the man who laughed at my stupid organ-theft joke. I want this version to stay monstrous enough to hate without splinters.

“Rules,” he says.

“Ah. My favorite genre.” I fold my arms and give him the smile I save for Patrick’s favors.

“You won’t leave this wing without an escort. You won’t speak to men outside approved staff unless necessary.”

I lift two fingers, as if requesting permission in class. “Does breathing require written permission, or can I freestyle?”

“Don’t test the house.” His voice hardens.

“The house seems very emotionally fragile.” I keep mine light.

“The house has survived worse than your sarcasm.” He turns to leave.

“So have I.”

That cuts somewhere. I see it, one faint lifting of his shoulder, and my anger surges. He has no right to react as if I have wounded him. He left. He walked out of my life without a number, a note, or the common decency to be less memorable in bed.

I found out I was pregnant seven weeks later in a pharmacy bathroom because I couldn’t wait until I got home. The test sat on the sink while some stranger’s toddler banged on the stall door and sang about fish. I remember staring at those two lines and thinking, with insane clarity, that I knew exactly who the father was.

Dmitri Antonov. A Volkov man. Dangerous and gone.

I could have reached him through Patrick. Patrick had contacts, or claimed he did. I could have swallowed my pride, my fear, my rage, and sent word to the man who left my bed before dawn and told him that I was pregnant with his child.

I didn’t. Maybe Dmitri had shown me what he did with women after touching them. Abandonment scared me, but losing control of my life and my child scared me more. If he came back, he wouldn’t come alone. Men like him didn’t learn they had sons and then ask how a woman felt about it. Cars would arrive first, then lawyers, guards, names on paper, and rules older than mercy. Blood, protection, family, they’d call it whatever made the taking sound noble.

I would call it losing my child.

Now here he stands, five years late, making rules in a suite with locked windows. Life has a sick sense of timing.

“You look angry.” He faces me.

“I’m in a foreign country under armed custody.” I throw my arms out so hard, my shoulders hurt. “My brother apparently used me as a coupon for organized crime, remember?” I step closer, and the room tilts for a second from hunger, lack of sleep, and pure rage. I keep standing anyway.

“Patrick placed you in danger.” Dmitri chews through every word, but his face stays calm enough to make me want to throw something.

“No, Patrick betrayed me. You placed me here.”

“To keep you alive.”

“You say that like a broken record with a gun.” I step closer before caution can catch me. “That smug little moral loophole. You men love it. You build a cage, throw a soft blanket over the bars, call it protection, and expect the woman inside to admire the craftsmanship.”

His expression darkens. “Careful.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

The guards outside the door don’t move. Russian walls are probably trained in discretion.

I turn toward the door, and Dmitri catches my wrist before I take a second step.