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“They stole the shipment. All of it. Cash, crates, everything.”

“Do you know who led the attack?” I asked, even though I had a good idea.

He winced. “Yuriy Orlov, sir. Our cameras caught him in the act.”

A long, slow breath seeped out of me—one part fury, one part admiration, one part… something else entirely. I was going to wring his fucking neck.

“What are your recommendations?” I asked.

“We retaliate. Hard. Publicly. They struck first, and this is a direct challenge to your authority.”

A direct challenge?

Perhaps.

Or perhaps a very loud, very reckless love note from the only man alive stupid enough—and beloved enough—to get away with it.

I lifted my eyes to the lieutenant.

“No retaliation.”

He blinked. “Sir?”

“No.” I steepled my hands on the desk. “Leave it.”

His confusion twisted into fear. “Pakhan, with respect… we cannot let this stand. The other families will think⁠—”

“He won’t get away with it. I’ll personally handle it.”

Silence clawed between us.

At last, he bowed his head stiffly. “Yes, Pakhan.”

“I’ll be in a call for a couple of hours. No one is to disturb me. Absolutely no one.”

He backed out, the door clicking shut, and I let the stillness settle for one full heartbeat. I crossed my office in three slow, measured strides and locked the door. Satisfied that I wouldn’t be interrupted, I walked over to the wall behind my desk and laid my palm against the sensor hidden in the molding. The bookshelf shuddered, gears whispering behind the wall, sliding open to reveal the steel door and the staircase descending into the only part of this building no one else had access to.

No one had understood my reason for changing the base of my operations since returning from Kansas City, and they didn’t need to.

My pulse kicked, but not with anger anymore—with anticipation. Because Yuriy Orlov had robbed me, humiliated me publicly, thrown gasoline on a rivalry we’d spent months pretending was still real. And he hadn’t even bothered to warn me.

The bastard.

The beautiful bastard.

I stepped inside, shut the bookshelf behind me, and descended the stairs, each step humming with the electricity he always pulled out of me—rage, desire, love, chaos, all tangled together. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

At the bottom, I pushed open the reinforced door.

Yuriy lounged on my leather couch like sin incarnate, legs spread in deliberate provocation, flipping lazily through one of my business ledgers as if it were a porn magazine.

He didn’t even glance up.

“Took you long enough,” he drawled. “I had a tough day and contemplated taking a nap.”

I closed the door behind me and locked it hard. He didn’t look up. Not even when the lock clicked home.

I took a step forward. “I heard that you intercepted one of my shipments today.”