“Considering how badly you were bleeding yesterday in my car,” he said at last, voice low, even, “I didn’t expect you to be upright.”
I swallowed. My throat felt tight. “I heal fast,” I said, then corrected myself. “But... thank you. For saving me, Mr. Volkov.”
Something flickered across his face at the sound of his name—surprise, sharp and fleeting.
“You know who I am.”
“Yes.” I forced a careful smile, the kind that didn’t bare teeth. “I already met your... household. Miss Seraphina. And your son. Vanya. They introduced themselves. Welcomed me.” I paused, choosing my words with surgical care. “They told me a little about you.”
His eyes narrowed—not in anger, but calculation.
For a long beat, he simply watched me. As if waiting for a tell. A crack. Something familiar he could almost—but not quite—place.
Then he gestured toward the seating area near the fireplace. Two low leather chairs faced one another across a narrow table.
“Please.”
I crossed the room slowly, every step deliberate. I felt his gaze follow me, tracking the subtle hitch in my stride, the way my shoulders stiffened when I lowered myself into the chair.
I sat, folding my hands in my lap to keep them from shaking.
He took the opposite seat, long legs stretching out as he leaned back with controlled ease.
He pressed a discreet button on the side table.
A soft click.
Hidden lights bloomed to life, bathing the room in a warm, amber glow. Firelight flickered across stone and glass, catching in the angles of his face, carving him into something both familiar and unbearably distant.
Footsteps approached from the hall.
An older woman entered—mid-fifties, solid, composed. Silver threaded her dark hair, which was pulled into a severe bun.
She wore a black dress beneath a crisp white apron. Her eyes flicked to me briefly: sharp, assessing, then neutral.
“Agnes,” Dmitri said without taking his eyes off me. “A Negroni. Dry.”
“Immediately, sir.”
She inclined her head and retreated, leaving silence in her wake.
The kind of silence that pressed.
My heart hammered painfully against my ribs.
I hated that sitting across from him still did this to me.
That memories surged without permission—the boy with the reckless smile who’d met my eyes across a crowded room when I was fifteen; the man who’d once whispered my name like a promise against my throat; the same man who’d later called me worthless, locked me away, ordered the termination of a life growing inside me as if it were a scheduling inconvenience.
And yet here I was.
Still reacting.
Still unraveling under the weight of his attention.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
The question was deceptively simple.