"I didn't expect the Bratva's tech queen to be quite so... captivating," Lorenzo's voice dripped with irony as he observed Galina, who was absorbed in deciphering a web of encrypted data.
Galina's gaze remained fixed on her screens, her expression a...
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I stand in the dim silence of the room, the air thick with unspoken tension. Viktor's whisper slithers through the shadows, barely a breath between us, yet it cuts through the stillness like a blade.
"They're here," he murmurs, voice hushed, as though speaking louder might disrupt the fragile web of anticipation that clings to the night.
"I'm aware," I reply, my own words drifting into the dark, heavy with the weight of what tomorrow will bring. The engagement to Lorenzo Marchetti looms over me like a storm cloud, and tonight we are to finalize the terms of a union that, though forged in strategy, will soon be wrapped in the illusion of affection.
Viktor, ever the steadfast sentinel at my side, has insisted on accompanying me, his sharp instincts drawing him to the notion that Lorenzo is little more than a wolf in sheep's clothing. According to Viktor, a bastard through and through. He is the only one who sees me—not as the cold strategist, but as something delicate and worth protecting.
The closet, a sanctuary of fabric and fraying nerves, stands in contrast to the whirlwind of thoughts spinning in my mind. Viktor moves within it with the grace of a man used to orchestrating everything around him, as though each piece of clothing were an instrument in a symphony, each choice calculated, deliberate. He is searching, sifting through the hangers with his trained fingers, like an artist hunting for the perfect stroke to complete his masterpiece.
And then, as if struck by inspiration, his hands pause, hovering over the black section of my wardrobe. A smile—a wicked, knowing curve of his lips—spreads across his face, the dimples on either side of his mouth deepening with the mischief that always simmers beneath his surface. Viktor's eyes flash with that glint I've come to know so well: it's the look he wears when he knows something I don't.
He pulls it free—a black dress, sleek and seductive in its simplicity, fabric shimmering faintly in the soft light, as if it's a dark promise unfolding. The way the material glides through his fingers, like liquid, sets something tight and anxious in my chest, but I don't show it. Not yet. Not with Viktor looking at me as though I am an enigma he hasn't solved, and perhaps never will.
