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Instinct takes over. I catch her wrist before she can withdraw, my other hand capturing her second wrist as it rises for another strike. In one fluid movement, I press her against the wall, pinning both hands beside her head, bodies aligned from chest to thigh. Her heat sears through the layers of our clothing, her heartbeat thundering against my chest.

"Not professional at all," I murmur, close enough to feel her breath against my lips, to count the gold flecks in her blue eyes. "But certainly illuminating."

Her pupils dilate, breath catching audibly as anger and something else—something far more dangerous—flares between us. For three heartbeats, we remain frozen in this position, the air charged with violence and unwanted desire in equal measure. Her body soft yet unyielding against mine, the scent of her perfume mingling with something more primal, the taste of adrenaline sharp on my tongue.

"Let. Me. Go." Each word precisely controlled despite the rapid pulse I can feel beneath my fingers at her wrists.

"Give me one reason why I should," I challenge, searching her face for answers to questions I shouldn't be asking. "One truth, Anastasia. Just one."

For a moment—brief but unmistakable—something shifts in her expression. Vulnerability bleeds through perfect control, a glimpse of the woman behind the Bratva princess mask. Her lips part slightly, eyes holding mine with unexpected directness. The gold chain at her throat gleams in the sunlight streaming through the windows, drawing my attention to a shadow beneath her blouse—something hanging from the chain, hidden from view.

Then security radio chatter in the hallway breaks the moment. I release her immediately, stepping back to professional distance as she straightens her blouse with trembling fingers. My body aches with the loss of contact, with unresolved tension.

"My father's men are protective," she says, voice steady despite the flush still coloring her cheeks. "I wouldn't recommend physical confrontation as negotiation tactic, Mr. Baranov."

"Noted." I adjust my suit jacket, watching her rebuild her composure. "Though I suspect we both prefer direct approaches over diplomatic evasion."

The door opens before she can respond, Dmitri entering with two junior security officers. His gaze flicks between us, assessing for signs of conflict and finding nothing beyond perfect professional composure.

"Security parameter reports complete," he announces. "The meeting can proceed without interruption."

"Thank you, Dmitri." Anastasia moves to the conference table, professional mask firmly in place once more. "Mr. Baranov and I were just discussing security integration for the western operations."

The meeting proceeds with emotionless discourse after that—diplomatic contacts reviewed, security protocols established, protocols defined. Throughout, we maintain perfect professional interactions, nothing in our behavior suggesting either Paris history or confrontation moments ago.

Yet beneath the surface, something fundamental has shifted. In that brief moment against the wall, I glimpsed something beneath Anastasia's façade of indifference—not just desire, not just anger, but fear. Not of me, precisely, but of something connected to our situation. A vulnerability she guards with lethal determination.

When the meeting concludes three hours later, she gathers her materials. "I'll provide additional documentation regarding the Belgian diplomatic channels tomorrow," she says, addressing Dmitri rather than me. "Please arrange secure courier protocol."

"Of course, Miss Markova." Dmitri's deference to her status remains absolute despite her father's arrangement placing her under my security authority. "Your car is waiting."

I watch her leave, studying the primness of her movements, the perfect Bratva princess performance that reveals nothing of the woman beneath. Something about her troubles me—not just our complicated history, but some unknown variable I can't identify despite years of training in threat assessment.

"Have Yuri follow her," I instruct Dmitri once she's safely distant. "Discreet surveillance only. Report any deviation from expected patterns."

He nods, accepting the command without question. "Standard protocol or enhanced parameters?"

"Enhanced." I gather my own materials, mind already calculating probabilities, identifying patterns, seeking the missing piece that nags at tactical instincts. "I want to know who she communicates with, where she goes, what she does when she believes herself unobserved."

Three hours later, positioned in an unmarked vehicle across from the exclusive spa Anastasia entered forty minutes earlier, I receive Yuri's confirmation: through security cameras, he saw another encrypted communication being sent from a secure device she retrieved from a hidden compartment in her locker. Twenty-seven seconds, routed through multiple proxy servers, content unknown.

Rain patters against the windshield, distorting my view of the spa's entrance. The air in the car grows stale and close, smelling of leather and the coffee gone cold in the cup holder. My reflection in the rearview mirror shows a man I barely recognize—eyes too intense, jaw too tight, something close to obsession in my expression.

Through binoculars, I watch her exit the spa's side entrance, phone nowhere visible, face composed in the perfect Bratva princess mask that reveals nothing of her true thoughts. Beautiful, controlled, and keeping secrets that might prove either useful leverage or dangerous complication to my primary mission.

My chest tightens with something I refuse to name. Something that feels dangerously close to the connection I felt in Paris, when she asked what I feared and actually listened to the answer.

Who are you, really, Anastasia Markova? What game are you playing beneath your father's watchful eye? And how much of what I felt in Paris was genuine connection versus Bratva deception?

Questions without answers—yet. But as she slides into her waiting car, I make silent promise to myself and to the ghosts of my family who demand vengeance: I will discover every secret Anastasia Markova keeps, use every vulnerability she possesses, exploit every opening she provides.

Even if doing so means confronting unwelcome truth—that despite the years of single-minded focus on destroying Mikhail Markov, despite tactical calculation and discipline, something about his daughter has affected me in ways that extend dangerously beyond the mission.

My hand touches the scar across my ribs—the one her fingers traced in Paris darkness, the one she asked about with genuine concern rather than calculation. The memory of her touch burns hotter than the wound that created it. And I feel tired already; tired of pretending not to care, not to want her. Tired of pushing my attraction away in service of my life’s mission: taking down her murderous father.

It makes me wonder, for the first time in five years of planning, whether vengeance is truly worth the cost it demands.

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