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But I don’t. I don’t do any of those things. Instead, I fuckingwatch.

She knows. She has to know how she affects me.

When she finally sits up, it’s deliberate, the queen arching her back and meeting my gaze. “Slept like a baby,” she says with a yawn. “Oh, wait.” She presses a finger to her lips. “Was I supposed to be scared? Being caged and all?”

She tips her head to the side.

Baby.I’m stuck on the word baby. I’ve been so obsessed with the idea of her carrying our baby, anchoring her to me, that just hearing the word plants the vision of her heavy with pregnancy, carryingmy child…

I grunt and reach for her, but she’s already sliding out of the cage, unfurling like she has all the time in the world. Her gaze is amused. Calculating.

“I figured you’d fucking like it.”

Standing in front of me, she blinks long, long lashes at me and drawls as she reaches a hand to trace my bare shoulder. “The question is, big guy. Didyou?”

“Enjoy you caged?” I grab her hair and tug it back, baring her neck. I imagine what it would be like waking up to this woman curled up to me, her body rounded and full with my child, my palm pressed to her swollen abdomen. I lick my lips and swallow hard. “You know I do. You know I love having control over you.”

But something’s changed.

She’s not just playing the game anymore. She’senjoyingit.

And fuck me. I am too.

We head to the kitchen to make breakfast. She asks me questions about my routines, who works for me, and what I do for the Bratva.

“You know,” she says, after learning that I’m the one who manages cyber security and hacking, “our skills paired together would be straight-upfire.”

She’s not wrong. Cyber security and forgery? We could rewrite history. Dark, twisted history, but it would be history nonetheless.

“I want to know how you left things with the Irish.” I spread butter on toast and cut it into triangles before I push the plate to her. She eyes it thoughtfully and doesn’t eat it.

“If I were going to poison you, I wouldn’t do it intoast,” I mutter. Would’ve poisoned the vodka last night or just skipped formalities and jabbed her pretty little neck again.

Her bright blue eyes meet mine. “Wait, you thought I was afraid of being poisoned?” She takes a huge bite.

I shrug.

“Nah, I just read something somewhere about cutting toast that way, triangles instead of rectangles, and I—” She shakes her head as my phone rings. “Nothing.”

She’s perched on the barstool, happily munching toast as if she hasn’t spent the last month fighting for her life.

I answer the phone with a scowl. Rodion.

“Yeah?”

“You talked to the Irish?”

I scowl at the phone. Anissa chews her toast, but her focus is narrowed on me.

“No. Why?”

“O’Rourke’s in town. What the fuck does he want to do with us?”

I shake my head. “I thought we were allies now.”

“We are. Allies who have each other’s backs, but you don’t just show up unannounced. We’re allies, but we’re notfriends.”

“Where is he?”