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Yuri’s breathing is steady now.

Not strong—far from it—but even. Slow. The color has crept back into his face, banishing that sickly gray pallor that hovered too close to death. The fever’s broken under the young doctor’s hands, and the bleeding has stopped. His leg is still a mess, still reeking of infection, but it’s clean, dressed, bound tight.

For now, he’ll live, and it’s because of her.

I stand just outside the doorway, watching her. She doesn’t know I’m there yet—she’s too focused, too consumed by the wound, her hands moving quickly over the supplies we gave her. She’s tying off the fresh gauze, fingers stained with Yuri’s blood. Her breathing is shallow, skin pale beneath the smears, hair clinging to her face. But her eyes—they’re sharp. Focused.

Controlled. That’s what gnaws at me.

She should be crumbling. Shaking. Begging. I’ve watched grown men piss themselves with a gun to their head. I’ve seen killers fold under half the pressure she’s been under in the last hour. Yet here she is—trembling, yes, but not breaking. Not unraveling. There’s too much steel in her spine for that.

And it irritates me more than I’d like to admit.

I step inside and let the floorboards creak beneath my boots. She startles at the sound, drawing back from Yuri as if burned.

“He’s stable,” she says quickly, wiping her hands on the hem of her shirt. “He needs rest. No movement. I did what I could.”

I say nothing. Just watch her.

Her eyes flash with something—fear, still, but also defiance. A flicker of something else too. Something that doesn’t belong in someone tied up in a strange place, with a gun still within reach of my hand.

“I want to go home,” she says after a long pause.

I study her face. The tension in her jaw. The flicker in her throat when she swallows. “No,” I say.

Her mouth opens slightly, then closes. “You said if I kept him alive—”

“You did.”

“Then let me go.”

“You kept him alive.” I move closer, my voice even. “That doesn’t mean I’m done with you.”

I motion to Boris, who’s already stepped into the room behind me. “Take her to the back room. Lock it.”

She flinches. “What?”

“Don’t give her a means of escape,” I add. “Nothing sharp.”

“You said—”

“I said what I needed to keep him breathing,” I interrupt. “You’re not stupid, Doctor. You knew that wasn’t a promise.”

Boris reaches for her arm.

She jerks back. “Don’t touch me.”

Earlier, Boris told me her name. I say it now through a clenched jaw. “Elise,” I warn.

“Don’t—say my name like that.” Her voice cracks—not with fear this time, but rage. “You think you’re powerful because you have a gun, because you order people around and they flinch when you look at them?”

I don’t move. I let her words hang in the air, her breath catching from the force of them.

“You’re nothing but a coward,” she spits. “A coward hiding behind threats and weapons. I don’t care how many people you’ve hurt—it doesn’t make you strong. It makes you pathetic.”

Boris tenses. His hand’s already gone to his side, half expecting me to draw mine. But I don’t.

I take a breath, and then I smile.

Not real. Not warm. The kind of smile that shows teeth and nothing behind them.

“You’re lucky I like arrogance,” I murmur. “It makes things… interesting.”

She glares at me, lips pressed into a thin line.

“Lock her up,” I repeat, stepping back.

This time, she doesn’t fight when Boris takes her arm—just turns her head away as he leads her down the hall. Her steps are stiff, furious. She disappears into the dark without another word.

The door slams, the bolt slides home.

I stand there for a moment longer, listening. The silence that follows shouldn’t feel heavy, but it does.

***

Later, in my own room, I pour a drink I don’t touch. The fire crackles low in the hearth, barely more than embers now. The night has turned colder—wind clawing at the eaves, branches ticking against the window like bony fingers. I lean back in the chair and stare at nothing.

I’ve broken men for less than what she said to me. I’ve shattered bones, burned skin, emptied whole magazines into people who raised their voices the wrong way. I know what I am. I know what it takes to keep power in this world.

I can’t stop hearing her voice.

“You’re nothing but a coward.”

The words cut sharper than they should.

I grit my teeth and take a sip of the drink. It burns down my throat, but it doesn’t quiet the echo.

She should’ve cried. Should’ve begged. Instead, she looked at me—like she saw through the silence, the control, the violence. Like she knew something I didn’t want her to know.

It’s not fear keeping her alive. It’s defiance.

I tell myself it’s arrogance. Just a doctor with too much education and too little understanding of the world she’s been dragged into. Just another fool who doesn’t know how close she is to bleeding out on a floor she’ll never see again.

Something about her lingers.

***

Yuri stirs with a ragged groan.

I’m already in the chair beside the mattress when it happens. The sun hasn’t crested fully over the treetops outside, and the light slanting through the window is gray and thin, barely cutting through the gloom in the room. The fireplace burns low behind me, but the warmth barely touches the chill that’s settled into the floorboards, the walls, my bones.

He’s been unconscious since the doctor— Elise —patched him up. I’ve checked his vitals myself. Not because I don’t trust her work, but because I don’t trust anything I can’t verify with my own eyes.

Yuri’s been nothing but dead weight for the last twelve hours, breathing just enough to remind me he’s still in this world.

Until now.

He moves again, eyelids fluttering, lips parting as his head rolls toward me. His skin is still pale, clammy, and his voice when it comes is barely a whisper—just breath and desperation tangled together.

“Kolya….”

I lean forward, tension snapping through my spine like a trigger.

“I’m here,” I say, voice low. “Speak.”

He swallows, mouth moving, but no sound comes for a moment. Then—

“…wasn’t supposed… the deal….” A shallow breath. “…Viktor….”

My hand fists against my thigh. “Viktor who?”

Yuri’s eyes roll back. His mouth opens again, trying to shape the words. But they don’t come. A garbled syllable. A cough. Then his body goes limp again, breath wheezing out in short, uneven spurts. His face twists in pain, and just like that, he’s gone again—dragged back under by fever and fatigue.

I don’t move. Not for a long time.

Viktor.

I need more. The name doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t fit, but Yuri isn’t the type to throw lies when his brain’s half fried. Which means whatever he was trying to say—

“Boss,” Boris says from the doorway. “She’s ready.”

Perfect timing.

I stand and adjust my cuffs, then nod for him to bring her in. My pulse is steady, but there’s a sharp edge building in my chest, something hot and bitter. This was supposed to be over by now. Clean. Contained.

Instead, I’m left chasing ghosts and riddles from a man who should’ve died before I ever laid eyes on him again.

Footsteps echo down the hall—hers. Light, measured. No panic in them. No fight, either. She’s learned enough to be quiet, but not enough to fear me properly.

Elise enters the room with her chin lifted, posture stiff. Her arms are crossed, and her face is clean this time—though her clothes still carry the marks of last night. Wrinkled, stained at the collar. She hasn’t been allowed to change.

Her eyes land on Yuri, then flick to me. “He’s awake?”

“Briefly.”

“Vitals?”

“Shaky.”

“Let me see.”

I step aside but say nothing. She moves to Yuri’s side, her fingers already reaching for his pulse, checking his temperature, adjusting the angle of his leg with delicate, practiced hands. She’s not shaking now. Not like before. There’s still tension in her jaw, still tightness in her shoulders, but her movements are confident.

Too confident.

“Any idea what he said?” she asks without looking at me.

I narrow my eyes. “You’re here to check his pulse. Not debrief.”

She hums. “Right. God forbid I step outside the very generous boundaries you’ve set.”

My teeth grind together.

She leans over Yuri, brushing his hair back slightly. “He’s going to crash again if you don’t start a proper antibiotic regimen. These half measures won’t last.”

I take a slow step forward. “You forget who’s in control here.”

She finally looks at me then, really looks. Green eyes sharp beneath the exhaustion, her mouth tight with something between sarcasm and barely restrained rage.

“No,” she says. “I know exactly who’s in control. The man holding the gun. The one who doesn’t like questions. Or opinions. Or women who don’t cower when he raises his voice.”

I stare at her. One beat. Two.

The anger is instant—hot and hard, rising like floodwater before I even realize I’ve crossed the distance between us. My hand snaps out and grabs her by the front of her shirt, dragging her closer until we’re almost nose to nose.

“You think this is a game?” I growl.

Her breath catches, but she doesn’t flinch, not even a little.

“I think you’re scared,” she says, voice trembling but still loud. “Not of me. Of whatever it is you’re not saying.”

My grip tightens, but I don’t raise my hand further. I could. Part of me wants to. To remind her what kind of man she’s speaking to.

Instead, I press her back against the wall, arm barring her in.

“You have no idea what kind of danger you’re in,” I say, quieter now.

“No,” she breathes. “I know what kind of man you are.”

That stops me, just for a second. Then I let her go, shoving back a step.

She stumbles slightly but catches herself, shoulders straightening like she’s trying to pretend the wall wasn’t just holding her up. Her eyes don’t drop. Not even now. There’s fire in them, bright and furious, and I hate how much I notice it.

“Elise,” I say her name like a warning.

She lifts her chin. “What, are you going to kill me for telling the truth?”

The air between us tightens, heavy with heat and something else I don’t want to name. Yuri groans behind her, dragging her attention away. She turns on instinct, kneeling beside him again, all that fury replaced by calm precision.

I watch her check his breathing, adjust the IV, brush sweat from his brow with steady hands.

Like nothing happened, like I’m not still standing here, jaw clenched, hands flexing at my sides.

“Give him more fluids,” she says without looking up. “If you want him awake long enough to talk, I’ll need more antibiotics. And ice. His fever’s climbing again.”

Her voice is tight, professional, but her body still hums with defiance.

I nod once to Boris, who slips from the room.

Elise doesn’t thank me.

I stand in the doorway, watching her, trying to remind myself what she is—leverage. Nothing more.

It’s getting harder to believe that. Harder still to look at her and not wonder how a stranger carved her way under my skin.