Page 32 of Forbidden Boss

“Why are you scared?”

“I’m not.”

I stop a step short of crowding her.

“You want to know what I don’t tolerate?” I ask quietly. “Betrayal. You can hate me, yell at me, throw a couch into my office, make my men miserable. Apply to twenty jobs and move across town if that keeps you breathing. But if you ever work against me, if you think you can trade what you know for safety,you’ll be wrong. It won’t save you and it won’t save whoever thinks they’re helping you.”

“So this is the part where you threaten me,” she says.

“No,” I say. “This is the part where I spell out the rules so you don’t mistake patience for weakness. You don’t talk to the Feds. You don’t talk to a rival. You don’t leave the building without my men. You don’t do anything that looks like an exit without telling me first. You break any of that, I respond like the man I am.”

“The mobster,” she says flatly.

“Thepakhan,” I correct. “I’m not gentle about a line that simple. You step over it, I cut you off at the knees.”

“I have done everything you want,” she snaps. “I’ve accepted my role as a prisoner of your stupid rules. I’ve stopped arguing, I’ve stopped being a menace to your men. You have no reason to treat me like this.”

“You’ve gone quiet,” I say. “That’s worse.”

“Nothing I say matters,” she fires back. “You made the rules and pretended I agreed. If I scream, your guard blinks. If I run, your men chase. If I breathe wrong, I’m told to be grateful I’m alive because of you.”

“You are alive,” I say.

“I am,” she says. “And I want to choose what I do with being alive.”

“Choose it inside the lines.”

She laughs once. “Inside the linesyoudrew.”

“Tell me if you’re planning to run,” I say.

“I’m not,” she says. Smooth. Practiced. Useless.

“Then return the suitcase.”

“No.”

“You won’t get away.”

“You think you can control everything,” she says.

“I protect what’s mine,” I say, holding her gaze. “That includes you.”

“There you go, acting like you own me again,” she spits.

“If that’s how you look at it,” I say quietly. “I won’t debate it.”

We stare each other down. Fear and fury look the same until you learn to listen to breathing patterns. Hers is shallow. She’s scared. I know I did that. I should care. I don’t. Fear makes people honest.

“My men will keep following you,” I say, lifting my phone. “Every purchase you make, every route you have them drive, every person you talk to, I will know about it. If that makes you angry, good. If it keeps you safe, better.”

“Safe from what?” she asks bitterly. “For all I know, you took that picture yourself to trap me. I’m tired of it, Lev.”

“That’s fine with me.” I shrug. “It makes no difference what you think because I’m running this show. I know what’s best and that’s why I call the shots.”

She shakes her head like she’s trying to throw the moment off. “Are we done?”

“For now,” I say. “Go back to work.”