Page 8

Chapter 8

Power Play

Vasiliyi

S he moves through my club like a ghost born of fire—untouchable, unbothered, and yet burning holes into the back of my mind with every sway of her hips.

I watch her through the cameras like a sinner kneeling at confession.

Each screen flickers with some new version of her—graceful, composed, that flawless mask she wears like armor. But I’ve studied her too long not to see what lies beneath. The micro-expressions. The slip of fingers when she thinks no one’s watching. The way her mouth tightens when she walks past my office, as if the air there still clings to her skin.

Good.

She should feel me everywhere.

She should be haunted.

Her control didn’t break the night I bent her to my will, but it cracked. And I know exactly how to split it wide open.

She’s a viper in silk—too beautiful, too smart, too fucking tempting for her own good. Watching her play waitress is agony. That black dress is meant to make her disappear into the crowd, but on her, it becomes something else. A lure. A threat. A fucking invitation.

And all I can think about is the way she looked on her knees.

Eyes glassy. Lips slick. That perfect mouth worshipping me like I was the only god she’d ever known.

The memory doesn’t satisfy.

It starves.

Because she didn’t beg the way I wanted her to. She didn’tbreak. Not yet. And I won’t be satisfied until she does—until I’ve peeled back every layer of that icy defiance and found the ache underneath. The part of her thatwantsto belong to me.

My fingers tighten around the glass in my hand. The crystal creaks in protest.

Three fucking days since I tasted her. Since I pulled her apart with nothing but my voice and my hands. And all I’ve done since is fantasize about doing it again. Slower. Rougher.Deeper.

The intercom hisses to life.

“Table seven needs attention,” Jaromir’s voice crackles with warning. “The client’s getting...handsy.”

My attention snaps to the screen.

And then I see him.

A suit who’s got Galina’s wrist in his grip—tight, forceful, like he thinks he can own her with nothing but a black card and a smirk.

Rage detonates beneath my skin.

He doesn’t know who he’s touching.

He doesn’t know who she belongs to.

I’m on my feet before the thought finishes forming, the glass abandoned on my desk, sweating into the grain of the wood like a memory I no longer care to keep.

The club floor hits me in waves—heat, perfume, the low throb of bass—but I don’t feel any of it. Not really. I only see her. And him.

He’s already dead. He just hasn’t realized it yet.

I stalk toward table seven, each step soaked in calm, calculated violence.

“Just one drink, baby,” the bastard is saying, his hand still clamped on her wrist like it’s his right. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

Her expression doesn’t shift. But I know her well enough now to see it—the tension rippling just beneath her skin, the way she leans back half a step, keeping her tray steady, her smile cool.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible, sir,” she says, tone clipped velvet. “Club policy.”

Ice wrapped in honey. Dangerous as hell.

“I don’t think you know who you’re talking to.” His grip tightens.

And that’s when she strikes.

“Actually, I do know who you are, Mr. Antonov.” Her voice doesn’t rise—it slices. “Which is why I’m certain you’re far too intelligent to cause a scene.”

There she is.

My beautiful, reckless, infuriating lisichka .

But she miscalculated one thing.

I’m already on the scene.

And I’m coming straight for him.

The bastard’s face blooms red, blotchy and indignant, his ego inflamed more than his skin. He yanks her wrist, and the tray goes flying. Crystal crashes to the ground in glittering ruin, splashing high-end liquor across polished floors and his overpriced shoes.

The sound gets swallowed by the club’s bass, but the image burns.

She stumbles. He sneers.

That’s all I need.

I’m on him in a breath.

Not with words.

Not with warning.

My hand clamps down on his shoulder, steel forged in Siberia, and he jolts like he’s been shot.

“Remove your hand from my employee.” The words hiss between my teeth, low and deliberate.

A warning.

A sentence.

Antonov turns, confusion swimming in his eyes until recognition finally cuts through the vodka haze. His face falters, and that fear—the kind that curls cold in a man’s spine when he realizes he’s touched something sacred—flickers behind his gaze.

Good.

But it’s not enough.

He lets go of her like she burns, and she does, stumbling back, balance stolen but not her grace. She straightens quickly—always the actress—but I clock the way her fingers twitch.

He branded her.

That’s going to cost him.

“Volkov—” he stammers, eyes darting from me to the silent crowd watching the spectacle unfold. “I was just?—”

“Leaving.”

The word stops the world. The temperature in the room drops.

My men don’t need a signal. Raffe moves like a shadow peeled from the wall, Jaromir two steps behind him.

Antonov tries to puff up, clutching his blazer like it might shield him. “This is how you treat your best customers?”

“I treat them better than they deserve,” I growl, stepping into his space. “Until they touch what isn’t theirs.”

His mouth opens again, some pathetic protest ready to spill out, but I don’t care.

“Your membership is revoked.” I stare him down until the man flinches. “You’re done here.”

“You can’t?—”

“Get him the fuck out.”

They drag him, all flailing ego and crumpled threats, but I barely register it. I’m not watching him.

I’m watching her.

She’s already on her knees, fingers sweeping through glass like it’s any other mess. But I see it—the rigid precision, the tremor under control. Rage and shame knotted beneath her skin, burning through every motion.

“My office,” I say.

She looks up. Her eyes flash, hard and hot, something wild behind them. Not fear.

Never fear.

But defiance. And something darker.

She holds my stare for one long, dangerous second. Then she nods.

Just once.

And rises like she’s being pulled by strings of pure willpower. Her uniform clings, soaked in vodka and tension. Strands of hair have slipped loose from her braid, haloing her face in a way that feels too intimate, too undone.

I track her through the club like a wolf stalking prey it’s already claimed.

Every stare that follows her is a threat.

Every man who watches her walk is a mistake waiting to happen.

They don’t know what I know.

They haven’t tasted her sighs.

Haven’t felt her fall apart in their hands.

They haven’t earned the madness.

The hallway swallows us. Red lights overhead blink like eyes in the dark, always watching. Always recording. But they’ll never capture this—what lives between us. This is a different kind of cruelty.

She steps into my office like a soldier entering enemy territory—shoulders squared, jaw locked, but I see it.

The pulse fluttering at her throat.

The tremble in her breath.

She backs against my desk, as if the space between us isn’t about to disappear. Her uniform is wrinkled, her skin damp with spilled scotch and unwanted touch. But none of that dulls the hunger she ignites in me. If anything, it stokes it into something more savage.

Something holy.

My gaze devours her.

Not for show.

Not even for sex.

But to remember .

To burn this version of her into memory, the way she looks after someone else tried to claim her.

Like a warning.

Like a promise.

Like mine.

“Show me your wrist.”

The words land like gunshots in the silence between us.

She doesn’t move at first. Doesn’t flinch. But her eyes flicker, alive and dangerous, flashing behind the cool exterior. Defiance. Hunger. Maybe both.

Then, slow and controlled, she lifts her arm.

The mark glares back at me, red and raw.

My thumb brushes over it, and her breath catches. That sound goes straight to my cock—unfiltered, instinctive, real. It’s not the wound that makes me burn. It’s the fact that someone else put it there.

“I had it under control,” she says, voice like cut glass. But her fingers twitch in my grasp. Her weight shifts—tiny tremors betraying her calm.

“Like you had the ledgers handled?” My voice drops as my grip tightens around her wrist, not enough to bruise, but enough to remind her.

She doesn’t blink. Her expression doesn’t shift. But I know her tells now. The slight clench of her jaw. The tension riding high in her shoulders. She’s pretending to be unbothered.

I can feel her pulse hammering beneath my thumb.

“I’m not some damsel who needs saving, Vasiliy. I was born into this life. Remember?”

My name on her tongue is a fucking detonator.

“You think this is about protection?” I step in, forcing her back until the edge of the desk bites into her hips. I cage her in, my body blocking escape, my voice barely above a growl. “You’ve forgotten something vital, lisichka .”

Her pupils flare at the nickname.

“Everything in this club is mine,” I breathe, “Including you.”

She inhales sharply, but the fire in her eyes doesn’t dim. If anything, it ignites.

“Is that the lie you tell yourself? That youownme?” Her hand presses against my chest, the heat of her palm burning through the fabric. She doesn’t push me away. Not really. She holds me there. Daringme . “We both know it’s not that simple.”

No. We don’t do simple.

“Who said I want simple?” I grab her chin, tilting her face up, forcing those wild green eyes to meet mine. “A beautiful woman is just another chess piece until she learns to play the game. Consider this your reminder. I don’t share. Not with Antonov. Not with anyone.”

She lifts her chin like she’s daring me to break her. Her voice dips, low and taunting.

“And what exactly am I supposed to be remembering?” A whisper now. Her lips are a breath from mine, and her fingers curl tighter into my shirt. “That you’re possessive? Controlling?”

“You’re supposed to remember,” I lean in, brushing my mouth along the edge of hers, not kissing—hovering, “that testing me has consequences.”

Her breath shudders.

“Consequences like the other night?” she murmurs, voice laced with something between resentment and desire. “When you pushed me away, leaving me on the edge?”

The image slams into me—her lips parted, body shaking, my name half-sobbed into the silence. I could come from that memory alone.

“That,” I whisper against her throat, dragging my teeth along the delicate line of her pulse, “was punishment.”

I feel her shiver.

“This?” I trail my hand down her spine. “This is something else entirely.”

And fuck, if I don’t want to lose control again. Right here. Right now.

But I force myself back.

Control is survival.

Her face flickers—surprise, hunger, frustration, all twisting together in one perfect mask of fury and need.

“What this is,” she says, voice clipped and sharp, “issloppy. You can’t play guard dog every time a client gets handsy. The girls are already whispering. And when they start whispering, questions follow.”

The hit lands. Because she’s not wrong.

In defending her, I exposed something I never wanted seen—weakness. Attachment .

“Let them whisper,” I hiss, retreating behind my desk. I need the distance. The wood is a poor shield, but I use it anyway. “But you’re right.”

I pause.

“Time to redefine your position here.”

Her back straightens. Her expression shifts, and just like that, she’s all business. Unshakable. Like she hadn’t been seconds from surrendering to me.

“I assume you have a plan?”

“Your modeling background gives you…unique qualifications,” I say slowly, watching her. Measuring the shift in her posture, the tightness of her mouth. “Effective immediately: VIP clients only. Private rooms. Armed security.”

She blinks once. Her expression stays neutral, but her shoulders pull taut like a bowstring.

She knows exactly what I’m doing.

And she hasn’t decided whether she’s going to let me get away with it.

Those cat-green eyes narrow, sharp enough to bleed. “Hiding me won’t stop the rumors.”

“No,” I admit, tapping a finger against the security feed. The same camera she once thought she could outsmart. “But it keeps you exactly where I can see you.”

I let the pause stretch, let her remember every second she spent in my office, fingers where they didn’t belong.

“After your little detour through my files, we both know that’s necessary.”

Something flares behind her eyes—resentment, fury, maybe guilt—but it vanishes too fast to catch. The Olenko mask is back in place, smooth, cold and calculated.

“Anything else?”

“Not tonight.” I slide a paper across the desk, an old-school dismissal with modern bite. “Jaromir has your schedule.”

She turns without another word, but stops at the door, just for a moment.

Still facing forward, voice like silk over steel, she fires the parting shot: “Next time you want to play king of the cage, remember, I didn’t come here to be your pet.”

Then she’s gone. The door closes with the soft finality of a trigger being pulled.

I swivel back toward the monitors.

And there she is—Galina Olenko in full war paint. Chin high. Hips swaying. Every step is a weapon, every glance a calculated feint. The room bends around her without even realizing it.

She’s not here to be claimed. She’s here to conquer.

And she thinks I don’t see it.

But I do.

The cameras have shown me the shape of her strategy—how she plays the room like a piano wired for explosives. Who she flirts with. Who she avoids. Who she’s watching when she thinks no one’s watching her.

She’s looking for something.

Something buried beneath my walls, my men, my power. Something worth risking the fire in my blood and the collar on her neck.

And she’s good. Very good.

But everyone slips.

Eventually.

And when she does, I’ll be there.

Not to catch her.

To own the fall.