Page 43 of Twisted Pact

Dmitri studies my face for a long moment. “You care about her.”

“I care about keeping my word.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I turn away from him and train my line of sight to the trees outside the window. “Brief the team. Make sure everyone knows the extraction protocol.”

“Alexei—”

“I’m done discussing this. Either you’re helping with the operation or you aren’t. Choose.”

He’s quiet for several seconds, then I hear him move toward the door. “I’ll brief the team. But when this is over, we’re going to have a real conversation about what Mila Andreeva means to you.”

“There’s nothing to discuss.”

“We’ll see.”

He leaves. The door closes behind him with a quiet click that somehow feels louder than a slam.

I return to my desk and pull up the schematics again. I force myself to focus on the operation instead of Dmitri’s questions and the guilt still eating at me over Mila’s revelation.

She was a virgin. I keep coming back to that like picking at a wound that won’t heal.

How did I not know? How had I missed something so fundamental about her?

Because I assumed she was experienced and knew what she wanted. I assumed she was just like every other woman I’d been with who understood the rules of casual sex.

I assumed wrong.

“Fuck.”

I need to apologize. Need to explain that I never would have said those things if I’d known the truth. Need to make her understand that my cruelty came from ignorance, not malice.

Except I don’t know how to apologize for something this horrible. How do you say you’re sorry for taking someone’s virginity without understanding what you were doing? For treating their first sexual experience like it was meaningless? For making them feel like a whore the second time they trusted you with their body?

There’s no apology big enough for that kind of damage.

I grab my phone and head upstairs. Mila’s door is closed, and there’s no light coming from underneath. Either she’s asleep or pretending to be.

I knock anyway. “Mila?”

No response.

“I’m leaving in a few hours for the operation. I wanted to—” I stop myself. Wanted to what? Apologize? Explain? Try to undo the damage?

Still no response from inside the room.

“Your sister will be safe by morning,” I say to the closed door. “I promise.”

I wait for several more seconds, listening for any indication that she’s awake and listening.

Nothing.

I turn and head back downstairs. The house feels too quiet and too empty despite the guards outside. It’s like Mila’s silence has infected the entire building.

The next few hours pass in a rush of final preparations. Weapons checks. Communication equipment. Vehicle coordination. All the logistics required for a successful extraction.

I clean my Glock and load extra magazines. I check my body armor for weak points and review the extraction routes one more time until I can navigate them with my eyes closed.