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"I know you think you are special asset," he continues, voice almost gentle now, which somehow cuts deeper than cruelty would. "But you were chosen for exactly one reason: you are hot enough to get the job done but ultimately, expendable."

The words land like body blows, each one finding soft, vulnerable tissue beneath my armor. Ribs, kidneys, solar plexus. Places that don't show bruises but bleed internally.

"Bullshit," I spit, but a worm of doubt crawls through my gut, burrowing deeper with each passing second. The safehouse op. The convenience of my selection. Killion's odd warning not to trust anyone, not even him. "I'm one of their best. I learn fast and I get results.”

My voice sounds hollow even to my own ears. Three months is nothing in an organization like the Dollhouse. I was a baby, a newcomer, no matter how quickly I adapted or how well I performed.

Volkov's smile doesn't reach his eyes. It stops at his cheekbones, a mechanical movement of facial muscles that mimics human emotion without containing any.

"You got results because you were set up to succeed.

Victor Reese was already compromised. Already monitored.

Killion needed convincing bait for Harlow trap.

Someone good enough to seem legitimate but new enough to be sacrificial. "

He leans back slightly, giving me space to process, to drown in the implications. "You were burned asset before you ever began. Walking corpse from moment you signed contract."

The words sink into my psyche like poison, spreading tendrils of doubt through every memory, every mission, every moment since Killion dragged me from my old life into his shadow world. Was any of it real? Was I ever valued, or just convenient cannon fodder with good tits and a talent for lying?

"Prove it," I challenge, shoving doubt aside with the same stubborn denial that's kept me functioning through every catastrophic life choice. "If Killion used me—prove it."

Volkov reaches into his jacket—moving slowly enough that I don't flinch, another calculated courtesy—and produces a slim tablet.

He swipes through files with the efficiency of someone who knows exactly what he's looking for, then turns it toward me without fully surrendering it.

Close enough to see, not close enough to grab.

Photos. Documents. Audio transcripts. Evidence of an operation stretching back years.

Harlow selling secrets—not to Russia or China or any expected adversary, but to a private intelligence firm with tentacles in every major government.

Plausible deniability through corporate buffers.

Money laundering through offshore accounts and crypto.

Worse, communications between an unknown name and Killion. Plans for the Reese operation. My name, circled in red. Phrases like "acceptable collateral" and "containment protocol" jumping out from the text like neon signs pointing to my grave.

"This could all be fabricated," I say, but my voice lacks conviction, the words hollow as a promise from a politician's lips. Digital evidence is the easiest to fake, but the sheer volume, the specificity, the consistency across formats—if it's fake, it's a masterpiece of deception.

"Could be," Volkov agrees mildly, retrieving the tablet. His fingers move across the screen in practiced swipes, muscle memory for whatever security protocols he's established. "But isn't."

I push away from him, needing distance, needing space to process. The shirt—his shirt, I realize with fresh discomfort—slides against my bare skin, a constant reminder of vulnerability.

If Volkov's telling the truth, I've been played from the beginning, a pawn sacrificed in a game where I never saw the whole board. If he's lying, he's doing it to drive a wedge between me and the only allies I have left.

Either way, I'm fucked sideways without dinner or a kiss.

"Why show me this?" I demand, voice steadier than I feel. "What's your angle?"

Everyone has an angle. Killion taught me that much, if nothing else. Nobody does anything for free, especially not in this shadow world where information is currency and loyalty is a fairy tale told to rookie agents before they learn better.

He stands, pacing to the window, his back to me. Through the thin shirt, I can see the outline of a shoulder holster, the slight bulge of a compact pistol. He knows I see it. He wants me to see it. Another message: I'm not afraid of you .

“Killion is not good man, but Harlow has compromised your organization to core," he says, voice neutral as a weather report describing catastrophic floods. "He sells not just secrets but people. Your people. Dolls.”

He turns, backlit by the pale winter light, face in shadow. The stance should diminish him, make him a silhouette, a target. Instead, it transforms him into something mythic—a dark sentinel against the colorless sky.

"Including one who mattered to me."

Something in his voice—a ragged edge beneath the control, a hairline fracture in perfect steel—catches me off guard. This isn't just business for him. It's personal. And personal is always more dangerous, more unpredictable, than professional.

“Who?”

His gaze slews away from me, shutting me down with cold silence. He’s not going to share that intel. Okay, fair enough .

"So what?" I shift on the bed, gauging distance to the door, calculating how far I'd get with drugged muscles and a throbbing leg wound. Not far enough. “If I’m nothing but a pawn in this game, how do I play in your little revenge plan?”

“You are pawn, yes, but you can be so much more if you pick right partner.”

“And, let me guess…you’re the right partner?

” I laugh. “Be so for real right now. Why the fuck would I help the man who killed Victor Reese and kidnapped me?

You shot a man in the head and drugged me unconscious.

Not to mention, the intel I had was that you were working with Harlow.

That doesn't exactly build a good working environment, Volkov. "

He moves with liquid speed that belies his size, crossing the room before I can blink. No wasted motion, no telegraphing, just pure deadly efficiency.

His hand catches my jaw, not violently but firmly, tilting my face up to his. Those dark eyes bore into mine, searching for something—weakness, understanding, compliance, I can't tell which.

“Do not mourn Victor Reese —he was already selling your name when I put bullet in his head," he says, voice dropping to a dangerous purr that vibrates through his fingers into my jawbone. "I could have left you for Harlow's cleanup crew. Right now, I am only one not trying to make you disappear."

His grip loosens, fingers trailing along my jawline in a gesture too intimate for comfort, too deliberate to be mere power play.

My skin prickles with awareness—danger, adrenaline, and something darker I don't want to name.

Something that responds to the predator before me not with fear but with recognition.

"Also," he adds, thumb brushing my lower lip, the callus catching slightly on delicate skin, "because you are survivor. Like me. You use what you have—your body, your mind, anything—to stay alive. To win."

The assessment is too accurate, too penetrating. It bypasses my carefully constructed armor, the scar tissue built over years of bad choices and worse consequences. He sees the raw, ugly truth of me—the desperate creature beneath the bravado who will chew through her own leg to escape a trap.

I jerk my face away, but don't retreat further. Showing too much fear is as dangerous as showing none. "Don't psychoanalyze me, Volkov. You don't know me."

"I know you better than you think, kotyonok ." The Russian endearment slides from his tongue like oil on water, foreign and slick. His eyes hold mine, unblinking, reptilian in their focus. "I've watched you since Malvagio. Since before Killion took you.”

The revelation hits like a slap, stinging and disorienting.

My brain scrambles to recalibrate, to reassess every memory of the club, every dark corner and private room, searching for glimpses of him.

Had he been there? Watching from the shadows while I fucked my way through LA's elite, chasing cheap thrills and cheaper validation?

"You were watching me before the Dollhouse?"

The question comes out more vulnerable than I intend, edged with the particular violation that comes from discovering you've been observed when you thought yourself free.

He nods, returning to his chair with that same economical grace. Distance reestablished. Power dynamic reset. "You were not random recruitment. You were targeted for specific reason."

"Which is?"

"I do not think you are ready to hear that," he answers, lighting a fresh cigarette. The ritual seems to center him—flame, inhale, exhale. A meditation in nicotine and fire. "Let’s just say you are more than meets the eye and Killion has not been truthful to you."

I hate being confused. And Volkov’s cryptic intel? Confusing as fuck.

“What the hell are you even saying?”

Look, I’m not exactly lining up to be martyred on Killion’s cross, but swallowing the idea that he’s the bad guy? That one sticks in my throat.

Or maybe this was all Volkov’s attempt to pit me against Killion?

"So what now?" I ask. The chessboard reshaping itself with each new revelation. "We team up like some fucked-up buddy comedy? Hunt down Harlow together? You wear the bad cop hat, I'll bring the donuts? And what about Killion? What if he’s looking for me?”

“Killion is not looking for you,” Volkov says, stubbing out his cigarette with precision that borders on ritual, “You are loose end that he no longer has to snip. Forget Killion. Help me find Harlow and his network, or I end your journey right here and now.”

“Those are shitty options,” I mutter. Working with a stranger who killed my last target and knows too much about me, or doing the dirt dance in a foreign country.

He shrugs, a fluid roll of shoulders beneath expensive fabric that seems at odds in the drab surroundings. "Life is full of bad choices. Trick is picking one you can live with. Or through."

I study him—the coiled tension beneath his casual posture, the calculated distance he maintains, the way his eyes never stop assessing, cataloging, recording. He's everything Killion trained me to fear and hunt. Everything I should be running from.

But if he's telling the truth...

"I need proof," I say finally, crossing my arms over my chest, suddenly too aware of my near-nakedness, my vulnerability in this strange place with this dangerous man. "Real proof. Not just files that could be doctored. Not just stories anyone could fabricate."

"Fair." He rises, extending a hand to help me up.

I ignore it, standing on my own despite the wave of dizziness that nearly sends me face-first into his chest. Pride is all I have left.

I'll break my nose on the floor before I'll take his hand.

"Come. We eat, we talk. I show you proof no one can fake. "