Chapter 5 - Confessions in the Dark
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Alexi walked slowly toward me, stopping just a foot away. The air between us crackled with an intensity that made breathing difficult.
"Marchetti," Alexi said softly, testing the name on his tongue like a fine poison. "Giovanni Marchetti has a daughter. A daughter who was sent away to a strict convent school in Switzerland at age twelve, then vanished from public records entirely."
I didn't flinch. I tilted my head up to meet his gaze. "You did your homework."
"I always do my homework, Esme—or whatever your real name is."
"It's Esme. My mother was Irish."
"And your father is a monster who trades in blood and territory." Alexi reached out, his fingers tracing the line of my jawline, startlingly gentle for a man who commanded an army of killers. "Why did he send you? To finish what Akatarina started?"
"If my father wanted you dead, Alexi, he wouldn't send an event planner with a single Glock," I snapped, pulling away from his touch. "He would send a battalion."
"And yet, you are here." He stepped closer, trapping me between his body and the cold glass of the window. "You saved my life, and then you let my second-in-command walk in here and accuse you of treason without batting an eye. You don't act like a spy running out of options. You act like someone who knows she holds all the cards."
"I don't hold anything," I whispered. "I'm just a prisoner in a glass cage."
"You are not a prisoner," Alexi corrected, his voice dropping to a low, rough rumble. "You are a guest who refuses to play by the rules."
He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of my ear, sending a hot shiver straight down my spine. "Tell me the truth, Esme. Why did you kiss me?"
The question hung in the air, stripped of all deception.
"Because," I breathed, my fingers resting against the lapel of his black coat, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath, "if I hadn't, I wouldn't have gotten to taste you."
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It was a reckless, stupid thing to say. A confession disguised as arrogance.
Alexi’s breath hitched. For a second, the cold, calculated mafia boss vanished entirely. He captured my mouth in a kiss that bore no resemblance to the frantic, tactical deception of the ballroom night. This was hungry, demanding, and absolute. His hands gripped my hips, lifting me onto the windowsill as the snow fell silently outside against the Moscow night.
