Page 16 of His Order

“You do know that it’s okay to be human, right? You’re allowed to feel pain.” She says in the thick of the quiet. “You can be vulnerable. I know men like you shy away from all of that.”

“Enough, Anya.”

I can hear the bitterness in my voice, the hatred that consumes me. I've buried it deep for years, but it's still there, festering like a wound that never heals.

Anya is silent, her eyes downcast. I can see the tears welling up in them, and I feel a surge of anger. I don't want her pity. I don't want her sympathy. I want her to understand.

"I'm going to make him pay," I say, my voice filled with steel. "I'm going to destroy him and everything he stands for. And then I’m going to claim the very empire that I bled and sacrificed for.”

She doesn’t speak. She just allows me to fill the silence that passes between us.

I push back whatever little human emotion that threatens to bubble over and spill into this moment. I often have to catch myself from letting my walls drop.

“I will bring your computer and everything else you need. We don’t have much time. He will be back in the next four days, and after that, all hell will break loose.”

I stand up and walk towards the door. I need to get out of here. I need to get away from her. I need to be alone with my thoughts.

"Finish your food and then come out into the living room," I say, without looking back.

I step out of the room and close the door behind me. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I need to calm down. I need to focus. I need to remember why I'm doing this.

This is about more than just Francesca. This is about the pound of flesh this man owes me. The Bratva is about power, and there are a lot of moving chess pieces that play into the game.

The walls of the small apartment feel like they’re closing at the moment Anya’s words drift off into silence, their echo almost visible in the air. It’s fucking suffocating.

My breath feels ragged, my heart drumming too loudly in my ears as I put distance between us. I was never meant to let this happen, yet here I am, knee-deep in the quicksand of unwanted emotion.

I need to loosen the grip this woman has on me before it squeezes the life out of everything I’ve worked for. She is just for my dick and nothing more. That is what I have to keep reminding myself of.

She should not matter. She is to please my body and to take down Dmitri. That is the only thing that I need her for.

She was only ever supposed to be a pawn, a means to an end, but now she’s embedded herself under my skin.

The thoughts that cripple my mind are messy, tangled. I can’t afford to let them take hold, to let this newfound weakness follow me and warp every strategy into something unfamiliar and powerless.

Francesca.

Lilian.

Leo.

I grind my teeth, reminding myself why it's essential to be the man I’ve always been—calculating and in control. There's no room for anything else. Certainly not for whatever the hell this—

“Pavel.”

Mikhail’s voice punches through the fog before I even see him. It’s enough to snap my attention back to the now.

“You seem on edge, Brother.” Patient. Watching. He knows. “Has the witch cast one of her deadly spells? Nothing quite like the magic of a wet pussy, right?”

I offer him a scowl. “Shut up, Mikhail. Get it through your thick skull that she is not just a pussy. Her beautiful brain of hers is a computer master goddess. Now. How may I help you?”

The curve of his mouth says it before his measured, even pace meets mine.

“Just making sure you weren’t in too deep. A little distraction can be dangerous,” he says, making his way towards me.

I can hear the taunt in his tone. It’s clear he knows about my emotional slip with Anya. But I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing it bother me.

“I’m perfectly fine,” I say, my voice as cold as ice. “And Anya is simply a tool to be used for her brain. Beautiful but still a tool. Nothing more.” Even as I say those words out loud, they don’t hit my chest like they usually do.

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