The elevator in the sub-basement opened with a soft, expensive ding. The moment we stepped into the plush, carpeted hallway of the executive level, Kyle dropped my hand as if it had suddenly turned into a piece of lead.
He didn't look at me. He walked straight to the floor-to-ceiling mirror in the private lobby, looking at his reflection with a sneer of pure disgust.
"Look at this," he spat, gesturing to the dust on his lapel and the blood on his trousers. "I look like a common street rat. I look like... you."
I stood there, still catching my breath from the tunnels, my jaw dropping at the sheer speed of his transformation. "A 'thank you' would be the traditional response, Kyle. You know, for the part where I didn't let a sniper turn your head into a hood ornament."
He turned on his heel, his eyes cold and sharp enough to cut glass. He took three long strides until he was towering over me, his shadow swallowing me whole.
"You did your job, Valentina," he said, his voice dropping into that arrogant, bored drawl that made me want to slap him. "Don't mistake a moment of survival for a change in our status. You're a thief I've kept on a leash. The fact that the leash got a little dirty today doesn't mean I've let go of the end of it."
"I saved your life!" I shouted, the "loud mouth" returning with a vengeance.
"You saved an investment," he countered, leaning down so his face was inches from mine. He smelled like adrenaline and cold, hard ambition again. "And you did it because you knew that without me, you'd be dead in an hour. You didn't do it out of the goodness of your heart—we both know you don't have one."
He reached out and gripped my chin, his fingers digging in just enough to remind me who was in charge. "Now, go to the guest suite. Wash the smell of the sewers off yourself. If I see a single smudge of dirt on my carpets, I'll have you sleeping in the kennel."
"You are a pig," I hissed, twisting my face out of his grip.
"I'm the pig who owns the pen you're living in," he retorted, already turning away to bark orders at a security guard who had just come running around the corner. "Marcus! Get the medical team up here. And call the tailor. I want this suit burned. Now."
He didn't even give me a second glance as he strode toward his office, barking orders about stock prices and satellite tracking for Moretti. It was as if the night in the safehouse had never happened. The man who had rested his forehead against mine in the dark was gone, replaced by the monster in the slate-grey suit.
I stood in the middle of the hallway, fuming. My hands were shaking—not from fear, but from the pure, unadulterated desire to steal every single thing he owned and leave him standing in his underwear in the middle of the Piazza del Duomo.
"Miss Valentina?" the guard asked tentatively, gesturing toward the guest wing.
"Fine," I snapped, pivoting on my heel. "But tell your boss that if he wants me to look like a 'Vanguard asset' for his little counter-strike, he better be prepared for the bill. Because I'm done being cheap."
I walked into the suite and slammed the door so hard the crystal vase on the side table rattled. I stripped off my ruined clothes and stood under the steaming water of the shower, scrubbing until my skin was red.
He wanted his "thief" back? Fine. But he was forgetting one thing. A thief doesn't just take jewelry. A thief waits for the perfect moment to take the one thing a man like Kyle Vanguard actually values.
His pride. And I was going to strip him of it until he was begging for mercy.