Chapter 33
1345 Words
The suite was luxurious—gold accents along the walls, velvet furnishings, soft candlelight flickering from glass sconces. It smelled of expensive cologne and deception. Beck closed the door behind them with a heavy click, locking it without a second thought.
He turned toward her, eyes glinting with desire and entitlement.
Sasha stayed still.
“You’re even more enchanting up close,” Beck murmured, stepping into her space. “Florence, was it?” His fingers brushed down her bare arm, tracing her tattoo. “A name as elegant as the woman.”
She smiled—soft, inviting—but it didn’t reach her eyes. It rarely did.
“I imagine you say that to all the women,” she replied in her smooth French accent, tone teasing.
“Only the ones who deserve it,” he whispered, leaning closer.
His lips grazed her neck, his breath hot on her skin.
And Sasha…didn’t move.
Didn’t lean in. Didn’t pretend melt like she usually did in moments like this.
She was still.
Frozen.
Because all she could think about was Quinn.
The way his hand felt on her waist during their dance. The look in his eyes when he dipped her. The way her name sounded in his voice—even when he wasn't saying it out loud.
Beck's lips moved lower.
She blinked.
Her stomach twisted, not in fear, not in nerves—but in rejection. I don’t want this. Not with him.
Beck’s hands slipped around her waist, tugging her against him.
That was the last straw.
In a blur of movement, Sasha’s knee slammed into his gut, folding him forward. Her elbow cracked against the side of his head. And before he could process the betrayal, she delivered a clean, punishing jab to his temple.
He collapsed backward onto the bed like a sack of bricks.
Out cold.
Sasha didn’t waste a second.
“i***t,” she muttered under her breath in her normal Russian accent, rolling her shoulder to loosen the tension.
She scanned the room quickly, her eyes catching on the closet. She moved fast, checking drawers and cabinets until she found a false panel inside the closet wall. A biometric safe.
Sasha grabbed Becks arm dragging him off the bed with a hard thud, placing his hand on the panel. She pressed it to the sensor. The device buzzed, processing.
She tapped her foot, heart still racing—not from danger. From the fact that she'd hesitated. That she'd thought of him.
A soft beep.
The safe clicked open.
Inside was the hard drive. Sleek. Silver. Unassuming.
But powerful enough to bring governments to their knees.
She slipped it into her dress between her breast and turned—
Only to stop cold.
There, standing in the suite doorway—
Ryan.
Expression unreadable.
Eyes locked on her.
A gun in his hand.
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The crowd blurred around them. Music swelled from the quartet in the corner, elegant and haunting. Lights danced off chandeliers, casting fragmented gold across the marble floors.
But Quinn and Alicia stood frozen.
Locked in a stare heavy with history and betrayal.
Neither spoke. Not yet.
For a moment, Quinn thought of grabbing her, dragging her into some dark corridor and demanding the truth—but then he remembered where they were, what was at stake. Too many eyes. Too many enemies. So instead, he did the only thing that made sense in a ballroom full of masks.
He danced.
With a sharp motion, he stepped forward and locked one arm around Alicia’s waist, the other gripping her hand. She gasped but didn’t pull away—because she knew she couldn’t. Not now. Not from him.
He swept her into the center of the dance floor, their movements seamless and jarring all at once—grace tangled with tension. A silent war hidden beneath flowing steps and a waltzing rhythm.
Alicia kept her eyes on him, her breath short.
Quinn’s jaw clenched. “Tell me,” he said, his voice low, controlled. The Italian accent was gone now. This was Quinn.
“Was it all a lie?”
Her lips trembled slightly, but she held her composure. “Quinn…”
“From Berlin?” he pushed, voice a little rougher now. “From the moment we met? Every laugh, every touch, every night in our bed—was it all fake?”
Alicia didn’t answer immediately. Her hand in his was trembling now, and not from the dance.
He stopped moving for a beat—just long enough for her to feel the weight of the question—and then resumed with a tight turn that made her stumble slightly into him. His grip didn’t loosen.
“Answer me,” he said, his voice cracking under the weight of everything he didn’t want to believe.
Alicia pressed her lips together. Her eyes, once bright with mischief and warmth, shimmered now with regret.
And then, slowly—agonizingly—she nodded.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Quinn’s heart didn’t just break. It detonated.
But Alicia’s voice came again, softer this time. “At first…”
She looked up into his eyes, searching for something she wasn’t sure she deserved.
“…At first, it was the mission. But then…” Her voice faltered. “Then you became something I didn’t plan for.”
But it was too late.
The music played on. They danced—like ghosts of what they used to be. A couple bound not by love now, but by lies and unfinished endings.
Quinn’s grip loosened just a bit. Enough to give her space. But not enough to let her go.
Because part of him wasn’t ready to.
Not yet.
Quinn’s breath was shallow, his voice strained. “Why, Alicia?”
His question cut sharper than any blade, and for a moment, the ballroom disappeared—the music, the people, all of it. There was just her, the woman he thought he knew, and the cold fracture of reality settling in his chest.
Alicia looked down. Her fingers clenched lightly around his, her lips parting—but no words came.
“I gave you everything,” he whispered, pain threading through every syllable. “I built the last three years around you. I loved you.”
His voice cracked, barely audible now.
“Did you ever… even love me? Even a little?”
Alicia froze.
Her body stiffened in his hold, her eyes darting away, like she could find the answer in the crowd, or in the chandelier’s glow. Her silence was deafening.
Quinn stared at her, desperate for anything—an apology, a confession, a truth that made the pain mean something.
But before Alicia could speak, a commotion erupted from across the ballroom.
Gasps echoed. Glass shattered. Chairs clattered to the marble floor.
Quinn’s head snapped to the side just in time to see Sasha and Ryan burst through the double doors at the far end of the room, locked in a brutal struggle.
Guests screamed and scattered like startled birds. The music screeched to a halt.
Sasha’s movements were fast, lethal. She moved like a shadow with blades—dodging, striking, grappling with precision. But Ryan matched her, barely, gritting his teeth as he shoved her against a pillar.
“Stay down,” he hissed.
“Go to hell,” Sasha spat back, elbowing him in the ribs and flipping him over her shoulder.
Quinn’s eyes locked onto her—and she onto him.
For just a split second, amidst the chaos and fighting, their eyes met.
His arms were still around Alicia.
And for the first time in all the time he’d known Sasha, he saw something he didn’t recognize on her face.
Hurt.
A raw, quiet hurt that flickered in her hazel green eyes—unfiltered, unguarded.
But just as fast as it appeared, it vanished, replaced by a cold fury that made her features harden like stone.
She looked away.
And when she did, Quinn felt it like a punch to the chest.
His arms dropped from Alicia.
Everything was falling apart.
- Writer
