The only reason he went back to speaking to me, and only in clipped direct orders, was because I nearly got myself shot during a shipment gone wrong. He pushed me to the ground—like that time when we were a captain and a soldier—clutched me by the nape to hold me in place, and told me, “Stay the f**k down.”
They were harsh, cold words, but I wanted to cry. Beneath the callous edge of his order, I could hear the smidgen of care he has for me. Something I thought I’d lost for good.
After a whole month of starvation, it felt like a sweet reward.
It’s not an exaggeration when I say it took all my willpower not to hug him or at least grab onto the hand he held me down with.
Since then, he’s given me direct orders instead of using a middleman, usually Viktor, who—to be fair—was getting sick
