Page 231 of Reckless Obsession

Chapter 38

TRISTAN

Three weeks later.

The silence inside Pavel Petrov’s private study has its own suffocating gravity.

It is an expansive, wood-paneled sanctum on the top floor of his estate. The air carries the rich scents of polished mahogany, aged leather, and the bitter bite of espresso.

I sit opposite him in a heavy armchair, forcing my body into absolute, unyielding stillness.

I make a deliberate effort not to look around the room, actively fighting the memories that threaten to surface. I don’t let my gaze drift to the expansive mahogany desk, refusing to remember the night months ago when I fucked his son on top that very wood. How Maksim had come beneath my hands, breathless and ruined, as I leaned down to whisper against his skin exactly who he belonged to.

I grind my molars together until my jaw aches, locking the thoughts away in the dark and forcing myself to meet the glacial eyes of the man across from me.

The tension in the room is thick enough to choke an ordinary man, but neither of us rushes to break it.

That, in itself, is nothing new.

Pavel Petrov has never been a man of wasted breath, and I have never been one who required it. In many ways, that shared temperament is why managing his empire’s legal affairs has been so seamless over the years. Pavel is a hardened man. Brutal when the situation demands it, ruthless when crossed, and disciplined enough never to mistake sentiment for strategy. He does not mix business with pleasure, and he demands the same surgical detachment from everyone in his orbit.

We are both quiet, analytical men who value pragmatism over theatrics. We don’t ask questions unless the answers serve a purpose, and we don’t offer explanations to soften hard truths.

That mutual understanding has made our professional relationship effortless for years.

Until now.

Pavel finally lets out a slow, measured breath before reaching up to remove his wire-rimmed glasses. He folds the frames with clinical precision, setting them atop the leather blotter, and fixes me with a stare so hard it feels like cold iron against the throat.

“Your father was one of my greatest mentors,” Pavel begins, his low baritone filling the silence without rising an inch. “When I was twenty-five, still clawing my way through the foundation of this empire, I found myself in a vicious dispute over a multimillion-dollar property acquisition. I brought your father in to handle it. He dismantled the opposition with effortless precision. From that day forward, I knew he was the only man who would ever oversee my family’s legal affairs. And for thirty years, that loyalty remained absolute.”

The silence that follows his words is heavy, ringing with the weight of an unpayable debt.

“I have known you since you were two years old, Tristan,” he states plainly. “You were raised in the shadow of this family.”

“I was,” I reply evenly. There is no point in denying what is carved into stone.

“When Maksim was born, circumstances with the Bratva forced me to send him to Thailand with his mother,” Pavel continues, his tone detached, as if recounting a corporate merger. “At ten, I moved him to Russia to ensure he understood the blood in his veins. And when he turned fourteen, I finally brought him home to the States.”

Pavel folds his hands over the desk, leaning forward just enough to cast a longer shadow across the wood.

“That was the day he saw you for the first time. That was the moment he realized someone like you existed in this world.”

I offer no defense. I know better than to interrupt a man who already knows where the sentence ends.

“There was nothing I could do about his obsession,” Pavel says smoothly. “And truthfully, I never lost sleep over it. I told myself you were a professional. I told myself you were disciplined enough never to indulge a boy’s reckless fixation. After all, you were entirely devoted to Jake back then.”

“What I did not anticipate,” Pavel’s voice drops, hardening into pure steel, “was that you would step directly into my son’s trap. And you fell hard, Tristan. So hard that you stood in my father’s dungeon, watched my son kill the man you once swore your life to, and felt not a single drop of remorse.”

My gaze never wavers from his.

Of course, he knows about Jake.

“The only reason you’re sitting here across from me instead of having a bullet put through your skull—” Pavel says evenly, “is because you did not pursue my son when he was underage. You did not groom him. You did not manipulate him into wanting you.”

The words are cleanly spoken.

More dangerous for it.