Updated Apr 20, 2026 • ~11 min read
Chapter 8: Tuesday
Riot
Riot realizes he’s in love with Nadia Volkov on a Tuesday morning while watching her debug code in one of his old t-shirts, and the certainty of it hits him with all the subtlety of a sniper round directly to the chest.
It’s not a gradual thing, not a slow dawning awareness that builds over time—it’s immediate and visceral and completely fucking terrifying, the kind of knowledge that rearranges your entire worldview in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
He’s in love with her.
Completely, irrevocably, catastrophically in love with a woman who explicitly told him she doesn’t do feelings and set boundaries specifically designed to keep this from happening.
*Fuck.*
“Stop staring,” Nadia says without looking up from her laptop, her fingers still flying across the keyboard with the kind of focused intensity that Riot’s learned means she’s three levels deep in problem-solving and barely aware of her surroundings. “It’s distracting.”
“I’m not staring,” Riot lies, because he’s absolutely staring and has been for the past twenty minutes while she worked through whatever coding issue has her making that face she makes when she’s concentrating—lower lip caught between her teeth, slight furrow between her eyebrows, one hand absently pushing hair behind her ear in a gesture she repeats approximately every forty-five seconds.
He knows this because he’s been counting, because apparently falling in love with Nadia means memorizing every unconscious habit and cataloging them like intelligence reports.
“You’re definitely staring,” Nadia says, still not looking at him, and there’s amusement in her voice that makes his chest ache. “I can feel your creepy bodyguard eyes on me from across the room.”
“My eyes aren’t creepy. They’re professionally observant.”
“They’re creepy when you do that thing where you watch me code like I’m performing surgery instead of writing software.” She finally glances up, catches him looking, and raises an eyebrow. “What’s so fascinating about debugging anyway?”
*You*, Riot doesn’t say, because that would violate the boundaries they established and freak her out and possibly end this arrangement before he’s ready to let it go. *Everything about you. The way you solve problems like you’re fighting a war and determined to win. The sounds you make when you figure something out. How you look in my shirts like you were made to wear them.*
What he says instead is: “You’re good at it. It’s impressive.”
“I’m good at a lot of things,” Nadia says with a smirk that’s absolutely intentional, and Riot feels his body respond despite the fact that they had sex less than three hours ago and he should have better recovery time at his age.
“Yeah,” he agrees, his voice coming out rougher than intended. “You really are.”
She holds his gaze for a long moment, something heated and knowing in her expression, and Riot’s about to suggest they take a break from work when she bites her lip again and looks back at her screen.
“Give me ten minutes to finish this module and then you can demonstrate what you’re thinking about with that look on your face,” she says, already refocusing on the code, and Riot simultaneously wants to laugh and pull her into his lap and tell her he’s not thinking about sex—he’s thinking about how much he loves watching her work, loves the fierce intelligence in her eyes when she’s problem-solving, loves that she’s brilliant and confident and absolutely unaware of how incredible she is.
But he can’t say any of that, so instead he just says: “Ten minutes. I’m holding you to that.”
“I know you are,” Nadia murmurs, and Riot forces himself to look away before the wanting on his face becomes too obvious.
🔥
The thing about being in love with someone who doesn’t want to be loved is that you notice everything and can’t talk about any of it.
Riot notices that Nadia hums while she cooks—those same four bars from some song he doesn’t recognize, repeated endlessly until whatever she’s making is finished.
He notices that she talks in her sleep sometimes, Russian words mixed with English, fragments of conversations he’s not privy to and dreams she won’t remember.
He notices that she touches him constantly now, unconscious casual contact that suggests she’s getting comfortable with proximity—a hand on his arm when she passes, fingers trailing down his back when she walks behind him, her knee pressing against his under the table during meals.
He notices that she smiles more, laughs easier, has stopped flinching quite so hard when he moves too fast or makes unexpected sounds.
And every single thing he notices makes him fall harder, deeper, more completely until the idea of walking away when this assignment ends feels physically impossible.
“What are you thinking about?” Nadia asks one evening while they’re cooking dinner together—or more accurately, while she’s cooking and he’s acting as sous chef under strict supervision after the pasta incident.
“Nothing important,” Riot says, chopping vegetables with the precision his SEAL training demands even when applied to entirely domestic tasks.
“Liar,” Nadia says cheerfully, stealing a piece of carrot from his cutting board and popping it in her mouth. “You get this look when you’re thinking hard. All intense and broody. It’s very attractive, but also slightly terrifying.”
“I don’t brood.”
“You absolutely brood. You’re brooding right now about the fact that I called you a brooder.” She’s grinning at him, playful in a way that still surprises him even after two weeks of this arrangement. “Come on. Tell me. What’s going on in that overprotective head of yours?”
*I’m in love with you*, Riot doesn’t say. *I’ve memorized the way you take your coffee and the fact that you only eat chocolate when you’re stressed and how you need exactly seven hours of sleep or you’re impossible to deal with. I know you’re terrified of losing people so you keep everyone at arm’s length, but you let me close anyway and now I can’t imagine being anywhere else. I know this is supposed to be just physical but somewhere along the way it became everything, and I don’t know how to go back to pretending it’s casual.*
What he says instead is: “I’m thinking about how to keep you safe. Same thing I’m always thinking about.”
It’s not entirely a lie—keeping Nadia safe is always running in the background of his mind, a constant awareness of threats and angles and worst-case scenarios that comes with years of training and too many losses.
But it’s also not the whole truth, and from the way Nadia’s expression shifts from playful to guarded, she knows it.
“You’re still thinking about the threat,” she says, and it’s not a question. “Viktor hasn’t made a move in weeks. Marcus says they’ve gone quiet. Maybe—”
“Maybe nothing,” Riot interrupts, more harshly than he intended. “Quiet doesn’t mean gone. It means planning. And I’m not letting my guard down just because we’ve had a few weeks of peace.”
“I’m not asking you to let your guard down.” Nadia’s voice is careful now, like she’s navigating dangerous territory. “I’m just saying we don’t have to spend every second waiting for the next attack. We can—I don’t know—live a little? Enjoy this?”
“I am enjoying this,” Riot says, and that at least is completely true. “Spending time with you, getting to know you—it’s not the hardship you seem to think it is.”
“Even though you’re stuck in a cabin in the middle of nowhere playing bodyguard to a woman who set explicit boundaries about not catching feelings?” There’s something vulnerable in the way she asks it, like the answer actually matters.
“Especially then,” Riot says quietly, setting down the knife and turning to face her fully. “Nadia, I know what we agreed. I know the rules. But being here with you—learning how you think, watching you work, seeing you relax for the first time since I met you—it’s not a punishment. It’s the best assignment I’ve ever had, even with the death threats and isolation.”
“Because of the sex?” She says it lightly, trying to deflect, but Riot sees the hope underneath.
“The sex is incredible,” he agrees, stepping closer. “But that’s not why. It’s you. The way your mind works, how you refuse to be a victim even when the world gave you every excuse to be one, the fact that you’re brave enough to trust me despite everything. You’re extraordinary, Nadia. And yeah, I notice things about you that probably violate our agreement about keeping this simple. But I can’t help it.”
She’s looking at him like he just said something in a language she doesn’t quite understand, her walls visibly fighting with her desire to believe him.
“This is still temporary,” she says finally, quietly. “When Viktor’s dealt with, when it’s safe—”
“I know.” Riot cups her face, brushes his thumb across her cheekbone. “I know the terms. I agreed to them. I’m not asking you to change the agreement, Nadia. I’m just telling you that while we’re here, while we have this—I’m not going to pretend you’re just a client or this is just sex. I’m going to care about you. Notice you. Want you in ways that have nothing to do with physical and everything to do with who you are. And if that makes you uncomfortable, I’ll try to be less obvious about it. But I won’t lie about it.”
“You’re terrible at following rules,” Nadia whispers, but she’s leaning into his touch, her eyes suspiciously bright.
“Only the ones that don’t make sense,” Riot says, and then he’s kissing her because it’s easier than talking, easier than watching her wrestle with feelings she doesn’t want to have, easier than admitting that he’s so far past the point of casual that going back isn’t even an option anymore.
She kisses him back with the kind of desperation that suggests she’s fighting the same battle, and when they end up having sex against the kitchen counter with dinner burning on the stove, Riot thinks: *This is what falling feels like.*
Not the controlled descent of a planned jump, but the terrifying freefall when your chute doesn’t open and you’re hurtling toward impact with nothing to slow you down.
He’s in love with Nadia Volkov.
Completely, catastrophically, irrevocably in love.
And she’s made it explicitly clear that she can’t love him back, won’t risk it, refuses to even consider the possibility that this could be more than temporary.
Which means Riot has two choices: walk away now before he gets hurt worse, or stay and love her for as long as she’ll let him, knowing it ends the moment the threat is neutralized.
It’s not really a choice at all.
He’d choose her every time, even knowing it ends in heartbreak.
Even knowing she’ll never choose him back.
🔥
Later, after dinner (salvaged, barely) and sex (thorough, enthusiastic) and Nadia falling asleep with her head on his chest like she belongs there, Riot lies awake and catalogs all the things he loves about her:
The way she’s brilliant but pretends it’s normal.
How she’s survived unspeakable trauma and built an empire from nothing.
The sounds she makes when she’s close, the way she says his name like a prayer.
Her stubborn refusal to be afraid even when she absolutely should be.
The fact that she trusted him—actually trusted him—with her body and her safety and pieces of her past she’s probably never told anyone.
And as he lies there with her sleeping safely in his arms and moonlight streaming through the cabin windows and the weight of his love settling in his chest like a permanent fixture, Riot makes himself a promise:
He’ll keep her alive.
He’ll protect her with everything he has.
And when this is over and she tells him to leave, he’ll go without making it harder than it has to be.
Because loving Nadia means wanting her to be happy and safe even if that happiness doesn’t include him.
Even if walking away destroys him.
She’s worth it.
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