Chapter 6 Dimitri
DIMITRI
Ifinally feel like I'm shaking the last of the drugs from my system.
Athena is still driving like she'll throw us into a ditch at any moment, but I know she won't. Not yet. I'd know if she was ready to die.
She's not.
I watch her grip the steering wheel with everything she's got as she takes the turn onto the narrow dirt road. The headlights cut through darkness. It feels like we're driving into a void.
"Slow down," I order as we go through the winding road, past abandoned homes and dark olive groves. This was once a lively village, now it's just ruins, but thankfully, my family owns it.
We round a bend and a small stone house waits at the end of a dirt path. It's barely visible in the moonlight, but I know the safe house is there.
"Stop here," I say.
She obeys, but I catch the flash of defiance in her eyes.
She brakes hard, tires crunching over gravel, as she halts the car twenty feet from the entrance.
"What the hell is this place?" she asks, looking around.
I grab the key fob, cut the engine, and before she can think, I'm out of the car and at her door.
I rip it open.
"Get out."
She hesitates. I lean in, fist in her hair, pulling her.
"You don't want me to drag you," I say sternly. "Walk."
She stumbles slightly in her heels as we approach the weathered door. I reach past her to a loose stone in the wall, retrieving the hidden key. Our bodies brush, and I feel her tense. Her warmth despite the cold.
"Inside," I say, unlocking the door and pushing it open.
She doesn't move.
I press the gun to the small of her back. "Move."
She steps inside. The floorboards creak beneath her heels. I follow, locking the door behind us.
The air inside is stale, musty, undisturbed. I flick on a light switch, illuminating sparse furnishings, a worn couch, table, chairs. Just the basics. A hallway leads to what she can't see: bedroom, bathroom, and a reinforced closet with supplies.
She turns, breathless. Scared. Her hair's a mess, lips parted, skin flushed.
Still too dangerous.
Too fucking beautiful. Goddamn it, why did she have to fucking drug me?
I tuck the gun in my boxer briefs behind me and draw a knife from the hidden drawer the lamp is on.
Her eyes widen. One sharp inhale.
"Wait—"
I walk toward her. Knife in my hand. Slowly.
She backs against the wall, hands flat against the stone.
"I… what are you doing?"
I stop inches from her, body towering over hers. I bring the knife up, watch her shiver when the cool steel touches the underside of her chin.
She tries to move, but I react faster. Using my left forearm, I pin her against the wall.
Her whole body goes rigid when the cold metal presses against her throat.
"You're going to be very still now," I tell her. "Understand?"
She nods, barely.
I slide the knife lower, slow enough that she can feel every inch of it traveling down her throat, between her breasts, against her abdomen.
"Don't," she says, voice shaking. "Please."
I don't answer. Instead, I bring the blade back up and hook the tip of the knife under the neckline of her dress, just below her collarbone. She gasps, hands twitching like she might try to stop me.
"What are you—"
I slice straight down the center. The fabric parts in a clean, effortless line, peeling away from her skin as it falls open.
"Stop!"
But it's too late.
The red dress glides off her shoulders, sliding down her arms, pooling at her feet.
She stands frozen, in nothing but a bra and panties. I see her skin prickling with goosebumps in the cool air. Her chest rising and falling in sharp, panicked breaths.
And fuck if my pulse doesn't jump at the sight.
She's perfect. All curves and smooth skin, but I keep my expression neutral. This isn't for pleasure. Control. I need control.
Her shock gives way to rage. Her hand flies up, connecting hard with my cheek.
She slaps me. Hard.
My head jerks sideways from the force of it.
I grab her throat with my left hand and slam her back against the wall.
Not choking. Just pinning. Holding her still. My fingers tightening just enough to make breathing difficult but not impossible. Just like the knife, control, not cruelty.
She stares up at me, eyes blazing, chest heaving against my grip.
I take my time looking her over now, letting her feel it.
Every inch of bare skin. Every line of her body.
I check for weapons, for wires, for anything I might have missed.
She shudders. Not just from fear.
"Just wanted to make sure you don't have any more surprise weapons," I say, releasing her throat.
She stumbles, catches herself on the wall.
I turn away, moving toward a chest in the corner. I set the knife and gun on a table next to it and dig through it until I find a worn t-shirt and sweatpants. I toss them in her direction.
"Put these on."
She snatches them mid-air, clutching them to her chest as if they might shield her from my gaze.
I turn back to the chest and find a pair of jeans and some black boots. As I put them on I hear her scrambling to get dressed.
When I turn back, she's dressed. Bare feet now, with baggy clothes hanging off her frame.
"You're a fucking animal," she says, voice shaking with rage as she ties the strings of the sweatpants to keep them from nearly sliding off her hips.
"Me?" I ask, sliding into the black boots. "You do remember you're the one who drugged me and kidnapped me, right?"
She doesn't respond.
I gesture to a chair in the corner of the room. "Sit."
"No."
I step toward her again, and she shifts.
"Sit down, Athena," I say in a demanding tone.
She moves to the chair, perching on its edge like she might bolt at any moment.
I retrieve rope from a drawer and approach her. Her eyes widen.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"You tied me up," I say, kneeling to secure her ankles to the chair legs. "Now I return the favor."
The rope is thick and won't cut into her skin if she struggles. Not that I expect her to appreciate the consideration, but it's more than she did for me.
I take her wrists and bind them behind her back.
She struggles. I ignore it.
"You're really going to tie me up? Original," she sneers, but her voice wavers. "What's next? Going to torture me? Ask for launch codes?"
"No," I stop and look at her. "But do you have any?" I say and laugh.
I finish tying her up, trying to ignore how her skin is soft beneath my fingertips. I keep it loose so she can wiggle.
"Comfortable?" I ask.
"Fuck you," she says, and tries to move her legs to kick me. "You sick asshole, probably getting off on this."
I lean down to her level and I hook my fingers between her breasts, checking to make sure the rope is secure. "A little."
She spits at me, the saliva landing on my cheek. I don't react, just wipe it away slowly.
"You killed my father," she hisses. "You deserved to be caught."
I stand, retrieve the knife and tuck the gun behind my back. Her outburst dies when I crouch in front of her, blade in hand again.
She freezes.
I bring the tip to her throat and just let it rest there.
"See, this is why I had to tie you up," I say softly as I hold her gaze. "You don't know when to stop talking."
She stares at me, motionless, breathing heavily. I notice I am too, adrenaline coursing through our veins.
"I'm going to ask you questions," I tell her, letting the knife trail down to rest against her collarbone. "You're going to answer them honestly. Then maybe, just maybe, I'll let you live long enough to walk out that door."
I watch her swallow. "I'm not telling you anything."
I lean closer, until my lips nearly brush her ear. "Yes, you will."
I pull back just enough to see her face, the defiance clashing with uncertainty, those lips slightly parted as she draws breath. For a moment, we're locked in this strange intimacy of predator and prey, neither of us willing to break first.
The knife rests against her skin, cold steel on warm flesh. I could end her with a flick of my wrist. She knows it. I know it.
But there's something about the way she looks at me, half hatred and half something else entirely, that makes me curious what lies beneath all that fake bravado.
I turn and walk into the bedroom, to the secure closet to gather some things. I need to create some distance between us. Something about her proximity makes it hard to focus. Makes me feel things I have no business feeling for someone who tried to get me killed.
Not just things. Need. It's anger and need all twisted into something I don't fucking trust.
Alone in here I can clear my head and figure out what to do next, though she's probably not going to like it.