CHAPTER 8
SCARLETT P.O.V.
Silence. The kind of heavy, suffocating silence that feels like it’s got its hands around your throat.
I woke up sprawled across the silk sheets, my body feeling like a crime scene that someone had tried to clean up with a flamethrower.
Everything hurt. My hips had a deep, throbbing ache that radiated down to my knees, and the skin between my legs felt raw, stinging against the cool fabric.
I didn’t move at first. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, listening to the absolute nothingness of the Red Suite.
No breathing beside me. No weight pressing me down. He was gone.
The relief should have washed over me like cool water, but instead, I felt a sick, electric thrumming beneath my skin.
My body was vibrating, nerves fried and overstimulated, like a wire stripped of its casing.
I dragged a hand down my side, my fingers grazing the faint soreness on my ribs where he’d held me.
It wasn’t a gentle touch. It was a phantom grip.
Get up, I told myself. Get the hell up.
But I felt heavy. Leaden. Like a stone sunk to the bottom of a very expensive aquarium.
The sheets still smelled like him—that dark, sharp scent of mahogany and expensive alcohol, mixed with the musky, metallic tang of sex.
My stomach rolled. I wanted to vomit, but there was nothing in me to bring up.
I pushed myself upright, the room spinning for a second.
My hair fell into my face, a tangled, matted curtain of auburn.
I looked down at the floor. My silk slip, the one I’d worn to the gala what felt like a lifetime ago, was crumpled in a heap near the foot of the bed. It looked like a dead thing. A rag.
I wasn't putting that back on. I’d rather be naked than wear the uniform of my own humiliation.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, my feet hitting the plush carpet.
I stood up, swaying a little, and forced my legs to carry me to the bathroom.
The walk felt like a marathon. Every step pulled at muscles I didn’t know I had, a physical reminder of how hard, how fast, how relentlessly he’d taken what he thought he was owed.
The bathroom was a palace of marble and glass, cold and clinical. I avoided the mirror at first, but you can’t hide in a room designed to reflect everything. I caught my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling glass and froze.
I looked like a wreck. My eyes were hollow, dark circles bruising the skin beneath them.
But it was the rest of me that made the bile rise in my throat.
There were bruises blooming on my inner thighs—finger marks.
Distinct, purple shadows where he’d forced my legs apart.
And my neck. I touched the skin there, flinching.
It was red, tender. He’d clamped his hand there to make me look at him.
Look at me.
The memory of his voice, that low, gravelly command, hit me so hard I stumbled back. I hated him. God, I hated him with a violence that frightened me. I hated my father for selling me, but I hated Nikolai Smirnov for enjoying the transaction.
I slammed the shower handle, cranking it all the way to hot.
The water exploded from the rain head, steam instantly filling the space.
I stepped in, not waiting for the temperature to adjust. The scald felt good.
It felt real. I grabbed the bar of soap—sandalwood, of course, because everything in this prison had to smell like him—and started scrubbing.
I scrubbed until my skin turned a furious pink.
I wanted to scour him off. I wanted to peel the top layer of my epidermis away just to be sure I got every molecule of his saliva, his sweat, his scent off of me.
But the steam was suffocating, thick and heavy, and instead of cleansing me, it just made the memory sharper.
The heat of the water reminded me of the heat of his body.
The friction of the washcloth reminded me of the friction of his skin.
I slid down the marble wall, my legs giving out. I huddled on the floor of the shower, letting the water beat against my face. I tried to gather enough saliva to spit, to physically reject the taste of him that seemed permanently etched onto my tongue, but my mouth was dry as dust.
Dehydration. Another one of his little lessons. Pavlov’s Bell. He’d kept me thirsty so I’d be weak.
I tried to hawk it up anyway, forcing a dry, pathetic sound from my throat, and managed to spit a glob of white froth into the drain. It vanished instantly.
"Bastard," I whispered. The word scratched my throat. "Fucking... bastard."
I closed my eyes, and a tear leaked out, hot and angry, mixing with the shower spray. "Nikolai."
My voice hitched on his name. A tiny, involuntary break. I slammed my fist against the wet tile. Why did my body react to his name? Why did my pulse jump? It wasn't fear. I knew fear. This was something darker. Something sick.
I stayed there until the water started to run lukewarm, then dragged myself out. I grabbed a towel, drying off roughly, and walked back into the bedroom.
That’s when I saw it.
Laid out on the bed, perfectly smooth, was a white minimAlistairt robe.
I froze, the towel clutched to my chest. It hadn't been there when I went into the bathroom.
He’d been here. Or one of his goons. Someone had walked into this room while I was naked in the shower, vulnerable and weeping, and placed this here.
The silent intrusion made my skin crawl faster than any threat of violence.
It was the total lack of privacy. The reminder that I was a specimen in a jar, watched, managed, curated.
I picked up the robe. It was soft. High quality. Of course it was. He didn’t keep junk. I wanted to throw it across the room, but I was shivering. The air conditioning was freezing against my damp skin. I put it on, hating how good the fabric felt, hating the warmth it offered.
I cinched the belt tight, like armor.
I walked to the small dining table in the corner. Empty. No water. No food.
My stomach gave a violent, hollow growl. The hunger was a physical pain now, a gnawing rat in my gut. He was starving me again. Making me wait. Making me understand that my survival depended entirely on his whim.
I started pacing. One, two, three, turn. One, two, three, turn.
I needed to think. I needed a plan. But my brain was a scrambled mess of static and flashbacks. Every time I tried to focus on escape, on the layout of the building, on Aris and his betrayal, my mind snapped back to him. To Nikolai.
I didn't remember the pain of the act as much as I remembered his eyes. Cold. Possessive. The way he’d looked at me like he was devouring me whole. It was feral. And god help me, I couldn’t stop seeing it. It was branded on the back of my eyelids.
I stopped by the heavy door. I pressed my ear against the wood, holding my breath.
Silence.
I strained harder. I wanted to hear footsteps. I needed to hear the heavy thud of his boots.
I pulled back, horrified.
I was waiting for him. I was standing by the door like a loyal dog waiting for its master to come home and kick it.
"Pathetic," I hissed at the room. "You are a pathetic bitch, Scarlett."
I grabbed a heavy crystal glass from the side table—some decorative piece of nonsense—and hurled it at the door with everything I had.
It hit the wood with a dull thud and bounced off, rolling harmlessly onto the carpet. It didn't even chip.
I stared at it, chest heaving. I couldn't even break a glass. I was completely impotent here. A prisoner in a five-star hotel room with shatterproof glass and soundproof walls.
I retreated to the bed, curling up in the center of the mattress. It was the only place that felt remotely safe, which was a joke, considering what had happened here. I grabbed a pillow and pulled it against my stomach, burying my face in it.
It smelled like him. Cologne and skin.
I should have thrown it. I should have shoved it off the bed. But I didn't. I inhaled. Deeply. The scent filled my lungs, and for a second, the shivering stopped. The knot in my chest loosened just a fraction.
I hated myself for it. I hated that his scent was the only thing grounding me.
I squeezed my eyes shut and thought of my father.
Aris Vance. The man who was probably sitting on a private jet right now, sipping scotch, checking his bank account.
Fifty million dollars. That was the price tag on my life.
He hadn't even hesitated. He’d traded me to a monster to save his own wrinkly skin.
At least Nikolai was honest about what he was. He was a predator. He didn’t pretend to be anything else. Aris was a snake in a suit.
A strange heat began to pool in my belly. It wasn't anger. It wasn't hunger. It was something lower. Something shameful.
My body was humming again. That electric, frayed-wire sensation.
My hand moved without my permission. It slid beneath the hem of the robe, my fingers brushing the inside of my thigh. I told myself I was just checking the bruises. Just seeing how bad the damage was.
But I didn't stop at the bruises.
My fingers found the heat between my legs. I was wet.
I gasped, my eyes snapping open to stare at the empty room. "No," I whispered. "No."
This was a betrayal. The ultimate betrayal.
My mind was screaming run, kill, hate, but my body was remembering the weight of him, the friction, the sheer overpowering force of his possession.
It was confused. It was reacting to the trauma like it was pleasure, wiring the adrenaline and the fear into arousal.
I tried to pull my hand away, but I couldn't. I needed to reclaim this. I needed to prove that this body was mine, that I could touch it and feel something that wasn't him.
I pressed my fingers against the slick heat, finding the sensitive bundle of nerves. It felt electric. Too sensitive. Too raw.
I bit my lip, hard, tasting copper. I moved my fingers, slowly at first, then faster. I was angry. I was furious at myself, at him, at the world. I turned that anger into motion. I rubbed hard, punishingly so.
This is mine, I thought. Mine.
But it wasn't.
Every sensation was linked to him. The soreness was him. The wetness was him. I closed my eyes and against my will, the image of him flooded my brain. His jaw set hard. The veins in his neck. The way his hands had gripped my hips like he owned the very bone structure beneath the skin.
"Fuck," I whimpered.
My hips bucked off the mattress. I couldn't stop.
I was spiraling. The pleasure was sharp, edged with self-loathing, a dark, twisted heat that consumed me.
I moved my hand faster, abandoning any pretense of gentleness.
I wanted it over. I wanted the release to purge the tension, to burn the static out of my blood.
My other hand flew up to my throat, gripping the skin where his hand had been. I squeezed, choking myself just a little, mimicking his hold.
It sent a bolt of lightning straight to my core.
Tears leaked from my eyes. I was crying and touching myself, a wretched, broken mess on his bed.
"Hate you," I panted, my breath coming in ragged gasps. "I hate you."
But my body didn't care. It was ratcheting up, climbing toward the edge. The tension coiled tighter and tighter, a scream building in my chest that had nowhere to go.
I arched my back, my toes curling into the sheets. The climax hit me like a physical blow—violent, jarring, and completely devoid of joy. It ripped through me, shaking my limbs, forcing a guttural, choked sob from my throat.
I collapsed back onto the pillows, trembling. My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
I lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling, feeling utterly hollowed out. The release hadn't fixed anything. It had just left me empty. Scraped clean.
And terrified.
Because I realized, with a cold, sinking certainty, that if he walked through that door right now, I wouldn't fight him. I didn't have the energy. I was becoming part of this room. Part of his collection.
Click.
The mechanical whir of the heavy lock made me jump. I sat up instantly, pulling the robe tight around my throat, my pulse spiking.
He was back.
Fear washed over me, cold and sharp, but beneath it—God, beneath it was anticipation. I wanted him to come in. I wanted him to see me. I wanted him to break the silence because the silence was driving me insane.
I stared at the door, waiting for it to swing open. Waiting for the dark suit and the buzz cut and the scar.
It didn't open.
Instead, a small panel at the bottom of the door slid aside. A black plastic tray was shoved through, sliding across the carpet with a harsh scrape.
Then the panel clicked shut.
I stared at the tray. A bottle of water. A protein bar.
That was it.
No Nikolai. No confrontation. No acknowledgement.
I felt a crushing wave of disappointment that hit me harder than a fist. He hadn't even bothered to come in. I wasn't worth the walk down the hall. I was just livestock to be fed.
"You prick," I whispered, my voice trembling.
I looked at the water. My throat was so dry it felt like sandpaper. My pride told me to leave it. To let it rot there. To starve rather than accept his scraps.
But my body was a traitor. It was thirsty. It was dying for that water.
I slid off the bed. My legs were shaky. I lowered myself to the carpet and crawled. I crawled toward the door, toward the tray. I felt like an animal. A beaten thing scrounging for leftovers.
I reached the tray and snatched the water bottle, twisting the cap off with frantic, trembling hands.
I downed half of it in one go, the cool liquid flooding my system, easing the ache in my throat.
I gasped for air, water dripping down my chin, and grabbed the protein bar. I tore the wrapper open with my teeth.
I ate it in three bites. It tasted like sawdust and chemicals, but it was the best thing I’d ever eaten.
I sat there on the floor, the empty wrapper in my hand, staring at the door.
He had reduced me to this. Crawling for water. Touching myself to the memory of my own assault. Waiting for him like a lover.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I felt stronger now. The food and water had cleared the haze a little. The hollow feeling was filling up again, but this time, it was filling up with venom.
I looked at the lock.
"I’ll kill you," I whispered to the wood. "I swear to God, Nikolai, I will kill you for this."
I meant it. I really did.
But as I sat there, leaning back against the foot of the bed, clutching the empty water bottle, I kept my eyes on the door handle.
Watching. Waiting.
Hoping it would turn.