CHAPTER 9
NIKOLAI P.O.V.
The numbers on the page were laughing at me.
Not literally, obviously, but they might as well have been dancing a fucking jig for all the sense they were making.
I stared at the ledger, at the rows of black ink representing debts collected and debts owed, but my focus was shot to shit.
It was her. Scarlett. Sitting in the corner like a silent ghost, a specter haunting my goddamn study.
She wasn't doing anything—just breathing—but the sound grated on my nerves like a rusty saw blade.
It was a soft, rhythmic intake of air, barely audible over the ticking of the clock, but to me, it sounded like a fucking siren.
I traced the edge of the financial statement with my thumb, pressing down hard enough to dent the thick, expensive paper.
This wasn't how I operated. I was precise.
I was cold. I was the man who could calculate the trajectory of a bullet or the interest on a million-dollar loan while eating a sandwich.
But right now? The numbers blurred. My focus splintered.
Every time she shifted, the silk of that ruined slip she was wearing rustled against her skin, and my eyes snapped to her.
It was involuntary. A twitch. A defect in my wiring.
She was a stain on my pristine order. A beautiful, infuriating stain.
I looked up, keeping my face blank, letting my eyes sweep over her.
The slip clung to her like a second skin, outlining the curve of her hip, the dip of her waist. Her pale skin was a canvas of my own making, marked with the angry, blooming bruises I’d put there over the last few days.
Seeing them—those purple and blue shadows on her flesh—did something to my gut that I didn't want to examine too closely.
It was possessive. Ugly. A grim satisfaction tightened my jaw.
Those marks were a receipt. Proof of transaction.
She wasn't just sitting in my room; she was wearing my signature.
She shifted again, pulling the thin silk tighter across her chest as if she could feel the weight of my stare, physically dragging across her skin.
Her defiance, even in silence, was a challenge, an unspoken "I dare you.
" I hated it. I fucking craved it. The distinction, illogical as it was, settled deep in my gut like a stone.
She wasn't property. She was mine. And the fact that I was making that distinction while looking at a fifty-million-dollar collateral write-off was a problem I needed to fix.
The heavy oak door burst open, banging against the wall with a crack that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet room.
Scarlett jumped. I didn't flinch, but my hand, resting on the ledger, curled into a fist so tight my knuckles popped.
Miller. Of course it was Miller. The man had the grace of a drunk elephant and the intellect of a speed bump.
He stumbled in, a stack of papers clutched in his sweaty hand, looking like he'd just run a marathon.
He stopped short when he saw her. His mouth fell open, a slack-jawed display of stupidity that made me want to put a bullet in him just to improve the gene pool.
"You forget your manners, Miller?" My voice was ice, cutting through the sudden noise.
He blinked, tearing his eyes away from Scarlett to look at me, then back to her.
He fumbled with the papers, nearly dropping the whole stack.
The cheap scent of his aftershave—something that smelled like pine sol and desperation—wafted into the room, fighting with the smell of old leather and Scarlett’s subtle floral perfume.
"Boss... I... the shipment..." He stammered, his eyes glued to her legs.
"I asked what it is, Miller. Not what you're staring at."
He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. "Right. Yeah. The shipment down at the docks. The heavy crates. There's a delay with the customs guy. He wants more."
I stared at him. He was talking business, but his brain was in his pants.
His gaze kept drifting, sliding over Scarlett's exposed thigh, the curve of her calf.
It was hungry. Greedy. Like a dog eyeing a steak on the counter.
A prickle of lethal irritation started at the base of my skull.
It wasn't just that he was distracted; it was that he was looking at my collateral.
He was visually dissecting her, stripping her, assessing her value.
"Having trouble focusing, Miller?" I asked, my tone deceptively soft.
He grinned then, a nasty, lopsided thing that showed too many teeth. He shifted his weight, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. "She… she's quite the looker, boss. Even banged up a bit."
The air in the room changed. It got heavy. Thick. The kind of pressure drop that happens right before a tornado touches down. I set my pen down. Click.
"The Vance bitch, eh?" Miller continued, oblivious to the fact that he was currently standing on a landmine.
"Heard she was a firecracker. Glad to see she's…
'contained' now." He winked. He actually fucking winked at me.
"Must be nice, boss. All those perks of the debt, I bet they're more fun than a ledger. "
My teeth ground together, an audible sound in the silence. Perks. Bitch. My blood went cold, then hot, a flash-freeze followed by an inferno. He was talking about her like she was a communal toy. Like she was a perk of the job, something to be passed around the breakroom.
"Don't mind if I do, boss," he muttered, half to himself, stepping further into the room.
"Watch your mouth, Miller," I warned, low and ominous.
But the idiot was too far gone. And Scarlett—because she had zero survival instinct—stood up.
The chair creaked as she pushed back, rising slowly, her movements stiff but deliberate.
Her hazel eyes were burning. Not at me this time.
At him. Her fists were clenched at her sides, knuckles white against her pale skin.
"What are you looking at, you pig?" Her voice trembled, but the venom was real.
"Don't bother with the rabble, Scarlett," I growled, a warning to her as much as to him. Sit the fuck down. Don't engage.
Miller laughed. It was a grating, wet sound. "Oh, she speaks! Feisty, ain't she? I like 'em with a bit of fight."
He took another step. He was in her space now. He reached out a grimy finger, confident, arrogant, and hooked it under the delicate silk strap of her slip. He brushed her bare shoulder.
That was it. The world narrowed down to a pinpoint. The red haze descended.
"Easy, little lady," Miller crooned. "Just admiring the view, as your boss is so generously sharing."
"I wouldn't do that, Miller." My voice was a flatline. A statement of fact.
"Don't you dare touch her," Scarlett hissed, recoiling.
She flinched away violently, her shoulder bumping hard against the solid oak paneling of the wall with a dull thud.
A choked sound escaped her throat, like a stifled cry.
Her eyes darted to me, wide, desperate. She was looking for a savior.
She hated me, but in that second, I was the monster she needed to protect her from the monster she didn't know.
"Smirnov, tell your bitch to relax. Or maybe she likes it rough, eh?" Miller smirked, turning his head slightly toward me, his finger still hooked in her strap.
"You heard her," I said, standing up. "Get your hands off her."
Miller didn't move fast enough. He didn't even process the threat.
I moved.
It wasn't a walk. It was a blur. I crossed the room in a heartbeat, a dark shadow consuming the space between us. I didn't think. I didn't plan. I just acted. I grabbed his wrist—the one touching her—and twisted.
SNAP.
The sound was sickeningly loud, like a dry branch breaking under a boot. Miller shrieked, a guttural, high-pitched noise that tore through the study. The papers in his other hand exploded into the air, scattering across the polished mahogany floor like terrified birds.
"Ahhhhh! My wrist!"
"You touch what's mine, Miller, you lose what's yours."
I didn't stop. I slammed him backward. His body hit the edge of my heavy mahogany desk with a brutal impact.
His head cracked against the wood—thud—and his eyes rolled back for a second before snapping open in pure panic.
I pinned him there, jamming my forearm against his throat, cutting off his air, cutting off his scream.
He gurgled, clawing at my arm with his good hand, his legs kicking weakly against the expensive rug. His face turned a mottled purple.
"I am not finished with you," I whispered, leaning in close. My breath was hot against his ear. "She is the syndicate's asset, Miller. And I am the syndicate's hand. Do you understand what that means?"
He wheezed, spit bubbling at the corner of his mouth.
"Any man who touches her, touches me," I hissed, applying more pressure. I felt the cartilage in his throat shift. "And you touch me, you die. The debt is mine to collect. Not yours to sample. Do you understand, you pathetic piece of trash?"
He nodded frantically, his eyes bulging, tears leaking out of the corners.
It wasn't enough. The rage was still there, a living thing in my chest, demanding blood. Demanding payment for the insult. He had touched her. He had put his filthy hands on the skin I had marked.
I pulled back and punched him.
It was a precise, clinical blow to the face. I felt his nose shatter under my knuckles. Blood sprayed—hot, wet, red—splattering across the pristine ledger on the desk, across the mahogany, across the white cuff of my shirt.
Thud.
"Stop it!" Scarlett’s voice was a choked plea from the corner, but I couldn't hear her. I could only hear the roar of blood in my ears.
I hit him again. And again. Thud. Thud. Thud.
It was rhythmic. It was work. It was cleansing.
With every blow, I erased his touch. I erased his look.
I erased his fucking existence from her orbit.
His face was a ruin, a pulpy mask of blood and broken bone, but I didn't stop until his body went completely limp beneath me.
A final, wet gasp escaped his ruined throat, and then... nothing.
I let him go. He slid down the front of the desk and hit the floor with a heavy, unceremonious sound. A sack of meat. A stain on the rug.
"Fucking idiot," I grunted, breathless.
Silence crashed back into the room. It was deafening.
The only sound was my own ragged breathing and the soft, terrified gasps coming from Scarlett.
The metallic tang of blood filled the air, thick and coppery, overriding the leather and the pine sol.
I looked down at my hand. My knuckles were split, raw, dripping with his blood. My shirt was ruined.
"You killed him," Scarlett whispered.
I didn't look at the body. I looked at her.
"He won't be bothering anyone again," I said coldly. "This is what happens when boundaries are crossed."
The adrenaline was still pumping through me, making my vision sharp, high-definition.
I felt huge. Powerful. I turned fully toward her.
She was pressed against the wall, trembling, her chest heaving.
But she wasn't looking at the corpse. She was looking at me.
Her hazel eyes were wide, blown black, filled with horror, yes...
but something else. Something dark. Fascination.
She wasn't looking away.
A jolt of electricity shot down my spine. She should be screaming. She should be running. But she was watching me like I was a god of war who had just laid an offering at her feet.
I walked toward her. Slowly. A predator stalking prey. I stopped inches from her, close enough to feel the heat radiating off her skin, close enough for her to smell the blood and sweat on me. I loomed over her, blocking out the light, blocking out the world.
"Do you understand, Scarlett?" I asked, my voice a low growl. "Look at me. Look at what happens."
She swallowed hard, her throat working. She looked terrified, but she didn't shrink away.
I reached out with my clean hand and grabbed her jaw.
My fingers were firm, tilting her head back, forcing her to meet my gaze.
"You are mine, Scarlett. Only mine. If any man lays a hand on you, if any man even looks at you with that kind of hunger...
I will hunt him down. I will hunt them all down.
I will burn this city to the ground to find them. "
Her breath hitched. Her pulse hammered against my thumb.
"Do you understand, little queen? This is not a threat. This is a promise. You belong to me. And only me."
The words hung between us, heavy and absolute. I wasn't hiding it anymore. The "collateral" bullshit was gone. This was possession. Raw and unfiltered.
I raised my right hand. The bloody one. The one that had just ended a man's life. I held it up to her face, the split knuckles oozing crimson. I pressed them gently against her mouth.
"Clean it."
Her eyes widened. She stared at the blood, then at my eyes.
"Prove to me you understand," I commanded softly. "Prove you are mine. Taste the consequences of insolence, Scarlett."
She trembled. I could feel the conflict raging inside her. The revulsion warring with the instinct to submit, the hatred warring with the dark, twisted arousal that violence seemed to spark in her. Her lips parted.
"Bastard," she breathed, the word a raw whisper against my skin.
But she didn't pull away.
She opened her mouth. Her tongue came out, pink and wet, hesitant for a fraction of a second before it touched my skin. She licked the blood from my knuckles.
A groan tore out of my chest. It was low, guttural, involuntary. The sensation of her tongue—warm, rough, intimate—against the raw wounds on my hand was more intense than any fuck we could have had. It was a claiming. She was tasting my violence. She was ingesting it. She was accepting it.
She licked slow, deliberate, her eyes locked on mine the whole time. The taste of copper and salt was between us. I watched her throat move as she swallowed. My blood. His blood.
"Good girl," I rasped. "You belong here. With me."
When she was done, her lips stained a faint red, I pulled my hand back. I used my thumb to wipe a smudge from the corner of her mouth, a gesture that felt shockingly tender in the middle of a slaughterhouse.
"Go to your room, Scarlett. Now," I said, my voice rough. "Wait for me there. I have to clean up this mess. This trash."
"Don't think about leaving," I added, though I knew she wouldn't.
She nodded once, dazed. She pushed off the wall and walked past me. She walked past Miller's body without even looking down at it. Her silk slip whispered against her legs, the sound fading as she went into the hallway.
I listened until I heard the click of her bedroom door.
I looked down at the dead man on my rug. I flexed my hand, the stinging in my knuckles a sharp reminder of what I was. What we were. The debt wasn't just money anymore. It was blood. And I was ready to pay in full.