CHAPTER 10
SCARLETT P.O.V.
The empty spot on the bedside table mocked me.
Just a polished circle of dark wood where my locket used to be.
The only thing I had left of a life that didn’t involve cages or high-tech surveillance, and he’d crushed it.
Just like he was crushing me, piece by by piece, until I was nothing but jagged edges and compliance.
I traced the raw, bruising mark on my arm from last night.
It throbbed, a dull ache that synced with the pounding in my head.
I picked at a loose thread on the hem of my ruined silk slip, staring at that empty space until my vision blurred.
He wanted to erase Scarlett Vance. He wanted a ghost in his bed, a warm body with no history.
"Bastard," I whispered, the word tasting like copper.
I stood up, needing to move, to pace, to do something other than rot in this luxury cell. I’d barely taken two steps toward the window when the floor jumped.
A deep boom vibrated through the floorboards and straight up into my bones. It wasn't the weather. It wasn't the heavy bass of Nikolai's voice. This was violent. Concussive.
I ducked instinctively, clutching my ears as the crystal chandelier above me swayed dangerously, tinkling like wind chimes in a hurricane. A faint, metallic tang hit the air—smoke.
What the hell was that?
A second blast followed, closer this time, rattling the teeth in my skull.
This wasn’t a drill. This was war.
A twisted, dark part of my brain lit up. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is the way out. Or maybe it was just a different kind of execution.
The door to the Red Suite didn’t open; it exploded inward. Wood splintered with a sharp crack, flying across the carpet.
Nikolai was there.
He looked like a demon dragged up from the pit, covered in dust, his face grim and set in stone. He held a suppressed submachine gun like it was an extension of his arm. He didn't look at me with lust or anger; he looked at me like I was a package he had to deliver through a firestorm.
"Get down!"
His voice was a whip crack. Before I could process the command, he was across the room. He didn’t offer a hand; he grabbed the back of my neck, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, and shoved me toward the floor.
"Move, Scarlett! Now!"
Glass shattered in the hallway outside, the sound piercing and terrifying. I scrambled on my hands and knees, choking on a gasp as the cold metal of his gun brushed my bare shoulder.
"What is happening?" I wheezed, my lungs seizing.
"Stay behind me." He didn’t explain. He just hauled me up by my arm, his grip like iron, and dragged me into the corridor.
The hallway was a nightmare. The emergency lights were flickering like a strobe in a horror movie, casting long, erratic shadows. The air was thick with gray smoke that tasted like burning plastic and death.
CRACK-CRACK.
Bullets chewed up the plaster wall inches from my head. I screamed, ducking low, but Nikolai didn't flinch. He shoved me roughly against the wall, using his massive body as a shield, and returned fire toward the stairwell. The muzzle flash from his gun was blinding in the gloom.
I slipped on something wet. My bare foot slid, and I looked down. Blood. A slick, dark pool of it spreading across the expensive runner.
"Oh my god," I choked out.
"Stay tight," Nikolai growled in my ear, his voice vibrating through my chest. "Don't slow down."
We moved. I was running, stumbling, my legs feeling like they belonged to someone else.
"Who are they?" I yelled over the ringing in my ears.
Nikolai fired again, three controlled bursts. "Your father's cleaning crew."
The words hit me harder than the noise. My father. He hadn't sent a rescue party. He’d sent a hit squad. He didn't want his daughter back; he wanted the witness dead.
The betrayal was a physical blow, sharper than any hit Nikolai had ever given me. I wasn't collateral anymore. I was a loose end.
Nikolai shoved me around a corner, his hand a vise on my bicep. "Look at me, Scarlett! Move your ass or you die here!"
He was a monster, but right now, he was the only thing standing between me and a bullet with my name on it.
A massive explosion rocked the foundation, sounding like it came from the foyer below. Plaster dust rained down from the ceiling, coating us in white grit.
"Fucking amateur hour," Nikolai muttered, wiping blood from a cut on his cheek. He tapped his earpiece. "Hassan! I need a clear path to secondary. Now!"
We reached the end of the gallery. A dead end, except for a heavy, reinforced oak door. Nikolai didn't hesitate. He kicked it open and shoved me inside, following instantly.
He slammed the massive door shut, the heavy wood vibrating in the frame. He threw the manual iron bolts—CLANG, CLANG—locking us in.
Silence.
Sudden, deafening silence.
We were in a vestibule, a small, windowless airlock between wings. It was pitch black until a red emergency light flickered on, bathing us in the color of fresh blood. The space was tiny, claustrophobic, smelling of stale air and Nikolai’s sweat.
My back hit the door, and I slid down, my legs giving out. I was shaking so hard my teeth chattered.
Thwack.
Something hit the other side of the door. A bullet. Then another.
"They're still here," I gasped, the air thin in my lungs. "They know we're here."
Nikolai loomed over me, a dark silhouette in the red light. He was breathing hard, his chest heaving, radiating heat like a furnace. "They'll get through eventually. They always do."
Panic, bright and white-hot, snapped in my brain. I couldn't die here. Not in a box.
I scrambled up, my hands flying out, hitting his chest. "Let me go! We have to move! Do something!"
I clawed at his suit, my nails scraping uselessly against the expensive fabric. I wanted to tear him apart, to tear the world apart. I was a rat in a trap and he was the one who put me here.
"Stop fighting me, Scarlett." His voice was low, dangerous steel.
"Fuck you!" I shrieked, striking his shoulder, his chest, anywhere I could reach. "You did this! You brought this on us!"
He caught my wrists. It wasn't a struggle; it was a termination of movement. He pinned my hands above my head against the rough oak door, slamming his body into mine to hold me still.
"Quiet," he hissed, his face inches from mine. "Or I'll make you wish you were dead."
His thumb slid from my wrist to my throat, pressing directly over the bruise he’d left there days ago. The pressure was bordering on painful, cutting off my air just enough to make my vision swim.
I should have been terrified. I was terrified. But the adrenaline coursing through my veins was looking for an outlet, and violence was the only language we spoke.
His eyes were black pits in the red light, dilated with combat high and something else. Something feral.
"You feel it, don't you, cunt?" he whispered, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. "The thrill."
My breath hitched. The proximity of death was stripping away my sanity. My heart hammered against my ribs, syncing with the frantic beat of his. I wanted to scream, I wanted to run, but mostly, god help me, I wanted to feel something other than fear.
"Bastard," I breathed, the word trembling.
He leaned in, and I snapped. I lunged forward and bit his lip. Hard.
I tasted salt and iron as my teeth broke the skin.
Nikolai didn't pull away. He laughed. A dark, guttural sound that vibrated against my mouth.
"Good girl," he growled. "Show me that fire."
He crushed his mouth to mine, grinding the blood from his lip onto my tongue. It wasn't a kiss; it was a collision. A demand for submission in the face of annihilation.
The taste of him—blood, sweat, and gunpowder—was intoxicating. It was the taste of survival.
Without breaking the kiss, he grabbed the neckline of my ruined slip. One sharp tug and the delicate silk tore with a soft rip. The fabric pooled around my waist, leaving my chest bare to the cool, stale air.
My nipples peaked instantly, betraying me.
"Open for me," he muttered against my mouth, his hands rough and hot as they claimed my breasts. "Show me."
I didn't fight him. I couldn't. The fear of the men outside, the men my father sent, was a cold void. Nikolai was fire. I chose the fire.
He hoisted me up in one fluid motion. My legs wrapped around his waist instinctively, locking behind his back. I was suspended against the door, totally vulnerable, totally his.
Another volley of gunfire erupted outside, vibrating through the wood and into my spine.
"Nikolai—" I gasped, clutching his shoulders.
"Wrap them tight," he ordered, his voice tight with strain. "Don't fall. Hold on."
My fingers dug into the back of his jacket, tearing at the seams. I needed to anchor myself. The world was ending, and he was the only solid thing left in it.
"Harder," I whispered, the plea ripping out of my throat before I could stop it. "Please. Just... harder."
"Beg for it," he snarled, fumbling with his belt. His hands were shaking—Nikolai Smirnov, the machine, was shaking. "Show me you want it."
"I want to be alive," I defied him, breathless.
"Same thing," he shot back, his eyes burning into mine. "With me, you live."
The buckle clicked. The zipper rasped.
He didn't wait. He didn't prep me. He surged upward, impaling me with a sharp, bruising thrust that knocked the air from my lungs.
"Ah! Fuck!" I cried out, my head thumping back against the solid oak.
The pain was sharp, blinding, and perfect. It centered me. It drowned out the noise of the grenades and the shouting.
"Mine," he grunted, burying his face in the crook of my neck. "You are mine."
"Yours," I sobbed, hating myself, needing him. "Yours."
He began to move, a punishing, relentless rhythm. The heavy door acted as a drum, my back slamming against it with every thrust. Thump. Thump. Thump.
It was fast, frantic, animAlistairtic. There was no romance here, no tenderness. This was two people fucking because they might be corpses in ten minutes.
"Move for me, Scarlett!" he commanded, gripping my hips so hard I knew there would be bruises in the shape of his fingers by morning. "Ride me!"
I did. I met his thrusts, grinding down on him, chasing the friction, chasing the release. The pleasure built rapidly, a sharp spike of white light in the red gloom.
"Nikolai!" I screamed his name. It wasn't a request. It was a prayer.
"Say it again," he growled, biting down on the sensitive cord of my neck. "Own it."
"Nikolai! God, Nikolai!"
He pulled my hair, yanking my head back, exposing my throat to him. His breath was hot and ragged against my ear. "My property. My cunt. Admit it."
"My father..." I gasped, the reality crashing in. "He wants me dead."
"Fuck him," Nikolai slammed into me, hitting that spot deep inside that made my toes curl. "He sold you. You belong to the devil now."
A heavy CRASH hit the door from the outside—a body being thrown against it, or a ram. The wood groaned under the impact.
I shrieked, my eyes flying wide. "Oh god! They're coming!"
"Don't stop!" Nikolai roared, his eyes wild, sweat dripping from his brow. "Push into it! Take it all!"
The danger was the catalyst. My body seized, tight and electric. The fear and the pleasure twisted into a single, devastating knot. I clamped down on him, my inner muscles spasming as I went over the edge.
I screamed, a raw, broken sound that mingled with the chaos outside.
Nikolai followed me seconds later. He groaned, a deep, guttural sound tearing from his chest, and drove into me one last, deep time. He held himself there, shuddering, pouring himself into me as if he could anchor my soul to my body through sheer force of will.
We stayed like that for a long moment, panting, slick with sweat, our hearts beating like trapped birds between our chests. The gunfire outside had tapered off into sporadic pops.
"Holy shit..." I whispered, my head dropping onto his shoulder. My body felt heavy, drained of everything but the echo of him.
"Good," he rasped, his voice wrecked. "My Scarlett. Mine."
The adrenaline began to recede, leaving a cold, hollow space in my stomach. I had just fucked my captor while my father’s men tried to kill us. I was broken. I was complicit.
"What happens now?" I mumbled into the expensive wool of his suit. "Did they leave?"
"We survive," he said, his tone shifting back to that cold, detached predator. "That's what happens."
He slowly lowered me until my feet touched the floor. My legs were jelly. I had to lean against the door to stay upright.
He stepped back, creating a distance that felt freezing. He adjusted his clothes quickly, efficiently, the momentary lapse in control gone as if it never happened. His hand went immediately to his sidearm, checking the magazine, sliding it back into the holster with a sharp click.
"Get dressed," he ordered, not looking at me. "Quickly. We move."
I pulled the tatters of my slip up, clutching the torn silk to my chest. The man who had just been inside me, desperate and raw, was gone. The enforcer was back.
"Clear. For now," he muttered to himself, his hand hovering over the iron bolt of the door.
He didn't offer comfort. He didn't offer reassurance. He just offered survival. And god help me, I took it.