CHAPTER 11
NIKOLAI P.O.V.
The air in the foyer still stank of cordite and burned wood. It’s a smell that usually clears my head, grounds me in the violence that paid for the Italian marble under my feet, but tonight it just pissed me off.
Brass casings littered the floor like dropped change.
A vase I’d paid twenty grand for was shards near the entrance.
I buttoned my jacket, checking the alignment of the cuffs, methodically smoothing the fabric over the gun holstered at my ribs.
My heart rate was already dropping, the predator’s calm sliding back into place, but the heat in my blood—the wrong kind of heat—was taking too damn long to cool.
I looked down at her.
Scarlett. She was slumped against the heavy oak door where I’d just had her.
Where I’d lost my fucking mind for ten minutes while bullets were literally chewing up the plaster outside.
She was trembling, her chest heaving, looking at me with those wide, hazel eyes that were half-terror, half-something else I didn't want to name.
She reached out.
Her hand, bloody and shaking, extended toward me like she expected me to pull her up. Like we were partners. Like the adrenaline-fueled fuck we just shared was a handshake deal on an alliance.
I felt a surge of bile. Disgust. Not at her, but at myself. At the animal instinct that had made me cover her body with mine when the glass shattered. At the way I’d wrecked her against this door not just to claim her, but to feel something other than the cold calculation of the kill.
Weakness.
I batted her hand away.
The sound was sharp in the quiet hallway. Back of my hand against her knuckles. A sting. Not enough to break bone, but enough to send a message.
She recoiled like I’d burned her, clutching her hand to her chest, that hopeful look fracturing into shock.
"Get up, Vance," I snarled, my voice sounding like gravel grinding in a mixer. "We're moving."
She blinked, confused. "Nikolai? What... what just happened?"
"Survival happened. Now it’s over." I turned my back on her, wiping a smudge of her lipstick off my jaw with a violent swipe of my thumb. "Hassan. Status."
Hassan materialized from the smoke near the kitchen entrance. He looked at Scarlett, then at me, his face a blank slate. He knows better than to ask why the hostage looks like she’s been ravaged and the boss looks like he wants to punch a wall.
"Perimeter is clear," Hassan said, stepping over a dead body in tactical gear without glancing down. "Transport is at the north exit. Three minutes out."
"Burn the bodies," I ordered, adjusting my collar. "Incinerate the evidence. I want this place scrubbed. If there’s a DNA strand left, I’ll take it out of your skin."
"And the girl?"
"She goes to the secondary location." I gestured to a guard, a hulking piece of meat named Davis. "Take her. Don't let her out of your sight. If she trips, drag her."
Scarlett scrambled to her feet as Davis moved in, grabbing her arm with zero tenderness. She winced, looking back at me, desperate for the man who had just been buried deep inside her.
"Nikolai—"
"Silence," I cut her off, refusing to look at her. "You’re cargo. Act like it."
I walked out into the night, the cold air hitting my face, grateful for the chill. I needed to freeze out the memory of her skin. I needed to remember that she wasn’t a woman. She was fifty million dollars of bad debt wrapped in a silk slip.
The armored SUV was a black hole on wheels.
We were tearing through the city, doing eighty in a forty, the suspension eating the potholes. I sat in the back, staring out the tinted window at the blur of streetlights. The glass reflected my own hollow eyes back at me.
Scarlett was huddled on the opposite bench, wrapped in a scratchy gray wool blanket Davis had tossed at her. She was shivering. I could hear her teeth clicking together.
Good. Let her freeze.
I could have told the driver to crank the heat.
I could have offered her my jacket. But every time I looked at her, I saw the way she’d arched her back against that door, the way she’d screamed my name when the bullets were flying.
It irritated me. It was a glitch in the program.
A biological override I couldn't afford.
She needed to understand that the heat was gone. Only the ice remained.
"Was that..." Her voice was thin, cracking under the weight of the silence. "Was that my father?"
I didn't turn. "Shut your cunt mouth, Vance, before I do it for you."
She flinched, pulling the blanket tighter, but she had that stubborn streak that made me want to strangle her and fuck her at the same time. "He tried to kill us. He tried to kill me."
I turned then, slow and lethal. "He tried to liquidate a liability. You’re just bad accounting to him now."
"I'm his daughter!"
"You're a line item," I said, my voice flat. "And right now, you’re an annoying one. Silence is a virtue you need to learn. Fast."
She stared at me, hatred warring with confusion. She was trying to reconcile the monster sitting across from her with the man who had protected her head from falling debris an hour ago.
Spoiler alert, sweetheart: there is no other man. Just the monster.
I watched her shiver again. Her lips were turning blue. I crossed my arms, leaning back against the leather, and watched. I let the cold settle into her bones. I wanted her uncomfortable. I wanted her miserable. Misery keeps people docile. Hope makes them stupid.
The SUV banked hard, descending into the underground garage of the Black Site. It wasn't a penthouse. It was a fortress disguised as a warehouse. Concrete, steel, and enough security measures to keep a small army out—or one troublesome woman in.
The doors unlocked with a heavy clunk.
"Out," I commanded.
I didn't wait for the guard this time. I grabbed her arm myself, my fingers digging into her bicep, and marched her toward the elevator. She stumbled in her heels, but I didn't slow down. We passed through three layers of retinal scans and steel doors that hissed shut like airlocks.
The elevator shot up fifty floors in silence. When the doors opened, we weren't in a home. We were in a cage.
Polished concrete floors. BrutAlistairt furniture. Floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over a dead industrial district. No warmth. No color. Just gray and black.
I shoved her forward. She stumbled, catching herself on the back of a minimAlistairt leather sofa.
"Welcome to your new reality," I said, tossing my keys onto a steel table. "No more red suites. No more galas. You exist here. Nowhere else."
Scarlett whipped around. The blanket slipped off her shoulders, revealing the torn, ruined silk slip and the bruises blooming on her skin. My marks.
"Why are you being such a bastard?" she screamed, the sound echoing off the hard surfaces. "After everything? After we almost died together? You treat me like... like shit!"
I stopped. I turned slowly, letting the silence stretch until it was heavy enough to choke on.
"You think nearly dying makes us friends?" I asked, walking toward her. She held her ground, chin up, defiant to the point of stupidity. "You think because I fucked you to get the adrenaline out of my system, it means something?"
"You didn't just fuck me," she hissed. "You—"
"I used a warm body," I cut in, stepping into her personal space. I loomed over her, letting my shadow swallow her whole. "That encounter by the door was a biological glitch. An unfortunate byproduct of gunpowder and proximity. Nothing more."
Her eyes went wet, but she didn't cry. She just looked furious. "Liar."
I reached out and clamped my hand around her jaw, squeezing until her lips puckered. "You are a debt, Vance. Fifty million dollars of collateral. Never forget that. The only reason you’re breathing is because you have a price tag."
"You looked at me," she whispered through my grip. "You looked at me like you wanted to eat me alive."
"I am a predator, Scarlett. I want to eat everything alive." I shoved her face away, releasing her. "But don't mistake hunger for heart. I don't have one."
She rubbed her jaw, glaring at me. "Go to hell."
"We're already there."
I grabbed her wrist. She yelped as I dragged her toward the bedroom. This wasn't the master suite of the estate. This was a sterile box with a king-sized bed that looked more like an operating table than a place to sleep. Iron frame. heavy bolts.
"No!" She dug her heels into the carpet, but she weighed nothing. "Get off me!"
I threw her onto the mattress. She bounced once, scrambling to get away, but I was faster. I was on her before she could draw a breath, my weight pinning her legs, my hand slamming her wrists above her head.
"You want to talk about what happened back there?" I growled, looking down at her struggling form. "You want to know where you stand? Let me show you."
I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the silk ties. Black. Slick. Strong.
Her eyes went wide. "Nikolai, no. Don't—"
"Shut up."
I worked quickly. Efficiently. I looped the silk around her wrists, knotting it with practiced ease, then lashed it to the iron bars of the headboard. I pulled it tight, stretching her arms up, forcing her chest out, leaving her completely exposed.
"This," I said, leaning down so my breath ghosted over her ear. "This is your position. You don't get to ask questions. You don't get to demand answers. You are here to take what I give you."
"You're sick!" she spat, thrashing against the ties. The silk bit into her skin, but it wouldn't give.
"I'm practical." I stood up and stripped off my jacket, tossing it onto a chair.
I undid my cufflinks, then the buttons of my shirt, watching her watch me.
Her eyes dropped to the scars on my chest, the map of violence etched into my skin.
"You need a reminder. The gunfire made you forget who owns you. "
I moved back to the bed. I didn't climb on top of her yet. I reached down to my ankle and pulled the knife from its sheath.
The blade caught the dim light. Scarlett stopped thrashing. She froze, her breath hitching in her throat.
"Nikolai..." Her voice was small now. Good.
I brought the knife down. Not to her throat, but to her hip. I hooked the tip of the blade under the ruined silk of her slip.
"You are branded," I murmured, my eyes locking onto hers. "Every bruise is a receipt."
I flicked my wrist. The silk tore with a sharp rip. The fabric fell away, exposing the pale skin of her hip, marred by the dark fingerprint bruise I’d left there earlier. I traced the bruise with the flat of the cold blade. She shivered, her stomach muscles contracting.
"Please don't," she whispered.
"Don't what?" I dropped the knife on the nightstand. "Don't claim what's mine?"
I shoved her legs apart. No finesse. No romance. I moved between her thighs, my hands rough as I tore the rest of the slip away. She was naked now, bound and spread out for me, helpless.
"Look at me," I commanded.
She tried to look away, shame flushing her cheeks.
"Look. At. Me."
She forced her eyes to mine. They were swimming with tears, hate, and fear.
"I want to see your face," I said, positioning myself at her entrance. I didn't prep her. She was already wet—fear and adrenaline do the same work as foreplay if you’re messed up enough. And we were both messed up. "I want you to watch me take this."
I pushed in.
She gasped, arching her back, the ties straining her shoulders. It was tight. Dry. A struggle. I didn't ease up. I pushed harder, forcing my way inside until I was buried to the hilt.
"Mine," I gritted out.
She let out a broken sob, her hips trying to squirm away, but I locked my hands on her waist, holding her still.
"Stop fighting it," I told her, beginning to move. My rhythm was punishing. Deep, hard strokes that shook the heavy bed frame. "Your body knows the rules even if your brain is too stupid to get it."
"I hate you," she moaned, her head thrashing on the pillow. "I hate you, I hate you."
"Good." I slammed into her, harder. "Hate me. Just don't stop feeling me."
I watched her face as I worked her over. I watched the confusion. The way her body started to betray her. Her hips lifted to meet me, involuntary, biological. She hated it. She hated that she wanted it.
"There it is," I sneered, feeling her clench around me. "You’re a hypocrite, Scarlett. Your mouth says no, but you’re dripping for me."
"Shut up!" she screamed, a mix of pleasure and rage.
I leaned down and bit her. Right on the curve of her shoulder, where neck meets muscle. I bit down hard enough to leave teeth marks, hard enough to stifle her scream into a gasp.
She unraveled.
I felt the tremors start in her core, the way she clamped down on me. She came with a ragged, furious cry, her body bowing off the mattress, fighting the restraints.
I didn't let up. I rode her through it, using her release to fuel my own. I drove into her with everything I had, possessed by the need to fill the void the gunfire had left, to assert absolute, undeniable dominance.
I groaned, a guttural sound torn from my chest, and emptied myself inside her.
For a moment, there was only the sound of our breathing. Ragged. Harsh. The smell of sex and sweat filled the sterile room.
I pulled out slowly.
Scarlett was limp against the mattress, her chest heaving, tears tracking silently into her hair. She looked wrecked. Beautifully, tragically wrecked.
I stood up, adjusting my trousers. The cold air hit my damp skin. The clarity was back. The heat was gone.
I looked at her hands, still bound to the headboard. The silk was tight. Her wrists were red.
I reached for the knot, then stopped.
No.
She needed to remember. She needed to lay here in the silence and understand that she couldn't move unless I allowed it. She couldn't leave unless I permitted it. She couldn't even come unless I took it from her.
I turned away from the bed.
"Think about your father," I said, my voice ice cold again. "Think about what you cost me."
I walked to the door. I didn't look back.
I stepped into the hallway and pulled the heavy door shut. The lock engaged with a loud, definitive thud.
Inside, silence.
I walked down the hall, checking my watch. I had a war to plan. The girl would keep.