Chapter 10 Sienna
Sienna
I lock the bathroom door so fast that I almost jam my thumb.
My towel slips a little, and I snatch it tighter around me. My heart is racing.
Fiancée?
Oh, and the bakery is some kind of underground criminal playground, and I’ve been just happily piping frosting onto murder cupcakes for God knows who.
I stare at myself in the mirror, my damp hair curling around my face, cheeks flushed, and my eyes wide like I just saw a ghost.
No.
Worse.
I saw Ben Volkov.
And he saw me.
All of me.
And now he’s offering to protect me.
I groan and sink to the floor, the tile cold against my thighs.
This can’t be happening.
I was supposed to come home, shower, eat something sweet, and binge-watch my show. Not get cornered in my room by someone from the Russian mob in a fitted suit, a guy who just dropped “fiancée” casually into conversation after he broke into my home.
Absolutely not.
He’s not just dangerous. He’s insane.
I must be insane, too, because part of me—the deep, terrible part that keeps noticing how his voice goes gravelly when he’s serious and how his eyes darken when I challenge him—wants to open the door and go back out there.
This feels unreal.
None of this makes sense.
The door’s locked, but it doesn’t make me feel any safer.
I can feel Ben out there. Still feel the tension he brought in with him.
“Sienna, come out.”
“No.”
It’s immediate from my throat because I’m not putting my life in some weird, attractive man’s hands.
“I’m not here to hurt you.”
I roll my eyes. “Breaking into my apartment and busting into my life screams otherwise.”
“I said you’re safe with me. I meant it.”
“Isn’t that what all bad men say right before they ruin your life?”
“Have you met more bad men in your life?”
No.
It doesn’t matter.
“I didn’t mean to say ‘fiancée’,” he mutters, close to the door. “That came out wrong.”
“Didn’t sound like a mistake,” I snap back, climbing into the tub like it’s a fortress from him and his world. “Sounded like a plan you’ve been sitting on for a while.”
“I didn’t say it because I expect anything real.”
“So, you’re admitting you’re delusional?”
“Sienna, come out.” I don’t respond. “Don’t make me kick the damn door down.”
“No, thank you.” I reach for the showerhead. “Leave.”
“Last warning.”
I’ve got one hand on the showerhead and the other on the knob to turn on the water, but I don't even get the chance to scream when the door bursts open and slams against the wall.
I aim the showerhead like a flamethrower, spraying cold water across my bathroom.
He doesn’t even flinch.
Instead, it’s ripped clean from my hands and thuds against my tub.
His hand shoots out, his grip firm around my wrist, and before I can squirm away, he’s got me pinned to the wall. He pulls my wrists over my head and holds them with one hand.
I suck in a sharp breath. The water is hitting my side now, and his body is just inches from mine. Heat radiates off him like fire.
He doesn’t just stand there in it; he owns the chaos, soaked from the face down.
“What the hell is wrong with you!?”
“Let go of me.”
“Tell me you’re going to go,” he says, low. “Right now.”
I blink up at him, my throat dry despite the water raining down.
His eyes are locked on mine—a steady, unblinking dare.
Like he knows I won’t say it. Like he’s gambling everything on that.
My heart hammers against my ribs, loud enough to bounce off the tiles.
This is real.
And he just showed me he’ll do anything he wants to make it happen.
“Tell me you’re going to go.” His voice is raspier now, his thumb brushing just slightly over the inside of my wrist.
It shouldn’t feel intimate, but it does.
“Let me go,” I whisper, but it doesn’t come out sharp like I want. It sounds breathy.
Weak.
“You’re dangerous like this.” He leans in just close enough for his chest to skim mine and the towel to shift higher up my thigh. “I don’t chase women, Sienna. I’m done fucking around.”
“Then leave.”
He leans closer, and my breath hitches when he looks down at me like he wants to do something about the electricity crackling between us.
I hate how my skin lights up like a live wire. I hate it even more that he smells like clean soap and heat and something darker and more sinful.
“You don’t know how this works, so let me give you a little lesson,” he says. “Your father owes me fifty grand. The interest goes up each day. The more you stall, the more he owes me. You’re not worth sixty grand to me right now.”
I scrunch up my nose at his comment. “Is that supposed to be an insult?”
“I can see why you’re still single.”
“Same. Especially if you do things like this.”
“Who said I was single?”
“No woman in her right mind would deal with this.”
“Well, lucky for you, I’m forcing it on you. Then you can say you’re still in your right mind when you see how charming I am.”
I roll my eyes.
“Sienna,” Ben grinds out, and I can tell his patience is waning. “I own you now. You’re mine. And I will get what’s owed to me.”
“You don’t get to use me,” I say, quieter now through the silence. “Not like this. Not ever. I’m not your toy. You can’t barge into my life and demand things. That’s not how this works.”
“It is in my world.” He releases my hip and brings his hand to my mouth, drawing my bottom lip down with the pad of his thumb. “You will fucking follow me, and you will be a good girl doing it. I don’t want any problems. Understand?”
“That’s all you’re going to get, Mr. Volkov.”
For a second, he just holds me there like he’s debating it. Like he doesn’t want to do this to me.
Then he lets out a breath, slow and hot across my skin, and releases my wrists.
“Is that your final answer?” he solicits evenly.
“Is this where you off me?”
He perks a brow. “Off you? I’d fuck you first if I were going to do that.”
I stop breathing.
My body flushes, and I shove at his chest. He lets me, like he knows I need that win.
The second I exhale and think maybe he’ll give me some space, Ben sighs, bends down, and throws me over his shoulder.
“What the…” I yelp, kicking my legs as my towel nearly falls.
“Keep squirming, sweetheart, I’ll drop you on purpose,” he mutters, his hand sliding up the back of my thigh, just under the edge of my towel, his fingers brushing slowly and deliberately. “What will the neighbors think?”
“I’m going to scream! Put me down,” I rage, trying to land a blow somewhere on his body as he carries me from the bathroom. “Right now.”
“I’ll listen when you start doing the same.”
“Put me down!”
“You got it.”
He tosses me onto the bed, just roughly enough to jolt a breath out of me and send me scrambling to keep my towel intact.
I glare up at him, but he’s already pointing toward the closet.
“You’ve got five minutes.”
I blink. “What?”
“Five minutes,” he repeats, voice now cool and unbothered. “Get dressed. Pack anything you want. After that, if I need to drag your stubborn ass out of here, I will. And you won’t be in a towel next time.”
My mouth opens, but he’s already turning away.
“Time’s ticking, sunshine. Get your ass moving.”