Chapter 7 Adrik
Adrik
Her breath stutters, the tiniest break in the silence, and it pulls me in like gravity. She’s so close now that I can see the fine tremor in her fingers where they rest by her side. She looks up at me with wide eyes that catch the lamplight, and for a moment she doesn’t blink.
She’s trying to understand me. Trying to work out what I am. I can’t read her mind, but I can read her body, and everything about it tells me she’s bracing for impact, but not stepping back from me.
Most people retreat from me the second I get close, but she doesn’t move.
Her throat works as she swallows. Her breath is uneven, almost shallow, like she’s balancing on the edge of something she can’t quite identify.
She lifts her gaze and holds it on mine a fraction too long, and the air between us shifts, subtle but unmistakable.
Something flickers across her face, quick and unguarded, a soft widening of her eyes as her pupils blow, a flush ghosting across her cheeks, an instinctive parting of her lips.
I might not know what she’s thinking, but I know what I’m seeing.
And what I’m seeing feels like the beginning of something neither of us planned.
I stand there, close enough to touch her but forcing myself not to.
I can feel her uncertainty, her nerves, her heat, all radiating off her in a way that makes restraint feel like a taut wire stretched between my ribs.
She’s not leaning away. She’s not pulling into herself.
She’s watching me with a kind of stunned attention, as if she expected a stranger and found something else.
And maybe that’s what disarms me most. I’ve spent years cultivating a reputation that keeps the weak and foolish at bay, yet this bruised, wary woman looks at me like she’s trying to understand the shape of me rather than flee it.
I don’t know what to do with that.
All I know is that I’ve never wanted to touch someone so badly while simultaneously knowing I can’t. But the urge is there, pounding through me, hot and relentless, to take all this fear she hides under her skin and replace it with something else entirely.
Something that belongs to me.
I hold myself still. Barely. My pulse is a slow, heavy drum against my skin, my control stretched thin enough to shine light through. Her breath catches again, a soft little sound that gets under my guard and lodges somewhere dangerous.
I can’t look away. The silence stretches so long it becomes a living thing between us.
She breaks it first.
"Thank you," she says quietly. "For checking on me. I know you have better things to do." The corner of her mouth lifts in a way that is meant to be self-deprecating, but something fragile flickers behind it.
"I don’t usually visit winners. Your ID check threw out something concerning." I answer before I even think about softening the words.
Her eyes widen a fraction. She wasn’t expecting that. Whatever was coursing through her body before has dissolved into panic and I instantly regret not considering my words more fully.
"You’re not trouble," I say, stepping closer. "You are a guest under my protection. But I have some questions."
She pushes a hand through her damp hair and winces. I’ll bet my entire empire there’s a bruise hidden in her dark hair. I have to press my lips together to stop my fury from showing.
"I just want to get through tonight," she murmurs. "The money. The payout. Then I’ll be gone. Out of your hotel, out of the city. Out of the whole of Nevada." She tries to laugh, but it comes out weak. Forced. "I don’t want to make trouble for anyone. I just want to live me life in peace."
My jaw tightens at the idea of her leaving. I force myself to breathe slowly. Controlled. She thinks she has to explain herself. She thinks she has to justify her existence to me like she is an inconvenience.
She shifts her weight, uneasy. The robe slips a little off her shoulder and she pulls it up quickly, like the touch of air on her skin suddenly feels too intimate. She looks away, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear to give her hands something to do.
"Please," she whispers. "I can’t let him find me."
I study her carefully. The tension in her posture.
The defensive way she holds her arms. The subtle tremor in her voice when she speaks.
She is guarding something. Something sharp and dangerous.
Something that makes her talk like someone is right behind her even when she is alone in a locked suite with me.
"I just have a couple of questions." I hate myself for having to ask, because I know the answers already. The thing that lives inside me, knows she is innocent in whatever scheme her ex was running.
Jasmine sighs heavily, like she can barely cope with the weight of everything she is carrying. She slumps into the sofa behind her and twists her hands together on her knee before looking at me and nodding.
"Is your boyfriend Matthew Kane?" I ask, voice flat and cold. Trying to make this business, when my entire body is screaming that it’s anything but.
"Yes," she says before adding, "Well, he is my ex boyfriend now."
"Did you steal money from him?"
She lets out a huff and her brows flicker.
"No, but that’s what he accused me of when his boss wanted to know where the money went. He wanted me to go along with it, said they’d go easier on me. But I refused."
"And he beat you." It’s not a question. Her head drops forward and I swear to god I could break in half right here. Half of me wants to comfort her, protect her. The other half wants to rip the world apart.
Without thinking, I drop to my knees in front of her and lift her chin with my finger. One hand resting possessively beside her.
"You will receive every cent you won," I tell her. "Your payout will not be affected by your association with him."
The truth is the winnings were ready immediately. I just knew if I let her have them straight away she would have run, and she so clearly needed rest.
"But of all the casinos in Las Vegas, you walked into mine. That means something to me. What he did to you, means something to me. And I need you to understand that."
She frowns, shakes her head slightly. I drop my finger from her chin. I’m desperate to touch her face but I don’t want to scare her.
"My family, we are Bratva. And we don’t stand for harming women. We might move in the… grayer areas of the world, but that is one thing we never do. And the moment you walked in here with your bruises and what I feel may have been your last twenty dollars, you became mine to protect."
Her lips part slightly and I’m close enough to see the way they flush slightly darker. She rolls them over her tongue, moistening them slowly and the sight sends a jolt straight to my cock. I have to take a deep breath through my nose and slowly exhale to get myself in check.
"But I’m nothing to you," she says, pulling my gaze back up to meet hers. Her eyes are brown with tiny green flecks in them that I one-hundred-percent know would look glorious in the sunshine.
I want to see her in the sunshine.
Fuck. This is getting out of control.
"Jasmine…" How do I tell her without scaring her? She is going to think I’m some creeper guy who does this to all the single women who walk into his hotel. "I need you to understand that when I say this, I’ve never said it before. Not to anyone."
I wait for her to nod, then continue. "When you walked in, I was looking at the monitors. I don’t even usually monitor the entrance but something made me look.
And it was you. I’m not going to sit here and tell you I understand it.
I don’t. And I don’t expect anything from you.
But I couldn’t do what I’m going to do without you knowing. "
"What are you going to do?" she asks.
"I’m going to kill Matthew Kane, and then I’m going to make him an example of what happens if anyone comes near you ever again."
She blinks quickly, too quickly, and her gaze sharpens to flint. "Kill him," she repeats. "You can’t be serious."
"In this city right now, it’s you or him. He has made it that way by putting a price on your head. In the three hours you’ve been here, we’ve already intercepted two members of his gang."
She swallows hard, her breath leaving her in a whoosh as she stands up suddenly, ready to flee. She tries to side step around me, but I catch her around her hips, not wanting to go near her waist incase I catch the bruise. She tenses, holding herself perfectly still, but she doesn’t pull away.
"I have to go, I have to go now," she says, her words coming out in a jumble.
"No," I say, rising to my feet, without letting her go. "Right now, this is the safest place for you. I’ve doubled security and my best men are out there looking for Kane."
She pauses, stops fighting against my hold. "Why are you doing this for me?" she demands.
"Because something in me changed when I felt you, saw you. I don’t know. But I do know that it’s within my power to help you. Just give me a little more time."
She looks up sharply. Fear flashes across her face, bright and defenseless.
"No," she whispers. "Please. It’s not worth it. I just need to leave the city. That’s all. I’m not asking for anything else."
"You have nothing to fear from me," I tell her. "Nothing you say will risk your payout. Nothing you hide will change how this ends for you tonight."