Chapter 18 #2
When he turns, I see his back.
A large skull dominates it, grinning over the ridges of muscle, smoke and thorns wrapping around the bone. It should be ridiculous. It isn’t. It’s terrifying.
But it’s not what makes me snort under my breath.
What gets me is the space.
Right over where his heart should be—where every other square inch of him is claimed by ink, there’s a clean patch of skin. Bare. Untouched.
Figures the one place he leaves unmarked is the one place that might prove he has a heart at all.
He freezes with the shirt half on, muscles flexing as he twists just enough to glance at me.
“Something funny?” he asks, voice low.
I school my face, shove the laugh down. “No.”
His eyes linger on me a second longer, like he heard the joke anyway, then he finishes pulling the shirt on. It clings to his chest, smoothing the images into something hidden but not gone.
“I have things I need to do,” I say, fingers tightening around the phone. “I can’t just… stay here all day.”
Things like check on my crew. Make sure no one’s bleeding out in an alley. Make sure Gabriel hasn’t decided to make an example out of one of them because I vanished.
“Beda.” He says it like a warning. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“I can’t disappear.” My voice comes out sharper than I intend. “People are going to notice.”
“Good.” His mouth thins. “Let them notice. Let them wonder why you’re suddenly not available to be their punching bag.”
“It’s not like that.” The protest is automatic. Hollow. Even I don’t believe it.
His gaze flicks to my ribs, where the fabric shifts every time I breathe. “Your ribs are fucked. You stay here until you heal.”
I take a careful breath, ignoring the ache. “They don’t hurt any worse than usual.”
His brows draw together. “That’s not the assurance you think it is.”
“I got enough rest. I’m good now.” I push the words out, like if I say them with enough conviction my body will magically obey.
He just looks at me.
Stares for so long the air starts to crackle. For so long I start to fidget, shifting my weight, tugging at the hem of the shirt. His eyes are flat, unblinking, some calculation ticking behind them I can’t read.
“They’re new,” I blurt, for no good reason. I hold up the phone slightly, like that explains anything. “The… phone. The clothes. The… everything. You had this ready?”
His jaw works once. “Yeah.”
“How long have you been—”
“Doesn’t matter.” He cuts me off. “What matters is you’re not leaving.”
My stomach rolls.
He nods toward the door again, final. “You’re gonna eat. Then you’re gonna relax. I’ll be back.”
That snaps something inside me.
“No.” The word rips out before I can leash it. “If you’re leaving, I get to leave.”
His head tilts, slow and dangerous. The room feels smaller. Quieter.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moves.
He takes one step toward me, the air shifting with him.
“Beda,” he says, voice smooth as a blade, “that’s not how this works.”
I don’t back down.
Even though every instinct I’ve honed over the years is screaming at me to yield, to bend, to make myself smaller until the threat passes.
But I’m so tired of shrinking.
“Then explain it to me,” I say, keeping my voice level. “Because from where I’m standing, this looks a lot like another cage.”
His eyes flash—something dark and dangerous skating across his features before he locks it down. “So you’re admitting you were in a cage before? With who?”
Fuck.
“Don’t throw this on me.” I deflect quickly. “You broke into my apartment. Threw away my phone. Bought me clothes without asking. Decided where I’m allowed to go.” I take a breath, ignoring the sharp protest from my ribs. “You’re trying to own me and that’s not happening.”
For a long moment, he just stares at me.
Then his mouth curves into something that isn’t quite a smile. “You’re right.”
The admission catches me off guard.
“I am owning you,” he continues, voice dropping lower. “Because the alternative is burying you.”
My throat tightens. “You don’t get to make choices for me.”
“Already did.”
The certainty in his voice makes my pulse spike. I grip the phone tighter, like it’s some kind of anchor keeping me from drifting completely into his orbit.
“I have responsibilities,” I try again. “People who depend on me—”
“Your little family?” He cuts me off. “Fuentes, Cross, and the redhead? Already checked on them. They’re fine.”
Ice floods my veins. “You what?”
“Hunted them down while you were missing.” His gaze sharpens. “They were honest. So they get to keep breathing.”
The casual way he says it—like he was deciding whether to spare their lives over coffee—makes my stomach twist.
They were honest. How honest?
“You had no right—”
“I had every right.” He takes another step closer. “You disappeared for three days. You think I was just gonna sit around and wait?”
“Yes!” The word comes out sharper than I intend. “That’s exactly what normal people do. Especially over a stranger. They don’t hunt down everyone in someone’s life and threaten them.”
His laugh is dark. Humorless. “Beda, I’m not normal people. And you knew that the second you refused to get out of your car. Why didn’t you just get the fuck out when I told you to?”
“I wasn’t going to let you steal my car—”
“And I’m not letting you leave this house.”
I take in a sharp painful breath. Cross my arms over my chest.
“No.”
He moves faster than I expect, closing the distance in less than a blink.
His hand clamps around my jaw, not bruising but unyielding, his thumb pressing into the soft hinge beneath my ear.
He tilts my face up, forcing my gaze to lock with his, and the intensity in his eyes is like staring directly into the heart of a furnace.
For a split second the world narrows to just this—his grip, his breath on my lips, the faintest tremor in his fingers where he refuses to let anything slip.
“You are staying here,” he says, each word deliberate.
I could break free. Maybe. My hands are empty, but I’ve spent a lifetime learning how to squirm out of bigger traps than this. Still, I hold still, out of spite.
I want him to know I’m not afraid. I want him to know that if he wants to keep me, he’ll have to fight for every damn inch.
“Let go,” I say, more air than sound. My jaw aches, but I will not flinch. “You don’t get to—”
He cuts me off with a slight shake of his head, fingers tightening the barest fraction.
“You’re not going back to the hell hole you crawled out of. You stay with me.”
My skin prickles.
“Then I want to go with you,” I challenge. “You go, I go.”
His hand drops and he takes a step back.
“What?”
He chuckles, something resembling light catching his eyes. He crosses his arms over his chest, his tongue gliding across his top teeth. “You want to go to my meeting?”
I nod.
He arches a brow. “With my men?”
I shrug. I don’t give a fuck where we go, but I’m not staying here. He’s not trapping me.
“You go. I go,” I repeat.
His eyes narrow, calculating. I can see the wheels turning—weighing risk against whatever fucked-up logic governs his decisions.
“Fine,” he says finally.
I blink. “Fine?”
“You want to come? You come.” He moves past me toward the closet, yanking open another drawer. “But there are rules.”
Of course there are.
He pulls out a leather jacket puts it on then grabs another—smaller than his, and tosses it onto the bed. Then he reaches into the back of the closet and retrieves something wrapped in black cloth.
My breath catches when he unfolds the cloth.
A gun.
He checks the magazine, then holds it out to me.
“Here.”
I stare at the weapon. “You’re trusting me with a gun?”
His mouth curves slightly. “You’re not going to shoot me Beda, and if you did…” he shrugs, “You’d dig the bullet out anyway.”
I take the gun carefully, feeling the weight settle into my palm. It’s heavier than my own.
“Rule one,” he says, stepping closer. “You stay within my line of sight at all times.”
I nod.
“Rule two: You don’t speak unless I tell you to.”
My jaw tightens, but I nod again.
“Rule three:” His hand comes up, fingers brushing my cheek in a gesture that’s almost tender. “If someone tries to touch you, you shoot them. No warning. No hesitation.”
Something hot and dangerous coils in my stomach. “What if they’re your men?”
“Especially if they’re my men.” His eyes hold mine. “You don’t let anyone touch you, Beda.”
The possessiveness in his voice confuses and terrifies me.
I tuck the gun into the waistband of my jeans, feeling the cold metal press against my spine. The leather jacket fits perfectly when I shrug it on.
“Let’s go,” he says.
I follow him out of the bedroom, down a hallway I barely remember from last night. The townhouse is bigger than I thought—multiple rooms, high ceilings, the kind of space that whispers money without shouting it.
We pass a kitchen that smells like coffee and something delicious. He grabs a breakfast sandwich half covered in parchment paper and takes a bite before handing it to me. “Eat in the car.”