Rachel
The basement is colder than I expect.
Not freezing, but it carries the kind of chill that lives in the bones. The kind that knows secrets. The kind that’s used to screams.
Nikolai walks ahead, his hand gripping mine, and I let him.
I don’t speak. I’m not sure I could if I tried.
Each step down the long, dim hallway feels like shedding a layer of myself.
The girl I was at the club, the girl who drank too much on her birthday, the girl who jumped out of a car alone and terrified…
That girl doesn’t belong in this place.
But maybe the woman I am now does.
He pushes open the door at the end of the corridor. The walls inside are thick concrete. The floor stained and cracked. Chains hang from heavy bolts. A worktable rests against the far wall, cluttered with tools I don’t want to look at too closely.
And them.
The two men who tried to take me.
They’re chained to opposite sides of the room, half-naked, their heads slumped low. One of them lifts his face when he hears the door. Recognition flickers across his expression. Then confusion. Then dread.
He remembers me.
The smug one from the car. The one who laughed when I realized I wasn’t safe. The one who said, We just want a little fun. You’re a party girl, right?
I feel sick with a rage that comes from somewhere inside of myself that I didn’t know existed until now.
Their silence is its own kind of confession.
Behind me, Nikolai doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to.
I look at them again. I mean really look. They’re pathetic. Pale. Empty.
Boys who thought they were wolves and now realize they’re sheep in a lion’s den.
I turn back to Nikolai. “What happens to them?”
“Whatever you want.” His voice has that rich, low quality that I’ve come to enjoy hearing.
My stomach twists, but not with disgust. With power.
He isn’t asking me to forgive them. He isn’t asking me to condone anything. He’s giving me a choice.
I know men like these. The ones who take women and turn them into soulless shadows. I wasn’t the first, and I doubt I was the last. They’d have gone back for more after I ran. I’ll bet diamonds that I was one of very few who got away.
The memory of the impact of landing awkwardly as I jumped from the car hits me so viscerally, that fresh pain jolts up from my knee and I flinch.
“It’s not what you think,” one of them says, bringing me back into the room. “You wouldn’t hurt us, you’re just a girl.”
Just a girl.
“You know we were just having fun, we were taking you home,” the other one adds, desperation making his voice too high. “It’s not like we pushed you out of the car.”
“You didn’t even know my address,” I counter, standing a little straighter, flicking lint from my sleeve before returning my gaze to him.
“We didn’t know who you are,” the first one pleads, the split in his lip breaking open and causing him to wince.
“So you would have left me alone if you knew who my boyfriend was?” I ask, incredulous.
“Of course! We know not to touch anything that belongs to the Vasiliev’s.”
I take a step closer to them, Nikolai’s eyes burning into the back of me, watching my every move.
“I didn’t belong to him until that night, after I jumped from your car. But it’s irrelevant. You are actively taking and harming women… girls … How many?”
“They’ve picked up over a hundred in the last year,” Maksim’s voice comes from behind me. The guy I’m looking at slumps in the chains. Every part of him seems to soften with realisation and resignation.
“A hundred?” I ask, trying to keep the pain from my voice. The rage inside me bubbles over and I stalk across to him and grab his face, shaking him. “Look at me!”
He lifts his eyes to mine. They are brown. One is blood shot.
He is handsome, even if a little plain. “You could have any woman you wanted, why do you do this?”
He shakes his head softly. “You don’t get it.” He grins, but it’s sinister and cruel. “It just doesn’t do it for me when they’re willing .”
That’s when I see it. There’s nothing behind his eyes.
No love or care or kindness. They won’t stop doing this because it’s how they get their kicks.
Their own kind of drug. It will consume them until they do it again and again and again with no thought about the damage they are doing to innocent women who just wanted a night of fun with their friends.
They don’t deserve mercy.
I turn to Nikolai and nod before turning and heading back to the corridor and up the stairs. With each step the air changes, gets somehow lighter as the weight inside my chest moves along with it.
As soon as I shut the door behind me I feel the sob tear from my throat and I run as fast as possible to Nikolai’s suite and straight to the bathroom.
I barely make it to the toilet before I vomit until there’s nothing left.
I crawl to the shower, reaching to switch it on while I’m still in my clothes.
After a few minutes of letting the water beat down on me, I peel off my leggings and Nikolai’s shirt and toss them onto the bathroom floor. Then I scrub until my skin is sore. My muscles ache, but I feel steady. Still. In control for the first time since the club.
I dress again, someone else's choice of leggings and one of his shirts, soft and oversized. I braid my hair. Try to sit still.
But I can’t.
The house feels too big, the quiet too heavy.
I pace around. Choose books from the library then put them back when they can’t hold my interest. Every hallway echoes.
I keep seeing their faces. Imagining what they have done to countless women.
Knowing they’ll never hurt anyone else should bring me peace.
Instead, I feel like I’m vibrating under my skin.
I slip outside.
The gardens are half in shadow, half caught in the golds and pinks of sunset.
Clara was right, they’re beautiful, in a wild, untamed kind of way.
The air is cool against my cheeks, but I don’t mind.
I walk toward the treeline, not far enough to reach the woods, just enough to see them. Just enough to remember.
That’s when I feel him.
I don’t need to turn around to know he’s watching me. The same way he did that night. A slow, deliberate presence moving through the dark like he belongs to it.
“I thought you’d be downstairs longer,” I say without turning.
His voice is quiet. Closer than I expected. “I was there as long as I needed to be.”
I glance back at him, over my shoulder. He’s leaning against a tree, arms crossed, gaze fixed on me. There’s no menace in it. No warning.
Just hunger.
The air thickens between us.
I take a single step toward the trees, then another. I let my hand drift over the low branches, my fingers brushing leaves.
“Do you ever stop hunting?” I ask softly.
He smiles. Slow. Dangerous. “Not when the prey belongs to me.”
My heart kicks. The fire inside me igniting, filling my veins with thrill and heated desire.
I meet his eyes, step backward, deeper into the shadow.
He growls. Actually growls. “Careful, little rabbit.”
I smirk before spinning on my heels and dashing beneath the canopy of trees.
My heart pounds as I sprint toward the clearing, laughter caught in my throat. I hear him curse behind me, low and sharp, but there’s no threat in it. Just his insatiable hunger. His primal need.
The same need from that first night. But somehow different now.
Branches brush my arms, the earth springy beneath my steps. I slip past the treeline and veer toward the spot where the last bit of sunlight hits the clearing, where I first saw him step out of the dark.
And then I feel him.
The rush of air. The heat of his body.
He slams into me like a wave, spinning me against a tree, one arm banded around my waist, the other braced beside my head. He’s panting. I’m panting. The laughter dies in my throat as I stare up at him, my pulse racing like prey caught mid-sprint.
But I’m not scared. Not even close. His grey blue eyes hold something in there that makes me feel safe.
“You’re not fast enough to get away from me,” he mutters, his voice hoarse, his lips brushing mine as he speaks.
“I love it when you chase me.”
His mouth crushes mine before I can say another word. Not punishing, not desperate.
Claiming.
He kisses me like a man who knows I’ve given him everything and wants to give something back.
When he finally pulls away, he rests his forehead against mine, both of us breathless.
“I caught you again,” he murmurs.
I nod, smiling. “What are you going to do about it?”
His hand slides around my throat. “I think you know.”