6. NIKOLAI
Chapter six
I stood across the street from Cipher, leaning against a brick wall, cigarette burning between my fingers. The city air had a bite to it as it flowed in from the north, but I didn’t feel it.
Not when I was this focused.
I had one target.
A sudden obsession, like an itch I had to scratch.
I was determined to find out if this little ball of sunshine was anything like the rest of the women I’d known—save my sister.
Did her warmth only go skin deep, or was there more to her?
If it was all an act, if it was just superficial, it wouldn’t take long for me to unearth what lived at the core of her.
So here I was. Waiting. Watching.
She came out at 12:07, laughing. Some other girl walked beside her, saying something about Halloween, but her words were just background noise.
All I heard was the sound of her laughter—soft, unguarded. It cracked open something I’d always kept locked down tight. Only she existed at that moment. Bright and smiling.
Which didn’t make a damn bit of sense. How could she be that happy?
It was hard to believe she was this chipper at the end of her shift, especially since her job at The Sacrifice would’ve kept her out late last night. And according to her Cipher schedule, she had clocked in at 4:30 this morning. At most, she could’ve only grabbed an hour or two of sleep.
Maybe she was like me—able to run on fumes for a long time before crashing.
She seemed good to go for the rest of the day, her hair still pinned up in that messy bun, her cheeks flushed.
Sunlight in human form, radiating genuine warmth, so unlike the women in my world, who hid behind their expensive illusions.
Botox. Filters. Contoured cheekbones. Lips puffed as if they’d been stung by a bee.
Those women played games for leverage, traded sex like currency, and took power any way they could get it.
Even my mother— especially my mother—was nothing but violence wrapped in a pretty package.
But not Lyla.
This girl smiled like she thought the world was still decent enough to deserve her trust.
And it made me fucking insane.
A girl like this shouldn’t have ended up in a hellhole like The Sacrifice. She wasn’t built for that kind of filth. It was like watching a saint walk through the gates of hell, like watching a calf wander blindly into a butcher’s arms.
And I couldn’t let that go.
I’d never had a reason to stalk a woman before.
But Lacey Grace Oakley was a contradiction.
She’d struck a nerve I didn’t know I had. I wasn’t the type of person to give two shits about another person’s feelings. I was transactional. Everyone and everything was assessed according to the potential value—or threat—they might carry. I kept my world black and white.
She was the first woman in years who made me want to see in color.
And maybe—if I could get close enough to her—I could figure out why the hell a girl like that made a man like me want to see things differently.
Or maybe I’d drag her into my grayscale world and watch her fade.
Either way—I was here for it.
She waved to the girl beside her and then veered south, slipping into the current of foot traffic headed toward 8th. I pushed off the wall and fell in behind her, staying just close enough not to lose sight of that crown of golden locks.
Shops crowded the block—a corner deli, a pharmacy, one of those overpriced matcha bars. It wasn’t a straight shot to her place on 47th, but close enough. She wasn’t wandering—she had a route.
Block by block, I tracked her from the shadows, never more than half a dozen car lengths behind. She didn’t notice; she was constantly looking at her phone and dodging people on the sidewalk. Then her steps slowed. Her spine stiffened. She glanced over her shoulder—twice.
Not enough to see me.
But she had good instincts—could sense that someone was watching her.
Without missing a beat, she darted across the street, forcing a cabbie to slam on his brakes, which earned her a screaming car horn and the guy’s middle finger. Her sudden detour was anything but casual.
She glanced over her shoulder again, more slowly this time, like she was scanning faces and not just checking traffic.
Then she picked up her pace, crossed against the next light, and cut into a building that wrapped around the corner.
Smart. If she suspected she was being followed, this was a good way to confirm it—abrupt changes in direction, sharp angles, unpredictable movement.
I slipped into a bodega across the street, where I could see both sides of the building, and waited.
She didn’t come back out immediately.
Ten minutes passed before she emerged from the side entrance, her expression tense, her eyes sweeping the sidewalk.
She paused there, searching—really searching.
She even turned in a full circle, as though she expected someone to be standing right behind her.
When she saw no one out of the ordinary, she resumed walking, more slowly now, like she didn’t fully believe she’d lost whoever was on her tail.
She hadn’t.
Two blocks later, she stopped again. This time, her movements were more natural. Her face relaxed as she approached a building with a sandwich board out front that read:
THE PERFORMER’S LOFT. Dance. Voice. Acting.
I scanned the place as she pushed open a door with fliers taped to its glass panes.
This appeared to be one of those rehearsal spaces where you paid by the hour and spent half of it talking to people who were just as broke as you were.
No agents. No egos. Just battered toe shoes and a place to work on your craft.
An hour later, she came back out smiling.
A tall, willowy guy held the door open for her.
His posture was that of a ballet instructor.
He had half a jewelry store adorning his fingers and a theatrical grin spread across his face.
She beamed at him. Talked. Laughed. Bit her lip in that way I was learning she did when she was amused and trying not to show it.
The way she looked at him got under my skin.
After saying goodbye to the guy, she turned west again, walked two more blocks, and slipped into a small store with pink trim and a sign lettered in gold script: Beneath the Covers .
Romance-only, judging by the window displays.
From where I stood outside, I could see black bookshelves and a mural behind the front counter that read: Happy Endings Sold Here.
I waited a minute, then followed her in.
Inside, the air was warm, fragrant with sandalwood-scented candles and freshly brewed coffee. She was already near the back. Didn’t browse. Didn’t hesitate. She’d apparently come with a title in mind.
I stayed out of her line of sight, keeping to the inner wall opposite the windows, then slipping into a gap between two center shelves labeled Enemies to Lovers and Touch Her and Die.
The layout of the place worked to my advantage.
Tall bookcases ran perpendicular to the storefront, creating plenty of blind spots.
Most of the customers were wandering around near the front table displays.
I lingered between the shelves, crouching to pull out a random paperback in case anyone glanced over.
Within just a couple of minutes, she had picked out her book, paid in cash, and thanked the woman behind the counter.
I caught the title as she turned: Her Soul to Keep .
By the time she drifted into the connected cafe space, I’d already slipped back out the front door.
The cafe had floor-to-ceiling windows and a glass door that opened onto the sidewalk, making it easy for me to keep an eye on her.
I lit a cigarette and did a simple AI search: Romance book + Her Soul to Keep + plot summary + reviews.
In seconds, the book’s information came up.
Her Soul to Keep by Alessa Vale . Billionaire recluse. Young journalist. A spiraling descent into psychological control, bondage, and forced obedience wrapped in silk ribbons. Age Gap. BDSM. Alpha Male. Dub-con.
Dozens of five-star reviews praised it, with one reader saying it was “unhinged, possessive, obsessive—everything you crave but can’t ask for.”
Jesus.
Maybe she was like all the rest—shiny on the outside, tarnished on the inside.
I scanned more reviews.
“Sinister. Erotic. Addictive. Loved the primal domination.”
“This book is not for the faint of heart. The heroine is young and na?ve; the hero is a tech mogul who manipulates her entire life from the shadows. It’s filthy. It’s obsessive. It’s everything.”
Heat coursed through my veins.
She liked the idea of a man pulling the strings behind the scenes just to get close.
Maybe she didn’t know it consciously. Maybe it was just a fantasy on the page. But still—there was something deep inside of her that was chasing darker pleasures.
And I had already delivered the first chapter.
Through the window of the cafe, I watched her order a sandwich and sit alone in a corner booth with her new book. She read while she ate, taking slow bites between long stretches of reading. She lingered there, completely absorbed, savoring every bite and word on the page.
Whatever was in that book, it had her—enough to make her forget the world outside. I remained there, observing her as time slipped by. It was like the whole world had narrowed to that booth, that book, that girl.
Eventually, she slipped the book into her backpack, rose from the booth, and pushed through the side glass door. The spell was broken. She rejoined the city as if nothing had happened—like she hadn’t just spent almost two hours lost in someone else’s fantasies.
She headed east and stepped into a corner bodega, moving slowly and thoughtfully through the store.
She paused at the produce bins, inspecting each piece—fingers squeezing, nose dipping in close.
Then she weaved through the narrow aisles, gathering what looked like a modest haul.
Abruptly, she stopped. Pulled out her wallet.
Counted the cash and counted it again. She took a sharp turn and moved back toward the frozen food section—the cheesecake hadn’t made the cut.
She’d bought a romance novel instead.
Interesting.
It was nearly dark by the time she left the bodega and headed toward Hell’s Kitchen. I followed her past 9th Avenue as the streetlamps were blinking awake.
She was looking at her phone again.
Head down. Not a clue in the goddamn world about what was going on around her.
Her lack of situational awareness pissed me off.
We were three blocks deep into a part of Hell’s Kitchen I wouldn’t let my sister walk through in daylight, and this girl was strolling along like it was Sunday at a goddamn farmers’ market.
My teeth clenched.
She didn’t see the twitchy guy pissing behind a dumpster. Didn’t register the two men on the sidewalk across the street who stopped talking to track her ass with their eyes.
I lit a cigarette as I walked faster, closing the distance until I was directly across the street from her, matching her pace.
Her backpack hung loosely off one shoulder, and she carried two grocery bags in one hand, which thudded against her knee with every step. She still hadn’t looked up from her phone.
I took a long drag, then exhaled hard through my nose.
My mind grew dark with the thought of what a man like me could do to her.
Not kill her—no, that wasn’t the urge—but to taste the fear on her lips.
Push her up against the wall in one of these blind alleys and take whatever I wanted.
Let her feel what forced obedience meant.
That lithe little body of hers wouldn’t stand a chance. I’d pin her wrists above her head with one hand and hold her hips in place with the other, claiming her mouth with mine while I tore her fantasies out of fiction and forced her to live them, one breath at a time.
She liked those books, didn’t she? Like the one in her bag—full of domination, fear, surrender.
She wanted to be chased, caught, punished.
I could give her that.
And then she wouldn’t walk through this neighborhood so carefree again.
That hadn’t been the plan, but she needed to learn a lesson—deserved a Halloween night fright.
I was thirty feet behind her when I saw the perfect opportunity.
I slammed my boot into a metal trash can leaning against a stoop. The clang cracked like a gunshot down the block.
She whirled.
Our eyes locked.
Recognition detonated across her face.
I drew on my cigarette one last time—slowly, deliberately—then flicked it. The ember spun through the air and hit the pavement just inches from her shoes, scattering sparks like a warning flare.
She froze. Her lips parted. Her face drained of all color. Her shoulders jerked back, and for a second, I thought she was going to scream.
She didn’t.
She ran .
Good girl.
Then she was gone—darting between cars as if a hound from hell was behind her.
He was.
I took off, staying just close enough for her to hear my boots hammering on the pavement behind her.
She was fast. I’d give her that.
With her groceries slamming against her leg, her backpack smacking against her spine, and her breath tearing from her chest, she ran up the stairs of a railroad-style apartment building and punched in a code, fumbling with the door before disappearing inside.
I veered left, slipping around the corner of the building.