Chapter 18
Alexei
She hasn’t spoken a word since we left the alley. Not even when I gave her salve for her cheek or handed her fresh clothes to replace the bloodstained maid costume. We had to leave her packed bag—the salvaged bits of her ransacked life—behind in the chaos.
On the drive back, I called my guys, sending them out to check the area around her apartment and to start the hunt for the men who’d shot at us.
Her silence weighs down on me more than words ever could.
It signifies the absence of the woman I snatched from that alley who fought and argued and fled down a fire escape. This quiet ghost drifting across my polished concrete floor is someone else entirely.
Back and forth.
She paces from the elevator to the windows and back again, face emotionless, body on autopilot. She’s shutting down.
Her borrowed clothes hang loose on her frame. My black t-shirt swallows her torso. Even with the drawstring of my sweatpants pulled taut around her waist, the rolled-up cuffs still drag on the floor. With each pivot, her worn sneakers squeak against the concrete.
A metronome marking time in my cavernous space.
I didn’t expect this reaction. I prepared for anger, fear, pleading, tears…even her panicked, nerve-induced babbling.
But there’s nothing.
Only an emptiness that doesn’t match the woman who wielded a broken lamp like a weapon and threatened to kill me if I touched her sister.
I open a cabinet, pull down a tumbler and a crystal decanter, and pour myself two fingers of vodka. The routine is familiar, comforting in its predictability. I toss back half the drink in one swallow, feeling the burn trace a line down my throat.
Across the room, Aurora completes another circuit. Back and forth. Squeak. Squeak. Back and forth.
The light that drew me to her has vanished, extinguished somewhere between the gunfire and this moment. I’ve seen that expression before, on men right before they break. On witnesses who’ve seen or been through too much. It’s the look of someone retreating deep inside themselves.
Unreachable.
That’s what she’s become.
Her silence bothers me more than I care to admit.
A fierce, possessive instinct rears its head inside me. She’s under my protection. For all intents and purposes, she’s mine. And fuck, do I want to bask in her light again.
Pouring a second drink, I hold it up in silent offering.
She doesn’t even glance my way. Just keeps pacing, eyes fixed on some middle distance only she can see.
Her path never varies from the windows to the elevator doors and back again as she forms a perfect rectangle across my living space, over and over.
When I set the glass on the table, the clink of crystal against marble fractures the silence. Still no reaction. Her indifference needles under my skin, an irritant I can’t shake.
This isn’t what I wanted when I brought her here. I wanted the fire, the fight, and the vibrant, chaotic energy that made her so different from the cold, calculated world I inhabit. From the moment we met in the bar, I became obsessed, and now I’m left with this ghost.
This shell of a woman.
She breaks her pattern and cuts toward the kitchen. For just a second, I think she’s finally acknowledging my presence and accepting what I’ve offered.
Instead, she wanders past the glass on the counter, past me, and to the sink. She turns on the tap, cups her hands beneath the stream, and brings them to her lips.
A cold, sharp sensation twists in my gut as she drinks like a stray animal. The message is clear in every line of her body.
I will take nothing from you.
The rejection stings more than I care to admit. I didn’t rescue her from that alley, protect her, and bring her into my sanctuary just to watch her retreat into herself. I didn’t chase her across the city and shield her with my body from bullets just because I wanted this hollow shell.
I want the woman who called me her boyfriend and kissed me in the bar. Who fled down a fire escape and fought back when cornered. Who looked me in the eye and lied with conviction.
This madness stops now.
In three long strides, I’m across the kitchen. I grab a clean glass from the cabinet, fill it with water, and shove it directly into her line of sight. “Drink.”
She doesn’t wince at the harshness in my voice. Simply continues scooping water to her mouth with cupped palms and vacant eyes while refusing to acknowledge me.
Scorching rage roars through me. Not the controlled anger I’m accustomed to, but a wilder, more primitive sensation. I slam the glass down on the counter violently enough that water sloshes over the rim.
She flinches.
A reaction. Finally. The first crack in her emptiness.
I grab her wrists, yanking her hands away from her face. Water cascades down her arms, soaking into the borrowed t-shirt.
She doesn’t resist.
I back her against the counter, caging her in with my body, my hands still locked around her wrists. “Look at me.”
Her eyes meet mine, and for the first time since the shooting, I glimpse emotion filling the emptiness. Fear, yes. And defiance underneath that. But most of all, a deep, simmering fury. Those darker emotions have smothered her light.
The light I risked my life to preserve and bring back with me.
This maddening woman is driving me fucking crazy. I’ve spent years building a reputation for meticulous control and cold calculation. For never letting emotion dictate my actions. Yet here I am, acting on pure instinct, pushing and prodding for a reaction like a child poking at a wounded animal.
Part of me wants to stop, retreat, and regain the control that’s defined my life. But a more primal part wants to give in to this rush, to let go completely and see what happens when I stop calculating and start feeling.
The realization should terrify me. Instead, I tighten my grip and hover closer.
In one violent motion, I slam my mouth down on hers.
There’s nothing gentle or romantic or seductive about it. It’s the kiss of a conqueror, an angry, selfish act meant to provoke rather than delight. My lips crush against hers, demanding a response.
Nothing.
She’s as silent and rigid as a statue.
My teeth graze her lower lip, nipping at the delicate skin. I release her wrist to cup the back of her neck, tangle my fingers in her hair, and hold her in place as I ravage her with my mouth. I yank her head back, changing the angle.
I’m not trying to reignite her light anymore.
I’m trying to devour what’s left.
Some dark and primitive drive has overtaken me, a need to possess completely what I’ve claimed as mine. I need her fire, her fight, her defiance, even her hatred.
My fingers slide from her neck to her hip, stopping there to dig into soft flesh through the thin fabric of sweatpants. I use my body to pin her to the counter, leaving her no room to retreat. The kiss deepens and grows more demanding, more invasive.
And then, for a split second, her body betrays her.
Life and light come flooding back.
A small, startled moan escapes her throat. Her captured wrist slackens in my grip. Her lips soften beneath mine and part. For one heartbeat, maybe two, she responds to the kiss, her body arching toward mine.
Then her eyes widen, and she goes rigid again.
Her free hand slams against my chest. The frantic, desperate push catches me off guard more from its suddenness than its force. She twists her face away, breaking the kiss while trying to jerk her other wrist free of my grip. The counter behind her thwarts her attempt to retreat.
The shove pierces the haze of madness that grapples me.
I release her and stumble back. My breath comes in harsh, uneven gasps. The sweetness that’s uniquely hers lingers on my lips. My heart hammers against my ribs.
She stays pressed against the counter, as far from me as she can get without actually moving.
Her hands fly to her mouth, fingers trembling against swollen lips.
Those clear green eyes that began haunting me back in the alley widen with hatred and fear and fury.
But there’s more too. Something so much worse.
Violation.
I became the monster. The very thing she feared from the beginning.
The realization that I broke her trust hits me with physical force. Not that she had much trust in me to begin with. Still, I’ve crossed a line that I can’t uncross and in doing so, shattered something inside her. Extinguished more of that light I was initially so desperate to reignite.
I could do this again. Force another reaction by demanding her attention. I could rip down her walls through sheer persistence. Dominance. Violence.
Over and over and over.
But each time would erase a little more of her, until the woman I brought here disappeared completely.
Regret cuts through the last vestiges of my anger and desire.
I fucked up.
I can’t apologize. Those words don’t exist in my vocabulary. Not that an apology would do any good. I can’t threaten her into happiness, can’t intimidate her spirit to return.
Somehow, I need to find a way to repair what I’ve ruined. Bring back the brightness in this spitfire of a woman.
My gaze darts around the room as I search for answers, for clues as to what might reach her. As if the solutions to this problem might be scattered among the minimalist furniture in my sterile, empty space that houses me but has never truly been a home.
The photo of her sister…and the cat…were the only belongings she tried to protect in her ransacked apartment.
Family. Connection.
The things that keep her going when everything else falls apart.
The realization washing through me cools the heat of my anger and clears the fog of my desperation. I know what to do.
Without a word, I cross to one of the barstools, where I left my jacket and keys. As I shrug into the leather, the familiar weight settles on my shoulders like armor. And one of the pockets has just what I need.
As much as I want to see the spark return to her eyes, I know better than to leave her here unrestrained. She watches me in silence, face impassive as I sit her at the kitchen table and zip-tie her to a chair.
Once I finish restraining her, I move back. “Consider this your punishment for escaping. Try it again, and you won’t like the consequences.”