Chapter 20
Aurora
What the hell was I thinking?
How could I respond that way? How could I want this man after everything he’s put me through? My fingers trace my lips, still buzzing from the ghost of his touch. I hate myself for the lingering heat that pools in my belly, for the shameful way my body melted into his.
“What am I doing?” The words escape my lips in a broken whisper. My traitorous body still tingles where his knee pressed between my thighs. My lips still throb from his careful conquest.
And he just waltzed away. Like the attraction between us is one-sided. Maybe this is just a regular Sunday for him. Maybe this means nothing.
Maybe I mean nothing.
In a surreal reminder of normality in this nightmare, Pixie weaves between my legs. Her purr—the only warm sound in this cavernous space of steel and glass and isolation—vibrates through the emptiness.
I need to get away from this spot where his lips unmade me. Need walls between us. Something solid to hide behind.
When I venture inside the guest room, my bare feet sink into plush gray carpet.
I close the door behind me and turn the lock—a small, insignificant act of defiance against a man who probably has a key and ten other ways to get through any barrier I erect.
Still, the tiny snick of metal sliding into place gives me my first moment of peace since the alley.
Once my knees buckle, though, that false sense of security shatters.
I slide down the door until I’m sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around myself.
My breath comes in short, painful gasps.
Everything crashes in at once. The gunshots in the alley.
Benny’s execution. The ransacking of my apartment.
The crosshairs on Samantha’s photo. The chase through the streets. Bullets flying past my head.
And now this.
This twisted, confusing desire for the very man who rained down this hell on me.
I draw my knees to my chest and press my forehead against them, making myself small, invisible, nothing. I swallow back the sob building in my throat, refusing to cry. Not yet. Not here. Not where he might hear.
When I finally raise my head, I take in the room around me, one I briefly explored before. Everything’s gray. The walls, the carpet, the comforter on the king-sized bed. Different shades of gray. Charcoal, slate, silver, ash. But no color.
No personality. No life. It’s Alexei’s aesthetic taken to the extreme. A space designed for occupation, not living. A luxury hotel room without the warmth.
No artwork adorns the walls. No books sit on the nightstands.
No personal touches whatsoever. Just a bed, a dresser, two nightstands, and a chair positioned by the floor-to-ceiling windows that match those in the main loft.
The same view of Chicago sprawls out below, triggering the same sensation of being suspended above the world. Separate.
Forcing my shaky legs to move deeper into the room, I find a stack of neatly folded clothes—a black t-shirt and gray sweatpants—on the pristine bed. Provisions for a captive. The sight of them, so mundane, so domestic, sends a fresh wave of nausea through me.
He planned for me to stay.
My fingers brush against the soft cotton of the shirt. It’s new, tags still attached. But the sweatpants are worn thin in places, soft from countless washes.
A door on the far side of the room must lead to the en suite bathroom. I gather the clothes mechanically, mind drifting as my body operates on autopilot. I need to wash away the sweat and fear and whatever else clings to me after the hell I’ve been through.
As I cross the room, my thoughts circle back to my sister. Sweet, brilliant Samantha who has no idea her life hangs in the balance because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because I overheard the wrong conversation at Gio’s mansion. Witnessed a murder in that alley.
I’m caught between two monsters. Gio, with his threats and his gunmen and his photo of my sister marked for death. And Alexei, with his cold eyes and his murderous hands and his mouth that claims and punishes and rewards.
Between them, they’ve stripped away everything.
My home, my job, my security, my control.
Even my resistance crumbles under Alexei’s calculated assault.
He knows exactly what he’s doing. Knows how to use his gentleness as a weapon after his violence.
How to coax my body into betraying me with the simplest touch.
I’m halfway to the bathroom when movement by the window freezes me in place.
My heart slams against my ribs as soon as I realize I’m not alone.
Alexei sits in the chair by the window, motionless and watchful as a statue.
I don’t know how long he’s been there, but he must have used a key to let himself in.
The silver moonlight cuts across his features, highlighting the sharp angles of his face and the chilly assessment in his eyes.
“I didn’t…” The words die in my throat. What can I possibly say? I didn’t hear you come in? I didn’t know you were watching me? I didn’t want to respond to your kiss?
He doesn’t speak or move. Just watches me with that predatory gaze, tracking every twitch, breath, and flicker of emotion I fail to hide.
I drop my eyes, clutch the clothes tighter to my chest like armor, and force my legs to carry me to the bathroom. Each step is like walking against a current, and my muscles fight the urge to freeze or flee. That predatory gaze slides down my spine like a physical touch, marking me as prey.
I swing open the bathroom door, slip inside, and flip the lock in another useless gesture. But I need these illusions of privacy and boundaries, even if those boundaries only exist in my mind.
My eyes flicker to the other door, the one that leads to the hall. I lock that one too.
After setting the clothes on the counter, I stare at my reflection in the massive mirror.
A stranger looks back at me. Pale face streaked with dirt and tears and a smattering of freckles.
Light brown hair tangled and wild. Green eyes too big, too haunted.
Body cloaked in borrowed clothes that hang off my frame like I’m a little girl playing dress-up.
My fingers fumble with the hem of his shirt, the one I’ve worn since the shooting. It smells like him. Everything smells like him. I need it off. Need every trace of him gone from my skin.
In a matter of seconds, I’ve stripped, letting the clothes fall to the floor in a heap. My body is a map of the last twenty-four hours. Small cuts and scrapes from the alley, my escape, and the gunfight. Faint bruises on my wrists from the zip ties.
Despite the luxury of the fixture, the shower controls are simple. I turn the water as hot as I can tolerate and step under the punishing spray. Steam billows around me, cocooning me in this temporary sanctuary. The heat sears my skin, pinkening it within seconds, but I welcome the discomfort.
It’s clean.
Honest. Uncomplicated.
Tilting my face into the spray, I let the water sluice away tears I didn’t realize were falling. I hug my body, holding myself together as tremors rack my frame. Here, hidden in steam and noise, I finally let myself break.
A raw, animalistic, primal sob rips from my throat.
Then another. And another. Until I’m crouched on the marble floor of the shower, arms wrapped around my knees, body convulsing with the force of my fear and grief and rage.
I cry for my apartment, the one safe space I had, now violated and destroyed.
I cry for my job, gone because I witnessed something I shouldn’t have.
I cry for Samantha, innocent and unaware that I’ve endangered her life.
I cry for myself, the woman who woke up yesterday thinking her biggest problem was making rent and who’s currently cowering naked in a killer’s shower.
But most of all, I cry over my own body’s betrayal and the way heat flooded me when Alexei kissed me. My shameful yearning for more. What kind of person does that make me? What broken thing lives inside me that responds to danger, to violence, to power with desire rather than fear?
I scrub at my skin, nails leaving red trails down my arms, my legs, my stomach. As if I can banish the memory of his touch. Of my response. As if I can cleanse myself of whatever dark impulse has me wanting this terrifying, lethal man.
Eventually, the water cools, the hot water tank finally emptying after my thirty-minute breakdown.
I force myself to rise up on shaky legs and go through the motions of washing up using the expensive products on the built-in shelf.
With my mind and body disconnected by fatigue and trauma, each movement requires concentration.
When I finally exit the shower, the bathroom is filled with steam, the mirror fogged beyond recognition. Good. I don’t want to see myself anymore. I can’t look into the eyes of a woman who’s hit rock bottom and then somehow found a way to sink even lower.
I dry off mechanically with a thick gray towel before pulling on the fresh clothes. I roll the waistband of the sweatpants several times so they don’t drag on the floor and tie the drawstring as tight as it will go.
Renewed exhaustion slams into me as I finish dressing. My limbs are weighted with lead, my eyelids too heavy to keep open. I should go back out there. Face him. Check on Pixie. Make some sort of plan for tomorrow.
But I can’t. There’s nothing left in me. No strength. No fight. No tears. Nothing but a bone-deep weariness.
I open the gray door, wander through the gray light, and shove back the gray blanket. My head sinks into a gray pillow as I pull gray sheets over my shoulder.
Life has never been black-and-white before. But it’s also never held so many shades of gray.