Chapter Ten - Simon
I watch her.
Not casually. Not impatiently. I study her the way I study enemies, threats, and puzzles—with absolute focus, every detail documented, every reaction cataloged.
Eden presses herself against the warehouse wall, trembling, eyes wide but not vacant. Fear runs through her, yes, but there is something else under it. Something sharper. Something that stirs me in a way I don’t appreciate.
Her chin lifts despite the shaking. Defiant. She looks me over like she wants answers, not mercy.
“Look at me,” I say quietly.
Her eyes snap to mine. She thinks she’s hiding her thoughts, but they flicker over her expression: disbelief, fear, anger, confusion. The combination shouldn’t be compelling.
I take a step closer.
She flinches but doesn’t look away. That alone sends heat sliding under my ribs.
“You’re scared,” I murmur. “You should be.”
The words land hard enough that I see her breath catch. Her spine straightens by an inch.
“You kidnapped me,” she whispers. “I have every right to be scared.”
The truth only sharpens her defiance.
I lean in slightly, letting her feel the weight of my presence. “I brought you here because you keep walking into danger you don’t understand.”
Her lips part—a protest forming—then she forces them shut. Control, even now. I trace the movement, fascinated.
“You should have stayed away,” I add.
She swallows, throat tight. “You didn’t let me stay away.”
A breath of amusement escapes me. “No. I didn’t. You fell so perfectly into my trap.”
Her anger flares. It dances vividly across her features, raw and unfiltered. She hates being powerless. She hates being cornered. She hates being wrong.
She’s more afraid of not understanding me than she is of the guns, the shadows, or the men who dragged her here.
That—God help me—is what keeps pulling me in.
I take another step, close enough that she presses back against the wall for space.
“You saw something you shouldn’t have,” I say evenly. “But you’re here because you didn’t stay away from it.”
She glares up at me. “You mean I didn’t obey.”
“That’s not the word I’d use.”
“What word would you use?” she snaps.
I smile—slow, dangerous. “Curiosity got the better of you, it seems.”
Her heartbeat stutters. I don’t need to touch her to feel it. It radiates off her, pulsing through the air between us.
I should end this. I should do what I do to every witness who risks my world. I should lean in, press a gun to her throat, and watch the fear sharpen into silence.
The thought of harming her curls inside me, wrong in a way I can’t tolerate.
I step back.
The air shifts instantly. She gasps quietly, relief and confusion tangling in her breath. My men stay silent near the van entrance, watching like statues. They’ve never seen me hesitate. They’ve never seen me hold back.
They wouldn’t understand it even if they tried.
Before I can speak again, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I check the caller ID: Viktor.
I answer with one clipped word. “Report.”
“There’s movement,” he says. “Rafael’s men are close to the docks. They’re testing the perimeter.”
My jaw tightens. “How many?”
“Three cars. No guns out. Looks like surveillance.”
More pressure. More arrogance. Rafael’s crew pushing at the edges of my city like they don’t remember who buried their last attempt.
Rage simmers low in my chest—not loud, but precise. Controlled. I shift my attention back to Eden, who watches me with that trembling intensity that shouldn’t affect me at all.
“I’m on my way,” I tell Viktor. “No contact unless necessary.”
“Yes, sir.”
The call ends. The irritation stays.
Ardaleon steps closer from the shadows of the hallway. “Problem?”
“Rafael’s men,” I answer. “Close to our shipments.”
His gaze slides to Eden. “What do you want to do with her?”
The warehouse goes quiet. Eden stiffens. Her breathing falters.
I should give the order. Keep her here. Lock her up. End her life. Cut loose the thread tying her to me.
Instead, I say, “She stays alive.”
Ardaleon’s eyebrows lift, but he doesn’t question it. He never does in front of others.
I motion to Lukyan, who lingers beside the van with two guards. “No one touches her. No one goes near her. Double security around this area.”
Lukyan looks puzzled. “Around her?”
“Yes.” My voice sharpens like a blade. “Around her.”
He nods slowly. He doesn’t ask why.
My men exchange glances—curious, uneasy—but no one comments. They don’t have permission to.
I walk toward Eden again, compelled despite myself. Her eyes widen as I stop in front of her, close enough that I feel her breath on my collarbone. She tries to mask the tremor in her hands by clenching them into fists.
I lift one finger and tilt her chin up.
She gasps—a small, sharp sound that hits me harder than it should.
“You’re not going to disappear,” I tell her quietly. “You’re not going to be harmed.”
Her voice shakes. “Because you won’t allow it?”
“Yes.”
Her breath shudders.
I release her chin slowly, letting my fingers graze her jaw. Electricity. That’s the only way to describe the jolt that sparks through me at the contact. She feels it too—I see it in the widening of her eyes, the faint hitch in her breath.
I should step away. Instead I linger one second too long.
The phone in my pocket vibrates again—another alert from Viktor. Rafael’s men are moving faster.
My world demands attention, but my focus is here. On the girl breathing hard in front of me. On the fire in her eyes battling with fear. On the strange, dangerous weight of wanting her to understand me, even if she never should.
I pull back, forcing myself to turn.
“Take her home,” I order Lukyan. “The long way. No threats. No contact.”
Eden’s breath catches. “You’re letting me go?”
I pause at the warehouse door. “I’m choosing not to lose you.”
She flinches at the phrasing, but I’m already walking out, irritation knotting tight in my chest—not at her, but at myself, at the intensity that coils whenever she’s near, at the way her existence shifts the center of my focus.
I step into the night, pulling the warehouse door shut behind me.
Protection shouldn’t feel this personal. Control shouldn’t feel this urgent.
Yet, even as I move to confront a rival crew encroaching on my empire, my thoughts remain tethered to her—her breath, her fear, her defiance.
Eden isn’t a threat, she’s a distraction.
Still, eliminating her is impossible.
***
From the moment dawn breaks, I can’t keep my mind off her. I tell myself it’s strategy, a necessary precaution, the kind of vigilance that keeps my empire intact.
Every order I give, every report I review, every conversation with my men is hollowed out by the same distraction. Eden. Her defiance. Her fear. Her sharp, stubborn courage. She should be a loose end I’m preparing to cut. Instead, she’s a thought I can’t seem to lose.
She’s under guard in a safe location, exactly where I placed her. She isn’t hurt. She isn’t alone.
The truth settles beneath my ribs like pressure—steady, unignorable. I need to see her. I need to understand what it is about her that keeps threading itself through my control.
I go to her apartment without announcing myself.
The hallway is quiet, and her door isn’t locked.
She sits on the edge of her couch, tense, alert, still in yesterday’s clothes.
She looks at me with a mix of frustration and fear, but there’s something else beneath it—awareness. She stands as soon as she sees me.
“What do you want?” she asks. Her voice is tight, but not broken.
Control should be automatic. It always is.
Something about how she holds herself—wary, determined, refusing to cower—makes my pulse shift.
I step closer, testing her the way I test anyone who challenges my boundaries.
Her breath stutters. Her shoulders rise.
Her eyes flicker between my face and the door, calculating escape and failing to find any opening. Still, she doesn’t back down.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispers.
“I disagree.”
I move closer still, just enough that heat radiates between us.
She stiffens, but she keeps her chin lifted.
That spark of defiance pushes at something inside me, something I don’t want to name.
Her pulse betrays her every time—quickening, fluttering, visible beneath her skin.
She tries to hide it, but it only reveals how hard she’s fighting to stay composed.
“Why are you doing this?” she asks.
I let silence stretch, watching how it affects her. Her jaw tightens. Her breath grows shallow. She’s afraid, but she refuses to break. Finally, I answer, “You don’t understand your position.”
“Then explain it,” she snaps back.
Bold. Reckless. Too honest for her own safety. Her courage unsettles me. Her innocence complicates everything. The combination tears through my control like a blade through silk.
“You think I won’t get answers from you,” I murmur. “You think you can hide your intentions from me.”
Her hands clench. “I don’t have intentions.”
“Everyone does.”
“I’m not your enemy.”
“No,” I say. “You’re not.”
The admission hits her hard. She didn’t expect it. It disarms her more than any threat could. I step in even closer. She tries not to react, but I see everything—the tremor in her fingers, the spike in her breath, the panic fighting with the courage she clings to.
“Don’t,” she whispers when I move one step too close.
I stop just short of touching her. “I’m testing you.”
“For what?” Her voice shakes.
“To see if you break.”
“I won’t.”
Her vow is fragile and fierce all at once. Something hot and low twists in my chest at the sound of it. I take a step back to steady myself, but distance does nothing to cool the intensity building under my skin.
I start to pace.
I never pace. Not in front of anyone, but she watches every movement I make, tracking me like she wants to understand the man who terrified her one night and now stands in her apartment wrestling with something he refuses to name.
My men wouldn’t recognize me like this. Hell, I barely recognize myself.
“Why do you keep looking at me like that?” she asks suddenly.
“Like what?” My voice comes out sharper than intended.
“Like you’re trying to decide what I am to you.”
The accuracy of the observation lands like a blow. I freeze, tension snapping tight across my spine. Eden stares at me with those steady, frightened eyes. She has no idea how close she is to the truth. Or how dangerous that truth is for both of us.
She swallows. “Am I a threat? A witness? A mistake?”
“None of those,” I say.
“Then what?”
Before I can reason myself out of it, I step toward her again. She inhales sharply, but she doesn’t retreat. Her courage is a flame she holds too close to her own skin, flickering but refusing to go out. I should walk away.
Instead, my hand lifts.
I brush my fingers through her hair and tuck a strand behind her ear. The contact jolts us both. Her breath catches audibly. Her lashes tremble. Her skin warms under my fingertips.
For a suspended moment, neither of us moves.
Her eyes lock on mine with raw vulnerability, something fragile and burning. The moment stretches, heavy and intimate, charged with heat neither of us meant to create. It coils up my spine, powerful enough to threaten the control I’ve kept ironclad for years.
I pull back.
Her body reacts first—a tiny, involuntary step after mine, like she almost follows. She stops herself, cheeks flushed, breath unsteady. The air between us feels electrified, thick with something neither of us can pretend isn’t real.
“Get some rest,” I say, voice low, strained, unfamiliar even to my own ears.
She stares at me, a mix of fear and frustration tightening her expression. “Are you leaving?”
“For now.”
Her shoulders drop, barely, but enough for me to see. Enough to haunt me.
I turn and leave because staying would unravel me further. I close the door behind me and walk down the hallway with a pulse that refuses to slow, mind racing through every second of what just happened.
Control slipped tonight. I felt it the moment my fingers touched her hair. I’m sure she felt it too.