6. Lena
Lena
My lips still tingle. That’s the first thing I notice when the room stops spinning. Not the cold air. Not the silence. Not the rough metal cross on the wall.
My lips. Still swollen. Still warm.
Still remembering him.
I press a hand over my mouth like I can scrub the feeling off, but all it does is make my pulse jump because I can still taste him there, faint and impossible to ignore.
God. What the hell am I doing?
He kissed me.
No, worse—I kissed him back. I wrapped my damn legs around him.
I refasten my jeans and then groan and bury my face in my hands for a moment, letting the humiliation crash over me. “Fantastic, Lena. Truly. Peak decision-making. Kissing the masked man who kidnapped you? Sure. Why not? That’ll look great in your obituary.”
I sit on the bed too fast and the room tilts slightly, my vision flickering at the edges. My head is still heavy—like I’m wading through the fog of whatever Ethan slipped into my drink. Every time I think of him, my stomach twists.
Ethan. His too-perfect smile, too-practiced charm. The way he watched me over dinner like he already owned me.
And now this.
“Oh God,” I whisper. “What if they’re working with him? What if he drugged me and passed me along like—like cargo?” My breath stutters. “Sex trafficking. Amazing. I’m living the dream.”
I stumble to my feet and rush to the window, hands shaking as I grip the metal frame. When I try to push it open, nothing happens. I try again, harder. Still nothing. The screws aren’t just tight—they’re sealed. Bolted shut like this place wasn’t made for leaving.
Great.
I press my forehead to the cold glass and look out. No buildings. No streetlights. Nothing that looks remotely like the city. Just empty land stretching out under a pale strip of sky.
“Perfect,” I mutter. “Kidnapped and relocated to the ass end of nowhere.”
I back away from the window, frustration tightening every muscle in my body.
I don’t know where I am. I don’t know who these men are.
I don’t know why they saved me—or if they saved me at all.
And I definitely don’t know why one of them can kiss like that, like he was made to ruin someone’s equilibrium.
A sharp knock jolts me.
I spin around.
The door isn’t fully closed, just pushed almost shut. It creaks open slowly, and I freeze because something in my instincts screams that whoever is behind it isn’t the quiet blond man with the haunted eyes. The footsteps are heavy. Confident.
And then he walks in. The amused one. The one who laughed while holding a bloody blade in that basement. The one whose shadow feels too big for any room to hold.
He fills the doorway with broad shoulders, tattoos peeking out from his shirt, eyes gleaming with something that looks dangerously close to delight.
“Well, good morning, sweetheart,” he drawls, like we’re in a rom-com instead of a concrete panic room. “Sleep okay?”
I swallow hard. My heart kicks, and I straighten instinctively, pulse hammering in my throat as the man steps fully into the room. He’s tall—broader than the blond one—dark hair, controlled posture, expression unreadable. Not amused. Not warm. Just… assessing.
Exactly the kind of man who doesn’t need a weapon to be dangerous.
My fingers curl at my sides. “Who are you?” I manage, though my voice comes out thinner than I want.
He stops a few feet from me, boots planted, arms loose at his sides in a way that somehow looks more threatening than crossed arms ever could. He tilts his head just slightly, studying me like he’s cataloging weaknesses, exits, pulse points.
“Knox,” he says finally.
Just that.
I swallow. “And… what exactly is a ‘Knox’ supposed to be?”
His brow lifts the slightest bit—like the question wasn’t what he expected, but he’s not offended either. More… curious. “Not your enemy,” he answers. “If that’s what you’re asking.”
Which is not the same thing as friend.
Not even close.
He takes another step in, slow, deliberate, making sure I see every inch of movement. A man trained to never startle prey, just corral it. “And since I’ve told you my name, I think I deserve to know yours.”
My back hits the edge of the window frame before I realize I’m retreating. Crap, I already told the other guy my real name. Lying now would do me no good.
“Lena,” I finally say.
“Lena,” he repeats.
I swallow hard.
“Relax,” Knox says quietly. “If we wanted to hurt you, you wouldn’t be standing.”
My breath catches. “That’s supposed to be comforting?”
“Supposed to be honest,” he replies.
His eyes flick over my shoulder, toward the bolted window I clearly failed to open, and then drift back to me with a look that suggests he’s noticing things I don’t mean to reveal—panic, observation, the fact that I’m already calculating escape routes.
He nods once, as if confirming something to himself. “You shouldn’t be moving around alone,” he adds. “Vale should’ve stayed with you.”
I freeze.
Vale. So that’s the blond one’s name.
Knox steps farther into the room, his boots whispering against the concrete, his expression unreadable. It’s the kind of look that says he notices every detail and files it away for later. “Are you hurt?” he asks.
The question is clinical, like he’s conducting an evaluation rather than checking on me. I almost laugh—bitter, shaky—because this whole morning is some kind of nightmare logic puzzle.
“No,” I say. “Just confused. And, you know, kidnapped.”
He doesn’t smile. He just observes me a second longer, eyes sweeping from my tangled hair to my socked feet to the window behind me.
“You shouldn’t go near that,” he says with a small nod toward it. “It’s secured for a reason.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” I mutter. “Hard to miss the industrial-grade bolts. Nice touch, by the way. Super welcoming.”
A flicker crosses his face—amusement? irritation?—too quick for me to parse.
“This isn’t meant to welcome you,” he replies. “It’s meant to keep you safe.”
“From what?” I shoot back. “From you?”
He doesn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he takes one smooth, unhurried step closer. The kind that makes prey stop breathing. “From worse,” he says simply.
Worse.
Great. Comforting. Absolutely fantastic.
My fingers curl around the windowsill behind me. “I’d really love a list of the things that are worse than three masked men dragging me out of a basement full of blood.”
“You’ll get answers,” he says. “When it’s safe.”
“And I’m just supposed to trust you on that?”
“No,” he says. “You’re supposed to listen.”
Something tightens low in my stomach. Not fear—well, yes, fear, but not just fear. Authority suits him in a way I don’t want to think about.
I lift my chin. “And Vale? Is he supposed to ‘listen’ too?”
His eyes narrow, jaw ticking once. “Vale’s situation is different.”
I blink. “Different how?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says. A dismissal. A door closing. But something in his tone is off. Not careless, not cold—more like he’s watching a fault line form under my feet and is waiting to see whether I notice it.
I fold my arms. “You know, you guys really need to work on your hostage bedside manners.”
“We’re not your enemies,” he says again. Not defensive. Not trying to convince me. Just stating it like fact.
“And I’m not your friend,” I fire back.
His eyes drop to my mouth for the briefest second, and my heart stutters.
He steps closer. Too close.
“Maybe not,” he says quietly. “But you’re under our protection now.”
The word protection hits differently coming from him—heavy, weighted, promising danger and safety in the same breath.
“Why?” I whisper.
“You shouldn’t be moving around alone,” he says again instead of answering my question. “You’re still recovering from whatever that asshole put in your drink.”
Ethan. The name hits like a punch.
“Do you know him?” I ask, voice tighter than I intend.
“No,” he answers. “But men like him all blur together.”
I don’t know if that’s supposed to make me feel better, but it doesn’t.
I swallow. “What happens now?”
He studies me for a long, unreadable moment. “Now?” he says. “You eat something. You sit down before you pass out again. And you don’t attempt any more escape routes.”
I blink. “You—you knew I was?—”
“Trying the window? Yeah.” His voice is unbothered. “It’s louder than you think.”
My face heats. Of course it is.
He steps back just slightly, not fully withdrawing but giving me enough space to breathe.
His presence is… overwhelming. Up close, he’s even more dangerous-looking than I remembered from the basement.
Broad shoulders stretching the seams of his shirt, tattoos disappearing beneath the fabric.
His jaw is defined in that unfair “I could cut open a safe just by clenching” way.
His eyes—dark, intense—don’t blink nearly enough.
He looks like someone who grew up being taught that people are either obstacles or assets. And I have a sinking suspicion he’s still deciding which one I am.
“So,” he says, voice low, smooth, too calm. “Tell me something.”
Oh god no.
My spine stiffens. “Tell you… what?”
“Something real.”
That sends a shiver up my back.
Before I can brace myself, he closes the distance again—not touching, but close enough that I feel the heat of him.
He stands like someone used to taking up space, used to people stepping aside for him.
His shoulders are broad beneath the fitted black shirt, tattoos creeping up the side of his neck and disappearing under the collar, the ink dark against his skin.
“What’s your story, Lena?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Everyone has one.”
“Well, mine’s boring.”
“You don’t look boring.”
My pulse jumps. I hate that it jumps.
He studies my face like he’s cataloging reactions, filing them away for later use. His attention is sharp, uncomfortably focused. It feels like he’s peeling back layers I haven’t given him permission to touch.
“What are you?” he asks next. “Twenty? Twenty-two?”
“Twenty-three,” I mutter.