Chapter 13 Secrets Behind Locked Doors
SECRETS BEHIND LOCKED DOORS
DANI
His side of the bed was pristine. No crease, no warmth, just an expanse of expensive linen that mocked the way he’d held me a few hours earlier.
Gone again. Story of my fucking life.
Pale winter light streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, turning the room into a glass box. Outside, the city glittered under a skin of frost. Inside, it smelled like him. Like last night. Like mistakes you couldn’t unfuck with a shower.
Coffee.
The scent drifted in from the kitchen—dark, rich, the only reliable thing in this penthouse.
I forced myself out of bed, grabbed one of his shirts off the chair, and padded barefoot across the marble. The floor was cold. The kind of cold that made you feel how thin your skin was.
The apartment was too quiet.
No low Russian on a phone call. No ice clinking in a glass. Just the faint hum of vents and the soft tick of something high-end pretending not to be a clock.
His office door was closed.
The door to the weird almost-hallway with the camera blind spot was closed too.
My skin prickled.
Coffee first. Existential dread second.
I hit the kitchen and found a fresh mug already waiting, steam curling up like a peace offering.
The front door was next. I walked over and tried the handle even though I already knew.
Locked.
Of course.
Balcony?
Locked. Tiny red light on the alarm panel glowing smugly. Every window, every door, every possible way out: sealed.
I walked the perimeter, heart rate climbing with every pointless jiggle of a handle. It wasn’t just being trapped. It was the way this place was designed to make you forget there’d ever been another option.
You’re not a guest. You’re an object in climate-controlled storage.
The security cameras in the corners tracked my movement with tiny red blinks. All but one.
The blind spot.
The narrow slice of hall I’d clocked on my first night, where the cameras stuttered and there was a smooth stretch of wall that didn’t make sense in the layout.
The same wall with the door I’d rattled before. The one that didn’t open.
My pulse kicked.
You could just drink your coffee and watch Netflix on a TV that probably costs more than your loans. Or—
Or you could stop pretending you aren’t dying to know what he thinks you can’t handle.
The hallway felt longer than last time. The recessed lights were too gentle, too flattering, like they were designed to make marble and art look good instead of people.
I stopped in the blind spot.
Up close, the “wall” wasn’t even trying that hard. The faint line of a doorframe. A keypad recessed into the paneling. A lock that didn’t go with the rest of the designer hardware in this place.
Last time I’d just rattled the handle like a raccoon and given up.
Today, I had a bobby pin and no adult supervision.
“Bad idea,” I muttered.
I stuck the pin in the seam anyway.
It wasn’t like the movies. There was no magical click after five seconds and a witty one-liner. My hands shook. My knuckles scraped the metal. Sweat gathered between my shoulder blades.
One tiny click.
Nothing exploded. The building didn’t slide into the earth.
Okay. One more.
Second click. Louder. The faintest give under the lock.
You could stop. You could put the bobby pin back in your hair, go sit under the white Christmas tree and pretend you’re not locked in a murder penthouse.
Third click.
The lock disengaged with a soft mechanical sigh. A light next to the keypad went from red to green.
I froze.
Then I pushed.
The door swung inward on silent hinges.
Cold air brushed my face. Not outside cold. Refrigerated. The kind of chill that lived in morgues and expensive wine cellars.
I slipped inside and pulled the door mostly shut behind me, heart pounding so loud it felt like it should set off some other alarm.
No windows. No soft lighting. Just strip LEDs in the ceiling casting everything in harsh white.
The room was bigger than I expected.
And very, very wrong.
Stainless-steel table in the center, bolted to the floor. A drain grate beneath it. Hooks in the ceiling. Metal shelves along one wall stocked with neatly labeled bottles and packages—bleach, plastic sheeting, medical tape, gloves. A rolling cart with tools lined up in precise rows.
Not knives.
Not exactly.
But things that could become knives if you got creative.
The smell hit me next. Not strong. Hidden under industrial cleaner. But there.
Iron. Old and faint. The ghost of blood that wouldn’t quite leave.
The kind of room people disappeared into. The kind things got done in that never showed up on security footage because the cameras didn’t point here.
My stomach lurched.
So this is where he works. Not the office. Not the pretty glass box.
Here.
Protecting me, my ass.
He was protecting his secrets. His process. His pretty empire’s ugly plumbing.
My eyes snagged on something on the far wall.
Photos. Four of them, clipped to a wire.
They weren’t family pictures. No smiling kids. No vacations.
Men. Different ages, different faces, all looking at the camera like they’d been told to. Expressions ranged from bored to furious to scared. Under each one, neat handwritten notes in sharp Cyrillic.
Targets. Or trophies. Or warnings to himself.
My throat went dry.
One of the men looked familiar. I couldn’t place him. Not from the mall. Not from the bus. From a flash behind my eyelids when I tried to sleep.
The alley. The man he’d shot. The way his blood had spread over the snow.
I stepped closer, squinting.
A tiny red light blinked in the ceiling.
Camera.
Hidden. Aimed not at the door.
At the photos.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
This wasn’t just a room. This was a ritual.
My chest tightened. The world tunneled in around the lit surfaces and the silver gleam of metal and the little blinking eye.
Then I heard it.
Far away but distinct.
The elevator.
Soft chime. Shift in the building. The particular sound of the private lift coming home.
Panic punched through my curiosity like a fist.
Shit.
I darted back to the door, fingers clumsy on the lock. The keypad beeped as I jabbed at it, trying to remember which buttons I’d hit when I opened it. The light stubbornly stayed green.
The elevator hum grew louder. Closer.
You’re not getting caught in here. You are not getting caught in his murder spa.
I yanked the door fully open, stepped out, and slammed it shut. The lock whined, then clunked back into place. The light flipped to red.
My hands were slick with sweat. Sugar-glass sharp with adrenaline.
No time to calm down. No time to pretend I hadn’t just seen his little butcher’s nook.
I bolted the few steps into his office, grabbed the first heavy thing I saw—a crystal paperweight—and hurled it at the window.
It hit the glass with a shoulder-jarring thunk and bounced back like I’d thrown it at a wall. It ricocheted off my hand, pain flaring across my knuckles.
The window?
Not a scratch.
Of course the windows were more bulletproof than my sanity.
Blood welled up in a thin line across my knuckles. Bright red beaded and began to drip onto the white marble.
The door lock behind me beeped. Not the office door.
The front door.
The elevator chimed in the foyer.
“Shit,” I breathed.
Adrenaline zipped up my spine as the paperweight rolled to a stop against his desk. My hand throbbed. My heart did its own drum solo.
But the alarm didn’t sound.
I’d gotten the door relocked in time.
Maybe.
The front door opened.
He stepped in like the star of a very different show.
Dark coat. Snow melting on the wool. Tie gone, shirt collar open. Hair a little mussed like he’d run his hand through it on the way up.
And blood on his knuckles.
Not mine. His right hand was smeared with a darker red, drying around already-healed cuts. The skin across his knuckles looked abraded, fresh.
Like he’d been teaching someone a lesson with his fists.
He looked at the broken lamp in the corner and the blood on my hand and then at me.
The air shifted.
“What did you do?” he asked.
His voice was quiet. Too quiet. It sat low and dangerous, like the moment before ice cracks under your feet.
I straightened my shoulders and lifted my bleeding hand between us. “Tried to see if your aquarium walls were as solid as your bullshit. Turns out—yes.”
His gaze dropped to my knuckles. Something sharp flickered in his eyes.
He crossed the room in three smooth strides. I backed up on instinct until the back of my thighs hit the desk.
“Let me see,” he said.
“No, thanks.” I jerked my hand away. “Pretty sure I remember how Band-Aids work.”
“Dani.” My name came out like a warning.
He reached for my wrist again.
I grabbed the nearest object—the expensive art-deco lamp on the edge of the desk—and flung it at his head.
He ducked like he’d been waiting for it. The lamp shattered against the wall in a spray of crystal and glass, raining down over the marble.
It was satisfying for half a second.
Then he straightened.
He was smiling.
Not nice. Not kind.
Interested.
“Did you miss me?” he asked, as if I hadn’t just tried to take his head off.
“Not as much as I miss my freedom, my phone, and my basic human rights,” I snapped. “And for the record, if I wanted you dead, I’d aim lower.”
“Good to know.” He stepped in, crowding my space until the desk dug into the backs of my legs. “Let me see your hand.”
“You’re bleeding too,” I countered, flicking my gaze to his knuckles. “What did you punch this time, Santa? A reindeer?”
His mouth twitched. “Business.”
Right. Business that put other people’s faces in the path of his hands.
“It needs cleaning,” he added, nodding at my hand. “You do it wrong, you get infection. You like finding out what sepsis feels like?”
“Stop pretending you give a shit except for how it reflects on you,” I said, heartbeat loud in my ears. “A sick pet is a bad look for the villain.”
Something in his expression cooled.
He took my wrist anyway.
His grip was firm. Not gentle. Not cruel. Efficient.
He pulled me out of the office and into the kitchen, my bare feet slipping a little on the glass dust and marble. Opened a drawer. Pulled out a first-aid kit that would make an ER nurse tear up.
“Sit,” he said, nodding at one of the stools.
I didn’t.
He stepped closer until ignoring him meant putting my face in his chest.
I sat.
Warm water hit my knuckles, stinging as it washed away blood. We both watched the pink swirl down the drain.
“This needs to be disinfected,” he said. “You try to impress me with your pain tolerance, I am not.”
“You’re not impressing me with your bedside manner either,” I shot back.
He dabbed at the cut with antiseptic. It stung deep. I hissed despite myself.
“That door stays locked,” he said after a beat.
My spine snapped straight.
“What door?” I asked, trying to sound bored and not like someone who’d just been in that exact room.
“The one in the hall.” His eyes flicked up to mine. Too sharp. Too knowing. “You touched it.”
“Paranoid much?” I snorted. “You think I have some kind of sixth sense for secret murder closets?”
His jaw worked. He went back to wrapping gauze around my hand.
“There are things in my world you don’t see,” he said. “Things you don’t want to see.”
“Oh, you mean like the stainless-steel table and the drain in the floor?” I snapped before I could stop myself. “The hooks? The fun little photo wall?”
He stilled.
For a fraction of a second, the mask slipped.
There it was. The monster from the tree lot. The man who’d stood over a body and looked bored.
My heart climbed into my throat.
Then the expression smoothed away, like I’d imagined it.
“You went inside,” he said softly.
“Door was open,” I lied. “Ever think maybe you shouldn’t leave your little Dexter room on easy mode?”
“That door is not for you,” he said. “What happens in there is not for you.”
“Yeah, got that impression.” I yanked my hand back once he taped the last of the gauze in place. “Looked a lot more like you were protecting yourself than me.”
His eyes flashed. “I am protecting you.”
“By keeping your crime scene prep lab on the same floor as my bedroom?” I shook my head. “Come on. You’re not that selfless. That room is where you do the kind of shit you don’t want on camera. Locking it is about your liability, not my safety.”
Silence stretched.
He didn’t deny it.
Instead, he leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. The dried blood on his knuckles stood out stark against his skin.
“Men I deal with,” he said finally, “they are not afraid of law. Not afraid of pain. They are afraid of what happens when they cross me. That room is reminder.”
“Trophy closet,” I said. “Cute.”
“You are not meant to see it,” he repeated. “You walk into my world and look in every dark corner, you find things you can’t unsee. You think I do not know what that does to a person?”
“I already watched you kill a man,” I shot back. “Pretty sure the unseeing ship has sailed.”
“This is different,” he said. His gaze dropped to my bandaged hand, then flicked to my face. “I thought… maybe I could keep some things away from you.”
Liar.
Or maybe not.
Maybe both.
I studied his face. The blood on his knuckles. The careful way he’d wrapped my hand even while he lectured me.
He could say he was protecting me all he wanted.
But doors like that didn’t keep monsters out.
They kept them in.
“You’re not locking that door for me,” I said quietly. “You’re locking it for you.”
His jaw tightened. He didn’t argue.
He didn’t apologize either.
“There are cameras everywhere,” he said instead. “Except one small blind spot in hallway. You already found it. Clever girl.”
Ice slid down my spine.
“I see everything, Dani,” he added. My full name rolled off his tongue like something he owned. “Remember that.”
He pushed off the counter and walked away, leaving me on the stool with a throbbing hand, a burning brain, and way too much information.
The locks on the doors. The wiped phone. The butcher room down the hall. The blood on his knuckles.
He wasn’t just a man who’d made hard choices.
He was a man who’d built a whole infrastructure to make sure no one ever saw him bleed.
Whatever protection I was getting in here?
I was collateral.
He was the asset.
The cameras blinked in the corners, silent and red.
The blind spot in the hall felt a lot less like mercy and a lot more like a trap.
I flexed my bandaged hand and stared at the door he’d vanished through.
He wasn’t just protecting me from his world.
He was protecting his world from me.