Chapter 17
The sound of the door locks clicking shut was the only sound in the world. Click.
I drove three blocks like a maniac. Cut across two lanes, ignored the honking, pushed the Aston Martin’s engine until it roared in protest. But my hands on the wheel didn’t tremble. They were locked, rigid as steel claws, gripping the leather hard enough to leave permanent marks.
It wasn’t anger. Anger is hot, volatile, fleeting.
What I felt was absolute cold. A black hole in the center of my chest, sucking all the oxygen from the car.
I saw her on the sidewalk. Saw the gray sedan.
Saw the window rolling down. The ballistic calculation ran through my mind in nanoseconds: angle of fire, vehicle speed, reaction time. If I’d arrived thirty seconds later...
I jerked the wheel hard to the right, pulling onto a ramp leading to an abandoned industrial lot near the docks. We weren’t going home yet. I couldn’t get in that elevator with her. Not like this. If I stepped into a confined space with her now, without resolving this, I’d break something.
I slammed the brakes. The car jerked to a violent stop, tires screeching on dirty concrete. I killed the engine. The silence that followed was deafening. The car’s soundproofing sealed us off from the city, turning the cabin into a pressure chamber.
Solaia was huddled in the passenger seat, still gripping the seatbelt with both hands, knuckles white. She stared straight ahead at the graffitied brick wall, refusing to look at me.
I drew a deep breath through my nose. Her scent—that damned vanilla-and-fear scent—filled the car.
“Look at me,” I ordered. My voice was low, but it vibrated with an intensity that made the window glass seem fragile.
She didn’t move. “I just wanted coffee,” she whispered to the dashboard. Her voice was trembling, pathetic. “I just wanted ten minutes of being Solaia, not ‘Mrs. Varro.’”
“Look. At. Me.”
She turned her head slowly. Her eyes were red. Her face pale. But there was that spark of suicidal defiance burning deep in her gaze. “What do you want me to say, Cassian? That I’m sorry? I am. There. Satisfied?”
Her audacity was the match in my gas tank. I punched the steering wheel. The crack of my fist against leather and plastic exploded through the silence. Solaia jumped in her seat, letting out a muffled scream, shrinking against the door.
“Satisfied?!” I roared, releasing my seatbelt and turning toward her. “You think this is about my ego? You think it’s about obedience?”
“You act like it is!” she screamed back, fear giving way to hysteria. “You lock me up! You follow me!”
“Because you’re a target, you idiot!” I lunged over the center console, invading her space. The car suddenly felt tiny. “Do you have any idea what that sedan was about to do? They weren’t going to ask for an autograph!”
“I ditched Franco! I was careful!”
“You were careless!” I grabbed her chin. My fingers dug into the soft skin of her jaw, forcing her to look at me. “They were going to put a bag over your head. Throw you in a trunk. And you know what would’ve happened after that?”
I brought my face close to hers. I could see the pores of her skin, her pupils blown wide, the frantic pulse in her throat.
“They weren’t going to ask for ransom, Solaia.
They were going to take you to a basement.
Spend days... weeks... breaking you. Piece by piece.
Finger by finger. And when they were done, when there was nothing left but pain, they were going to mail the pieces to me. ”
Solaia stopped breathing. Tears streamed down, hot, over the fingers I had clamped on her face. “You’re hurting me,” she whimpered.
“Pain is educational,” I hissed, but I loosened my grip—barely. I didn’t let go. “I tasted bile when I saw that car near you. I felt my heart stop, Solaia. Stop.”
The confession slipped out before I could stop it. Silence returned, but now it was charged. Electric. She looked at me, lips parted. The fear in her eyes shifted. It was no longer fear of my anger. It was fear of the intensity of what I was saying.
“You... you were scared?” she whispered.
“I was terrified,” I admitted, the anger transforming into something darker, heavier. “Because I swore to protect you. And today, for eighteen minutes, I failed.”
My eyes dropped to her mouth. Her lips were trembling. Red, bitten from nervousness. The proximity was intoxicating. Heat radiated from her body, mingling with mine. The scent of her fear was changing, becoming sweeter, muskier. Arousal.
I should pull away. I should start the car and drive. But I couldn’t. The adrenaline from nearly losing her still coursed through my veins, demanding release. Violence and desire are close neighbors in the male brain, separated by a thin paper wall. And Solaia had just set fire to it.
“You have no survival instinct,” I murmured, my voice hoarse, scratchy. My hand slid from her chin to the nape of her neck, fingers tangling in the messy hair at the base of her skull. “You run toward the fire.”
“Maybe I want to get burned,” she replied, barely above a whisper. Her gaze dropped to my mouth.
I pulled her head back, exposing her white, vulnerable throat. Her pulse fluttered beneath the translucent skin like a trapped bird. “If you die,” I whispered against her cheek, brushing my nose against hers, “I’ll burn the entire city down. Including myself. Understood?”
Solaia let out a low moan. Not of pain. Of need. Her hands rose to grab the lapels of my jacket, pulling me closer. “Cassian...”
I tightened my fingers in her hair, pulling hard enough to make her gasp.
Our mouths were a breath apart. I could feel her breath mixing with mine.
I wanted to bite her. I wanted to mark her skin so the whole world would know, so that damned gray sedan would know, that she was mine.
I wanted to fuck the fear out of her right there, on the leather seat of this car.
I tilted my head. My lips brushed hers. Just a ghost of a touch. She arched her back, seeking more. Desire exploded low in my gut, painful and urgent. I was going to kiss her. I was going to consume her. I was going to break every rule I’d set for myself.
BEEP-BEEP.
The shrill blare of a truck horn on the main avenue, somewhere in the distance, burst the bubble. Reality crashed into the car like ice water.
What was I doing? I was about to take my wife in a dirty alley, driven by panic and rage. I was acting like the animals I despised. I was losing control.
I froze. Solaia had her eyes closed, lips parted, waiting.
I looked at her. So vulnerable. So willing to let herself be swept away by chaos.
If I kissed her now, it wouldn’t be love.
It would be punishment and possession. And she would confuse that with passion, and the toxic cycle would be complete.
I released her neck abruptly. I pulled away, my back hitting the driver’s door. I ran my hand through my hair, raking through it, trying to tear the madness from my head.
Solaia opened her eyes, blinking, confused and bereft, as if I’d pushed her off a cliff. “Cassian?”
I straightened my tie. The familiar gesture brought me a sliver of sanity. “Put on your seatbelt,” I ordered. My voice was cold, but it cracked at the end.
“But...” she tried to touch my arm.
“Don’t touch me,” I growled, turning the key in the ignition. The Aston Martin’s engine roared to life. “Not now.”
She recoiled, shrinking against the door, stung by the sudden rejection. I couldn’t look at her. If I looked, I’d stop the car again.
I threw the car into gear and peeled out of the parking lot. I accelerated down the avenue. The speedometer climbed. 60 mph. 75 mph. I needed to get home. I needed to lock Solaia in the fortress where she’d be safe. From me. From the Kovacs. From everything.
“We’ll talk at home,” I said to the windshield. “And this time, Solaia, you’re going to listen.”
Silence returned to the car. But it wasn’t the silence of a vacuum.
It was the silence before an electrical storm.
The air was charged with static, frustrated desire, and fear.
I had almost crossed the line. And the worst part: I knew that sooner or later, the line wouldn’t be enough to hold me back.