CHAPTER 7
LIAM P.O.V.
The taste of stale coffee and unburnt rage coated my tongue, a bitter companion to the throbbing ache behind my eyes.
Three days. Three fucking days since Vasily had brought me the whispers, the snide remarks about “the Morozov pet being tamed.” Three days since I’d felt the raw, brutal climax of my own fury in the sterile bathroom, clutching Rose’s camisole, vowing retribution.
The physical wounds were knitting, slowly, thanks to Ivan’s relentless regimen and ancient remedies, but the wound in my chest, the one where Rose should have been, festered, growing colder, harder, more dangerous with every passing hour she was gone.
My hideout, a bare concrete box in an abandoned warehouse district Ivan owned, was a prison of my own making.
I hated it. I hated the forced inaction, the reliance on others, the sliver of uncertainty that gnawed at the edges of my control.
Vasily and his men were ghosts, moving through the city, but they were not me.
They did not burn with the same obsessive fire.
They did not feel the constant phantom touch of Rose’s skin, the memory of her defiant eyes, the echo of her screams in my mind, a torment more exquisite than any physical pain.
I slammed my fist against the scarred metal desk, the cheap lamp rattling precariously.
Maps of Volkov’s known territories, red-lined and crisscrossed with intelligence reports, lay spread out before me like a dissected cadaver.
Ivan had done his work, uncovering more of the old snake’s network, piece by infuriating piece, but it felt like chasing shadows.
Volkov was too good, too ingrained in the city’s underbelly, too careful.
He was a master puppeteer, and I was still trying to cut the strings while he held my woman captive.
A soft knock. Two distinct raps. Vasily.
“Enter,” I growled, not looking up from the map, my voice a low, gravelly rumble that promised swift pain.
Vasily stepped in, his grizzled face a mask of exhaustion and grim anticipation. He carried a tablet and a secure sat-phone, his gaze deliberately avoiding mine, which told me he had something. Something important.
“Pakhan,” he began, his voice low, measured, “We have a development. Not much. But... a development.”
I finally looked at him, my eyes like steel-gray flint. “Spit it out, Vasily. Or I’ll extract it myself. You know I’m not above using a knife to loosen tongues, even loyal ones.”
He flinched, a subtle twitch of his jaw, but quickly composed himself.
“The prison break. Sector Seven. That’s where Volkov was holding certain assets, according to our deepest plant.
An old warehouse complex, abandoned for years, but with a new, off-grid power supply hooked up recently.
Overridden security systems. Someone broke out. ”
My breath hitched, a sharp, almost painful intake of air. Sector Seven. That was deep in Volkov’s territory. A place I had considered probing, but deemed too secure, too fortified for a casual approach. “Who?” I demanded, my voice tight, a low, dangerous growl, my jaw clenching so hard it ached.
“Unknown identity, Pakhan,” Vasily replied, his eyes finally meeting mine, holding a flicker of something unreadable.
“The local enforcers, Volkov’s men, swept the area clean.
No bodies. No witnesses. Just... an open cell.
And a snapped chain.” Vasily paused, his gaze fixed on my face, waiting for my reaction.
“The reports from the clean-up team say it was a woman. A specific, high-value asset they were holding for Volkov.”
A snapped chain. An open cell. A high-value female asset.
My mind raced, pieces clicking into place with a brutal, satisfying logic that sent a jolt of raw power through my veins.
Rose. It had to be her. She was a goddamn historian, yes, but she was sharp, tenacious, defiant.
She’d always found the cracks. Always fought back. My Rose.
A surge of raw, untamed triumph, primal and brutal, ripped through me, pushing past the constant, dull ache of her absence. She wasn’t broken. She wasn’t tamed. She was out. She was free. A fucking feral cat unleashed into the concrete labyrinth.
Then the triumph twisted into something darker, colder, more dangerous.
She was out, yes. But out where? Into my world, a fucking concrete jungle of predators, alone, injured, without money, without contacts.
She was a lamb dropped into a den of wolves.
And Volkov’s wolves would be hunting. Relentlessly.
They wouldn’t just be looking for a lost asset; they’d be looking for vengeance, for a public display of their power.
“Find the men who broke out with her,” I snarled, my voice a low, dangerous rumble that filled the small room, thick with threat.
“Find the men who helped her. Find the men who were guarding her. I want them. All of them. And I want them alive, if possible. I have questions. Questions they’ll answer in blood.
” I slammed my hand on the map, pointing to Sector Seven, my finger leaving a stark red imprint.
“Start there. Tear it apart. Every fucking rock. Every rat-hole. Every single living thing that breathes within a five-mile radius.”
Vasily nodded, already moving to relay orders into his phone, his movements sharp, efficient. “We’ve got units deploying now, Pakhan. But Volkov’s men are already swarming the area. They’re locking down the district, turning it inside out.”
“Then we hit them harder,” I said, standing, my body coiled, electric with renewed purpose, every muscle now screaming not with pain, but with an insatiable hunger for the hunt.
“We burn through them. I don’t care about collateral damage.
I don’t care about subtlety. I want her.
And anyone who gets in my way is dead.” My eyes were locked on Vasily’s, an unspoken threat, a promise of brutal finality. “Anyone, Vasily. Understand?”
“Understood, Pakhan,” he said, his voice firm, no longer just professional, but imbued with a shared sense of urgency and, perhaps, a healthy dose of fear. He knew what Rose meant to me. He’d seen the shift. He’d seen the monster I became when what was mine was threatened.
He left, the door clicking shut behind him, leaving me alone in the silence. But the silence was different now. It throbbed with the pulse of my racing blood, the hum of my own power returning, roaring back to life. She was alive. She was fighting. And now, so was I. Unchained.
My gaze fell on the small, sealed box Ivan had given me days ago, the one containing her camisole.
I walked to it, ripping the tape with a savage satisfaction that bordered on animalistic.
I pulled out the black lace, the delicate silk, bringing it to my face.
Her scent, faint but undeniable, filled my lungs.
Rosewater, old books, and the raw, intoxicating musk of my woman.
It was a potent, heady cocktail that ignited a firestorm within me.
My cock stirred, hard and throbbing, a deep, insistent demand that echoed the rage in my chest. This wasn’t just about lust, not anymore.
This was about reclaiming, about ownership, about a primal need to brand her, to cover her in my scent, to make her scream my name until she forgot every bastard who dared to lay a hand on her.
They had taken her, tortured her, dragged her into the dark.
And now she was out there, vulnerable, making her way through my fucking kingdom.
The thought of her, out there, in danger, desperate, alone...
and the possibility that she might have had to use her body, her beauty, her seductive defiance, to get by...
the thought was a searing brand on my soul, a hot, venomous poison.
My fingers clenched around the silk, crushing it, crumpling the delicate fabric in my brutal grip.
My jaw was tight, grinding, my eyes burning with a dangerous inferno.
I imagined her, haggard and bruised, but still with that defiant fire in her blue-green eyes, using her sharp mind, her alluring body, to get what she needed, to survive.
My chest tightened with a possessive, territorial snarl that would make lesser men piss themselves.
No one touched what was mine. No one. And if anyone dared...
they would pay. Dearly. In blood and agony.
I walked into the small, grimy bathroom, the camisole still clutched in my fist, a desperate lifeline to her. My reflection stared back at me from the cracked mirror: a man consumed, his face etched with dark resolve, his eyes burning with an untamed, ancient fire. A monster. Her monster.
I stripped off my clothes, the rough scrubs falling to the floor.
My body, still bearing the faint scars of Volkov’s ambush, felt charged, alive, every muscle now taut and ready for war.
My cock, thick and engorged, sprang free, throbbing with a brutal urgency, a desperate hunger that clawed at my insides.
I leaned against the cold sink, my free hand gripping the porcelain, knuckles white.
The camisole lay on the counter, a black silk flag of defiance and desire, a promise of what I would reclaim.
I stared at my erection, a physical manifestation of my hunger for her, my need to finally put my mark on her, to claim her completely, irrevocably.
My mind plunged into the darkest recesses of our past. The first time I truly claimed her, throwing her against the wall in my penthouse, my mouth devouring hers, the primal thrill of her resistance turning to desperate surrender.
The weight of her body pressed against mine, the soft give of her breasts, the way her hips instinctively arched against mine as I dominated her, taking what was mine with brutal precision.