3. The Woman Bleeding On My Office Carpet
3
THE WOMAN BLEEDING ON MY OFFICE CARPET
EZRA
The town is quiet outside my window, its rhythm slow and familiar. A porch light flickers down the street, and somewhere in the distance, a dog barks once before settling. Most windows are dark now—people tucked into their lives, their routines, their little obligations they’ve convinced themselves they chose. I wonder what that’s like.
Choice.
Freedom.
I wouldn't know.
My day started the same as it always does—early morning meetings with men I despise, phone calls that sound more like thinly veiled threats, the same careful balancing act of keeping my people in line while making sure the ones above me remain convinced of my loyalty.
It doesn’t matter that I never wanted this. That I never asked to be born into a bloodline that carves its legacy into the skin of its sons like a brand.
That I would burn it all down if I thought I had a chance of surviving the flames.
The Assembly isn’t just some secret society whispered about in back rooms—it’s a machine, centuries old and self-sustaining. And my job? To keep it running. To ensure debts are paid, threats are silenced, and power is maintained. The same as my father before me, and his father before him, each of whom saw an early grave as a direct result.
I’ve never been given the option to walk away.
Not without a bullet in my skull. Sometimes that feels like the better alternative.
My name carries weight, my presence alone enough to make men twice my size avert their eyes. But respect is a currency I stopped spending a long time ago. Fear is more effective.
Most days, that’s enough. Most days, I can stomach the blood on my hands.
But then there are nights like this—nights where the past catches up with me, where I’m reminded that I don’t own my life, that I’m just another cog in the Assembly’s well-oiled machine.
The knock at my office door comes just as I reach for the whiskey on my desk. It’s past midnight. Too late for business, too early for good news.
I already know which one this is. I can feel it in my gut, or maybe it’s the panicked staccato of the knock.
The door swings open, and two of my men drag a struggling body inside. Blood smears across my office carpet.
I exhale slowly, setting the glass down.
The woman bleeding on my office carpet is not Ari Sylas.
She has a bag over her head, but the dark, curly hair spilling out from underneath is unmistakable. A telltale marker that sends a jolt through me.
It looks too familiar—concerningly so—and I pray like hell that my mind is playing tricks on me. That it’s just a coincidence, just someone with a passing resemblance. It has to be.
Because if it’s her…
No. It isn’t. It can’t be.
It’s just the way she’s taken up residence in my mind, how every stray thought seems to find its way back to her. That’s all. That’s the only reason I’m seeing her in places she couldn’t possibly be.
At least, that’s what I keep telling myself as my gaze drags down every painfully familiar inch of her body, my stomach twisting tighter with each second that passes.
My vision blurs, and blood hammers behind my eyes, a relentless pounding that drowns out everything else.
Three of my men hover around her like vultures, and Dominic yanks the burlap sack from her head with the same careless force he used when he dumped her on the floor—barely ten seconds after barging through my door with her slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain.
The room tilts.
Her face is a mess—bruised, streaked with dirt and sweat, tiny cuts marring the skin along her cheekbone. Her hair is a disaster, tangled and wild, and she huffs in frustration, blowing a stray curl from her face before leveling a hooded glare at me.
It is her. And I don’t know what the fuck kind of mix-up this is, but the realization hits like a sledgehammer.
My pulse spikes, rage igniting in my veins so fast it’s a wonder I don’t explode right here and now.
My entire body burns with it—I can feel the tremors rattling through me, barely contained, barely controlled.
I force myself to stay still. To shove it all down. Because what happens next is going to require a steady grip.
She shifts, her shoulders stiff, wrists still bound behind her back. The shock is there—etched into the lines of her face—but it’s secondary to something sharper, something fiercer. She’s scared, yeah, but mostly? She’s pissed .
And when her gaze locks onto mine, it’s like a lightning strike straight to my gut.
She’s a feral kitten, all claws and teeth, wound tight like she’s waiting for the perfect moment to sink them into me. I half-expect her to spit venom, to hiss and snap—but she doesn’t.
And I thank every god that she doesn’t.
Because if she did, if she made it even remotely clear that we were anything to each other, I’d have no choice but to kill every man in this room. And I would. Without hesitation. For her.
I crouch in front of her, grip her chin between my fingers. She jerks back immediately, resisting on instinct, but when I catch her again, she stills. Not out of fear—never that—but out of pure, exhausted defiance. She submits, begrudgingly, her breath coming in quick little puffs, her skin warm beneath my touch.
It’s the worst possible moment for my cock to twitch against my zipper, but it does anyway. We both know why.
I tilt her face, inspecting the damage. Her cheek is a mess of angry reds and purpling bruises, the highest point split open just enough to make my blood pressure spike.
She doesn’t say a word.
She just stares , her brown eyes dark and unblinking, cutting straight through me like a blade.
I don’t just want her submission.
I want every shattered, breathless piece of her.
A muscle jumps in my jaw, the vein in my forehead throbbing with the force of barely restrained fury.
I release her and stand, but my eyes never leave her.
"Who the fuck did this to her?" My voice is calm. Too calm.
Silence.
Dominic shifts, hands buried in his pockets, gaze flicking anywhere but at me. I already know the answer. I just want to hear him say it.
But before he can open his mouth, I unholster my gun and put a bullet between his eyes.
The crack of the shot barely registers over the roaring in my head.
He’s fucked up too many times, and I’ve been patient long enough. But this? This was the final straw. And he didn’t even know that the real reason I shot him wasn’t just because he hurt her.
Though right now , that’s the only reason that fucking matters.
I glance down at her again and immediately regret not making him suffer first.
His body sags, but my men on either side of him move fast, catching him before he can collapse forward—before his worthless corpse can so much as graze her. They grip him by the elbows, drag him out of the room without a word.
The silence left behind is thick.
Heavy.
Suffocating.
This entire ordeal is like watching a car crash in slow motion, and I’m the idiot left laying in the road.
I expect her to scream, or freak the fuck out in some way, but the biggest reaction wrung from her was a slight jump at the sound of the gunshot and a subsequent look of disgust at the flecks of blood that landed in her hair and sprayed across her shoulders.
I place my gun back in its holster, finally pulling my gaze away from her as I turn to pace across the room, contemplating what my next move needs to be.
I trusted Sylas, he’s been our CPA for years. But in the last few, my guy seems to have gotten greedy, skimming money off the top of our accounts for some time now.
I recently discovered the financial discrepancies and decided to handle it quietly by targeting his wife.
I planned to use her as leverage to get him to return the stolen funds and keep his mouth shut about Assembly business, and figured doing so over the holidays would make him more likely to act faster.
I was sure his kids asking where mommy was would spur him into action. I was nice enough to wait until after Christmas, at least.
Threatening Ari would have been more effective than confronting her husband directly, but here we fucking are; a dark-haired beauty sitting battered on the floor in front of me.
She looks nothing like the description of the woman I told Dominic to grab—and not hurt before bringing her back to me.
I don’t know how the fuck he made this mistake or what the fuck I’m going to do with her, but I do know that it won’t be as simple as telling my men we have the wrong person.
Especially not with the plans I have in the works.
If they find out I know her—and care about her—they wouldn’t think twice about using her against me. The men I’ve surrounded myself with aren't loyal because they admire me; they’re loyal because they fear me. But loyalty is a fragile thing, built on the right combination of threat and manipulation.
Most of these men? They’d sell their mothers if the price was right. They’d turn on me in a heartbeat if they thought it meant they could climb a rung higher on the ladder, secure their position, or put a bullet in the back of someone else’s head to take their place. I’ve worked with them long enough to know that’s the reality of this life—the moment you think they’re your allies is the moment you’ve lost.
That’s why I can’t let them know about her. Why I can’t let them see the way she’s crawled under my skin and lives there.
The Assembly thrives on secrets, on leverage, on using the things you care about against you. If they learn how much I care about her, how much she means to me, they’ll use her. They’ll threaten her, hurt her, maybe worse, just to see what I’ll do to protect her. What they can do to unhinge me, screw by screw.
I’ve spent so long keeping her at arm’s length, not letting myself get too close, and it’s worked—so far. But there are moments when the world goes quiet and my guard slips, that I can almost forget all the reasons why I can’t have her in the way we both so desperately need.
Yet.
The sex was never all I wanted.
I want every fucking part of her.
Forever .
But at the end of the day, I can’t afford to be weak. And the last thing I need is for someone to see that weakness and exploit it.
I’ve just been biding my time until I could make that happen without putting her in danger.
My jaw clenches again, and I pull out my phone to text someone from my medical team. I can’t stand looking at her like this for a second longer, and in addition to that, I need someone to come deal with the dead body.
I drop to my knees in front of her and search her pockets for her phone.
She tries to twist away from me, but I grip her face again, forcing her to look me in the eye. “ Stop .”
I falter for a brief second. I knew what it would be like if she ever found out why it was that I kept her at a distance, and judging by the way she looks at me now I was right.
She thinks she hates me—and maybe she does. But hate is just passion wearing a different mask. All I need is time to show her that no one else will ever know her, crave her, or protect her the way I do. Even if it takes breaking her world apart to fit her into mine.
She relents, far quicker than I expect, and I find what I’m looking for, standing before using her face to open the device. Then, I do the only next step I can think of.
“What the fuck do you want?” she asks, the sound of her voice surprising me and snapping me out of concentration on the mile-long text I was just typing out on her phone to tell her family and Quinn that I’m surprising her with a short trip.
Service is sketchy where we’re going, but she will do her best to keep them updated that she’s safe.
I don’t know if they’ll buy it because it’s been months since we’ve been together, and I don’t know if her family knew about me at all, but it’s the best thing I can think of.
I stop my pacing and stand in front of her again, looking down at her. “Not you, kitten. But it looks like we may be stuck together for a while regardless.”
* * *
It’s the middle of the night when I decide I can’t have her here any longer.
She’s asleep, curled up in the corner of my bed like a wounded animal trying to make itself invisible. The bruises on her face have darkened, and every time I look at her, it feels like a vice tightening around my center.
She doesn’t belong here.
She doesn’t deserve this.
This is exactly what I was trying to protect her from, why I never let her get too close—even though I wanted her more than my next breath.
My decision to keep her in my room wasn’t born out of kindness, even though I’m softer for her than anyone else I’ve ever known. It was a strategy—a way to ensure no one else could get to her.
But it’s also a liability.
If they find out how much she means to me, she’ll be as good as dead.
This was never supposed to happen. I’ve kept my distance for a reason, always watching but never letting myself have her fully. Yet here she is, thrown into my life in the worst possible way.
I move quietly, grabbing a bag I’d stashed under the bed earlier. It’s already packed with essentials: food, a burner phone, cash.
This situation forces my hand, but maybe that’s for the better. My plans were already in motion; this just accelerated the timeline.
I crouch beside her, my hand hovering near her shoulder. “Kruz,” I whisper.
She stirs, her brow furrowing as her eyes flutter open. The moment she registers it’s me, her body stiffens, and she scrambles to sit up.
“What now?” she snaps, her voice a mix of anger and exhaustion.
“We’re leaving,” I say, my tone low but firm.
“Leaving?” She laughs bitterly. “What, you’ve decided to kidnap me all over again?”
I exhale, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I didn’t fucking kidnap you,” But yeah, I’m going to now, I don’t say. “You need to understand—if you stay here, they’ll hurt you. They’ll kill you.”
“ Why ?” she demands, her voice rising. “Why am I even here? Why did you drag me into this? What the hell is going on, Ezra?”
Her using my name feels like a punch to the gut, but I shove the feeling aside. I can’t explain everything—not yet.
“It’s complicated,” I say, grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet.
She yanks it away. “Make it simple.”
There’s no time for this. My patience snaps. “Because I’m part of the Assembly, Kruz. Is that enough of an explanation for you?”
Her eyes widen, and for a moment, she looks like she might argue. But then she shakes her head, muttering under her breath, “Of course you fucking are.”
Her reaction stings more than I thought it would every time I imagined her finding out. “Look, I’ll explain later. Right now, we have to go.”
I don’t give her a chance to argue. I grab her by the wrist, not roughly but firmly enough to let her know I’m not giving her a choice.
We slip through the halls in silence. My men are either asleep or too confident in their security to expect an unannounced change in plans from me.
Idiots, every fucking one of them.
As we approach the exit, Kruz tugs on my hand. “What’s your plan here, Ezra?”
I glance back at her. “My plan is to keep you alive. That’s all you need to know right now.”
Maybe, just maybe, this is how it was always meant to happen.
I’d been waiting for spring break to make my move, biding my time, setting everything up just right. But now? Now, I don’t have to wait. She’s here. On her way to hopefully being out of their reach. And with that, everything shifts—everything moves forward sooner.
Better this way.
Quicker.
Potentially cleaner.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
But if I fail, she’ll pay the price.
We both will.
As we step into the night, she shivers against the cold. I pull her closer, shielding her from the worst of it. She doesn’t resist.
"Where are we going?" Her voice is softer now, a thread of resignation woven through the words.
"Somewhere safe," I murmur, though the lie tastes bitter on my tongue.
Because the truth is, there is no safe place. Not from what’s coming. Not from the chaos that’s about to tear through everything I’ve built.
And when the dust settles, I’ll be the one left standing in the wreckage, forced to face the consequences of throwing every careful plan I had straight to hell.