CHAPTER 11
RUBY P.O.V.
The siren is a physical fucking blow. It isn’t just loud; it’s a low-frequency vibration that rattles my goddamn teeth in my skull and turns my bones to jelly.
Red strobe lights start flashing in rhythmic, blinding pulses across the lobby, instantly transforming what looked like a civilized, ultra-expensive executive gala into a strobe-lit slaughterhouse.
I am literally vibrating with shock. Twelve hours ago, I was wiping down tables at a coffee shop and calculating if I could afford to fix the heater in my apartment.
Now I’m a literal pawn in some unhinged billionaire snuff game because my absolute bastard of a brother, Desmond, sold me to cover his gambling debts.
The sheer, unadulterated audacity of these rich psycho fucks putting on a purge event while sipping champagne makes me want to scream until my throat bleeds, but my brain can't even process the sensory overload.
The smell of ozone from the heavy steel shutters slamming down over the exits mixes with the deafening wail, and my vision is swimming.
I press my hands hard against the sides of my head, covering my ears, trying to block out the catastrophic noise of the lockdown, but Andrei doesn't let me hide. He roughly grabs one of my wrists, his grip like a steel trap, and rips my hand down to keep me moving forward.
"That sound..." I have to shout over the mechanical wail, my voice cracking. "It’s not for help, is it?"
"Look at their faces, Ruby," Andrei snaps back, his voice cutting straight through the siren like a knife through canvas. "The masks are finally off."
He isn't lying. The people around us—men in custom tuxedos and women in diamonds who were literally just discussing stock portfolios—are feral. They’re turning on each other, scattering, pulling out weapons like this is exactly what they paid for.
Andrei ignores the chaos completely. His focus is narrowed down to a single exit strategy, and he hauls me through the stampede like I’m a piece of luggage he just bought.
Which, technically, I guess I am. He grips my upper arm so fucking hard I know there will be deep purple fingermarks by morning.
He moves through the panicked crowd like a shark in a feeding frenzy, not even breaking stride as he drops his shoulder and violently checks a terrified billionaire out of the way.
The guy goes flying into a catering table, shattering glass everywhere, and Andrei doesn't even glance back.
My bare feet are slipping on the slick marble floor.
He’s dragging me too fast. I lose my footing, my shoulder brutally clipping a massive marble pillar as he yanks me around a corner.
A jolt of agonizing pain shoots down my collarbone, and I stumble, but he doesn't slow down for a fraction of a second.
"Keep your feet, or I'll drag you by the hair." He doesn't look at me. He’s scanning the exits.
"You're going too fucking fast!" I hiss, fighting to stay upright. Arthur Hemlock’s manic, sadistic laughter is echoing from the upper balcony somewhere behind us, broadcasting over a microphone.
"Ignore the screaming," Andrei orders, his tone dead flat, totally unbothered by the sheer insanity around us. "It’s just noise now."
We round the corner into the service wing corridor, and my heart seizes in my chest. Ten feet away, a man in a pristine tuxedo—a guy who looked like a bored CEO twenty minutes ago—casually produces a gold-plated pistol from his jacket.
A girl in a white slip, exactly like the one I'm wearing, is scrambling on her hands and knees across the floor, begging him.
The man just points the gun at her back.
Crack.
The sound of the gunshot is insanely sharp, echoing off the marble walls.
The sharp scent of gunpowder instantly burns my nostrils, followed by the wet, heavy thud of the girl's body hitting the floor.
Bright red sprays across the white marble baseboards.
The suddenness of it absolutely freezes my blood.
That could have been me. If Andrei hadn't dragged me out of that holding pen, I would be crawling on the floor right now getting executed for sport.
I gasp, my heels skidding on the floor as I instinctively try to stop backing away from the dead body. Andrei’s grip on my arm turns into a literal vise, nearly snapping my bone as he jerks me forward.
"Don't look at her," he growls, stepping over a spreading pool of blood like it’s a puddle of spilled water. "She’s dead. You aren't. Not yet."
We hit a set of double doors and cross into a long service hallway.
The floor transitions to cheap, scratchy industrial carpet.
I lost my shoes hours ago in the holding pen, and the friction of the carpet is violently burning the soles of my feet.
Andrei is a machine. His heavy leather shoes click rhythmically against the floorboards underneath the carpet, forcing me into a frantic, stumbling half-run just to keep up with his massive strides.
I am deadass exhausted. My muscles are cramping, my lungs are burning, and my brain is completely wrecked.
I feel like a dog on a heavy chain, just waiting to get choked out by the collar.
My toe catches hard on a torn carpet seam. I pitch forward, bracing to smash my teeth into the floor, but Andrei’s massive hand yanks me brutally upright by the bicep before I can even cry out.
"I'm not going to ask you to keep up again," he says, his voice a low, lethal threat.
"I tripped, you bastard," I spit out, coughing as my chest heaves.
"Breathe through your nose. Control your panic." He doesn't even break his stride.
He spots a heavy steel door at the end of the hall.
He stops abruptly, his body shielding mine as his ice-blue eyes scan the corridor behind us, checking his six for threats.
Satisfied we aren't being followed yet, he turns and kicks the heavy push-bar open with his heel.
He shoves me violently into the stairwell.
I trip over the threshold, stumbling hard into the metal railing.
The cold metal pipe bites deep into my hip, bruising the bone.
The heavy door slams shut behind us with a massive, final thud.
The chaotic roar of the lobby, the sirens, the screaming—it’s all instantly muted, replaced by the dim, humming silence of the emergency lights. The smell of cold concrete and stale, dusty air hits me.
Andrei reaches over and slams a heavy manual deadbolt on the door.
The loud clack of the metal bolt sliding home sounds exactly like a guillotine dropping.
He turns slowly. In the cramped, gray space of the landing, his massive frame completely blocks the door.
His shoulders seem to take up all the available oxygen.
I’m trapped. The isolation is almost worse than the screaming hallway.
Out there, it was a free-for-all. In here, I am locked in a concrete box with a terrifying Bratva warlord who just bought my life.
I wipe a smudge of dirt and sweat off my bare arm, my hands shaking so uncontrollably I can barely feel my own fingers.
"There is only one way out of this building, Ruby," he says, staring down at me. "And it’s through me."
He takes a slow step forward. I instinctively back up, my spine hitting the cold, rough concrete wall of the stairwell.
He doesn't touch me yet, but he doesn't have to.
His physical presence is a suffocating weight.
He towers over me, his broad shoulders and custom-tailored black suit swallowing me whole in his shadow.
The heat radiating off his massive body clashes with the freezing air of the stairwell, smelling faintly of expensive cologne and the sweat of raw adrenaline.
My breath hitches in my throat. I try to shrink back, my shoulder blades scraping painfully against the rough stone block wall, but there’s nowhere left to go.
I expect him to just take me right here.
To finish the dirty, possessive shit he started in the dark room before the siren went off. He owns me now, and he knows it.
"You’re shaking. Stop it," he commands.
I glare at the floor, my teeth grinding together. "I can't fucking help it."
He steps into my space, his chest mere inches from my face. "Look at me. Not at the floor. At me."
I force my eyes up to his. They are a terrifying, pale ice-blue. There is absolutely zero mercy in them. No comfort. Just the cold, calculated gaze of a predator assessing his property.
Without breaking eye contact, he reaches down, his large hand disappearing into the shadows of his trouser leg.
I instantly flinch. I squeeze my eyes shut tight, turning my head away, bracing for a backhand to the face or a strike to the ribs.
I clench my fists at my sides so hard my fingernails literally break the skin of my palms, drawing tiny drops of blood.
Instead of a hit, I hear the expensive rustle of silk trousers, followed by the soft, deadly snick of a blade being drawn from a leather sheath.
"Open your eyes, Ruby," he says, his voice dangerously soft. "I don't kill what I pay for."
I slowly open my eyes. He is holding a massive combat knife.
The blade is matte black, designed to absorb the dim light of the emergency exit sign above us, but the actual cutting edge is a brilliant, silver line of razor sharpness.
He holds the weapon with the casual, terrifying familiarity of a man who has gutted a hundred people with it. It looks insanely heavy.
He tilts the knife slightly, letting the red light glint off the wickedly sharp tip.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" he murmurs, his eyes tracking the steel. "Serrated edge for the bone, flat edge for the flesh."
I stare at the weapon, completely paralyzed. This is the reality check. It’s not a sick game anymore. It’s blood and bone and survival.