CHAPTER 15
RUBY P.O.V.
The echoes of the struggle still vibrated in the stale air of the hallway.
The two bodies Andrei had just dropped from the ceiling trap were bleeding out on the cheap carpet, but my brain couldn't even process the corpses yet because the absolute bastard who killed them was still pressing me flat against the cold, industrial wallpaper.
He stayed crushed against me for a heartbeat too long, the dense, heavy mass of his arousal pressing bluntly into my stomach.
It was a sick fucking reminder of the line we kept obliterating in this hellhole.
My toes curled hard against the freezing linoleum, every muscle in my legs locking up as I tried to stop my goddamn knees from knocking together.
The smell of ozone off the building's flickering emergency lights mixed with the hot copper of fresh blood, making my stomach churn.
I hated my body in that second. I hated the way my skin buzzed where his chest radiated heat, hated how the sheer animal adrenaline of surviving made me acutely aware of his physical dominance.
I wanted to shove him off me, but the predatory stillness in his ice-blue eyes made it extremely clear that any sudden movement would just provoke a more violent claim.
"Stop shaking," he ordered, his voice a low, rough scrape in the quiet.
I set my jaw, digging my bare shoulder blades into the scratchy texture of the wall. "I'm not."
"You liked it. Don't lie to yourself." He leaned in a fraction of an inch, the scent of stale whiskey and pure violence rolling off him. "We aren't done yet."
He slowly dragged his gaze from my mouth to my eyes, checking my face for a crack in the armor.
He didn't look at me the way normal men look at terrified women.
There was no pity, no savior complex. He looked at me like I was a blunt weapon he was currently tempering in fire, deciding if I was sharp enough to wield.
He reached out, his massive, calloused hand swallowing the side of my face as his thumb traced the line of my jaw.
It felt like a branding iron. I stared back at him with the most hollow, dead-eyed glare I could manage.
I was so fucking exhausted from running, from fighting, from being a pawn in this billionaire snuff game, that the fear had compacted into a dense, angry knot in my chest.
His thumb caught on a small, stinging scratch on my cheek from the air vent. He pressed hard. He deliberately pushed into the broken skin until a tiny bead of hot blood rose to the surface, testing me.
"You have the eyes of a dead woman, Ruby," he murmured.
"Better dead than yours," I spat right back, refusing to flinch away from the pain.
A dark, mocking smirk twisted his lips. "You're already mine. The paperwork just hasn't caught up."
Then he let go. He released me so abruptly my knees buckled for a microsecond and I almost stumbled forward.
Andrei didn't even look back to see if I caught my balance. He instantly switched from a feral stalker back into a cold, deadpan tactician, turning toward the two corpses he’d just slaughtered with a fluid, remorseless grace.
He gestured vaguely toward the pitch-black end of the corridor, his massive shoulders rolling under his ruined suit.
The sudden cold of his absence hit me harder than the freezing temperature of the forty-fourth floor.
Being crushed against him was a psychological nightmare, but standing three feet away from him in this nightmare building felt like a guaranteed death sentence.
I adjusted my grip on the heavy combat knife he'd given me, my knuckles turning stark white as my fingers cramped around the hilt.
"Watch the door. Don't breathe unless I tell you," he ordered, not even looking up as he crouched by the dead.
"I'm not a dog, Andrei."
"Then stop barking and start hunting."
The wet, slapping sound of his heavy tactical boots on the blood-slicked floor echoed off the walls as he moved to the first guard.
He knelt in the mess without a flinch, methodically stripping the tactical vest off the corpse and checking the heavy magazines of a discarded rifle.
His hands were completely steady. He treated the bodies like inconvenient pieces of heavy furniture, letting out a rough grunt as he rolled a dead man over to access the gear on his back.
The oppressive silence of the hallway pressed down on my eardrums, forcing me to watch him dismantle the dead with terrifying efficiency.
This was the reality check. The civilized world I knew 24 hours ago, where I poured coffee and complained about my tips, was completely fucking dead.
I was trapped with a Bratva warlord who looted bodies as casually as I used to check my phone.
Andrei popped a spent shell casing out of a chamber and tossed it over his shoulder. It skittered across the floor with a sharp metallic clatter and tapped right against my bare heel. I jumped out of my skin.
"Why do you take so much?" I asked, my voice tight as I stared at the arsenal he was shoving into his pockets.
"Ammo is the only currency that matters tonight," he replied flatly.
"You're a monster."
The metallic clink of magazines being loaded paused for a second, the smell of stale tobacco and sweat wafting up from the dead guards' gear.
He didn't even bother to argue. I turned my back to him, hyper-focusing on the dark void of the open office doors down the hall.
Every single shadow looked like a man in tactical gear leveling a rifle at my head.
The paranoia was unhinged. I felt like the walls were literally vibrating, closing in on me.
I was freezing, my skin pebbled with goosebumps, but a single, hot drop of sweat rolled off my neck and traced a slow path down my spine, making me flinch as if a ghost had just dragged a finger down my back.
Behind me, the rhythmic, heavy thrum of Andrei pulling zippers and racking slides was the only thing grounding me to reality.
If Desmond was watching this on some elite VIP monitor right now, I hoped he was choking on his own guilt.
"Is it always this quiet before they die?" I whispered into the darkness.
"Only when they're scared of the dark," Andrei replied, his voice muffled as he leaned over the second body.
"I can't see anything," I admitted, my eyes straining against the dying fluorescent light flickering weakly above us.
Then I heard it. A soft, distinct scraping sound.
It didn't come from the dark offices I was watching.
It came from the utility closet ten feet directly behind Andrei's crouched form.
My head snapped around so fast my neck cracked.
I stared in absolute horror as the brass handle of the solid wood door began to turn with agonizing slowness.
I had a split second to calculate the math.
Andrei was completely vulnerable, his broad back turned to the closet as he tugged a sidearm from the second corpse's belt. If I yelled, I’d alert whoever was coming out that we knew they were there.
If I didn't yell, Andrei was going to take a bullet to the spine.
My breath hitched in my throat, a tiny, sharp gasp that went completely unnoticed over the sound of Andrei working the action of the stolen pistol.
"Andrei..." I whispered.
"Silence, Ruby. I’m almost done."
"ANDREI!" I screamed.
A third guard, older, heavily scarred, and completely silent, stepped out of the utility room.
He didn't yell for backup. He didn't say a fucking word. He just smoothly raised a compact submachine gun to his shoulder, the glint of the muzzle catching the ambient light as he centered the barrel directly between Andrei’s shoulder blades. I watched his index finger slide into the trigger guard and begin to squeeze. The guard’s tactical boot shifted on the linoleum, making a tiny, pathetic squeak that sounded like a death knell in the massive hallway.
I didn't think. If I thought about it, I would have frozen.
I just moved. The transition from standing completely still to a full-tilt, chaotic sprint was violently jarring.
My bare feet found instant traction on the tacky, blood-slicked floor, and I threw my entire body weight into the narrow gap between Andrei and the shooter.
A wild strand of my hacked-off hair caught in my mouth as I opened it, a raw, feral sound tearing out of my throat.
"No!"
The guard’s eyes went wide. He clearly hadn't accounted for the girl in the torn white slip acting as a human shield.
He tried to pivot the heavy barrel of the rifle away from Andrei and toward me, but shock slowed his reaction time by a fraction of a second.
That was all I needed. I was already inside his guard, my arm swinging upward in a wide, desperate arc.
My right shoulder slammed directly into the hard plastic of his tactical vest, the impact knocking all the air out of my burning lungs with a heavy grunt.
He smelled like cheap drugstore cologne and sweat.
Under the jaw. Andrei told me under the jaw.
I drove the heavy combat knife upward with every ounce of terror, rage, and absolute hatred I possessed.
It wasn't like the movies. The blade didn't just slide in.
It met brutal resistance—the thick skin, the dense muscle, the cartilage—before it finally gave way with a sickening, wet slide deep into the soft tissue of his throat.
I felt the awful vibration of the steel travel up my arm as the edge sheared right through his windpipe.
Hot, slick liquid instantly exploded over my hand, coating the hilt of the knife so thoroughly my fingers slipped on the textured grip.
The guard dropped his gun, his thick fingers clawing frantically at my arm, his nails digging into my skin as he let out a horrific, wet tearing sound.