CHAPTER 16
ANDREI P.O.V.
I pull back from the kiss, my thumb dragging hard across her cheek.
The movement smears the warm, copper-scented blood of the guard she just butchered right into her pale skin.
The primal high of the kill is still humming in my fucking veins, a dark, buzzing satisfaction that she actually did it, that she didn't freeze when it mattered.
She didn't hesitate to plunge that blade into meat to keep me breathing.
But that high is already warring with the tactical reality of our situation.
We are standing over three fresh corpses in a hallway that smells like spent gunpowder and ruptured arteries, under a flickering fluorescent light that hums like an angry insect.
This floor is going to be swarmed by Hemlock's private security in less than three minutes.
I study the way her pupils are blown wide. The violent spark that just saved my life is draining out of her, replaced by a vacuum of shock. She’s staring down at the dead man like she expects him to get up and apologize.
I wrap the edge of my silk tie around my index finger and use it to wipe a stray drop of blood from the corner of her mouth. The gesture is deceptively gentle, a sharp contrast to the cold, dead way I’m looking at her.
"Look at me, Ruby," I say, my voice a flat command. "Not at the meat on the floor."
She blinks, her chest starting to hitch.
"He’s dead. You’re not," I tell her, dropping my hand. "That’s the only math that matters."
She doesn't answer. Her eyes are darting to the pool of dark red expanding over the luxury carpet.
"Save the trembling for when we’re out of the splash zone," I snap, abruptly severing whatever twisted intimacy just happened between us.
The shift is immediate. I don't have time to coddle a civilian.
I point a rigid finger down the forty-floor corridor toward a recessed alcove housing the service panels. "Move. Now."
She tries to sheathe her knife, but her hands are shaking so badly she misses the leather loop on her thigh.
Once, twice. The blade clatters uselessly against her leg.
The lag pisses me off. I hate lag. In this building, a second of hesitation is a literal death sentence.
If I have to carry her, we both die. I need the predator I saw ten seconds ago, not this broken, stumbling girl.
"If you can't walk, I'll leave you here with the rest of the trash," I growl, grabbing her elbow and shoving her toward the alcove.
The distant sound of heavy tactical boots echoing on the concrete stairwell two floors down bleeds through the walls.
A cold draft whistles through a bullet hole in the glass window at the end of the hall. "Focus on my voice and nothing else."
I push her into the alcove and immediately pull the heavy-duty multi-tool from the inner pocket of my suit jacket.
I jam the flathead end into the seam of the brushed-steel service panel and pry it hard.
The metal groans. I glance over my shoulder to check her posture.
She’s supposed to be watching our rear, but she’s staring blankly at a red fire extinguisher bolted to the opposite wall, her eyes completely unfocused.
"Eyes on the hallway, Ruby. Don't make me tell you again."
I put my weight into the tool. A shower of blue sparks jumps from the panel's exposed wiring, singeing the hair on my knuckles. I don't flinch. The smell of ozone mixes with the plaster dust falling lightly from the ceiling and the constant vibration of the building’s HVAC system.
"If the door opens and it's not me, you kill it. Understood?" I demand, digging my tool into the secondary circuit board.
She doesn't move. She just keeps staring.
"Tell me what you see. Use your words," I bark. I need to test her utility right fucking now. If she can't watch my back while I hack this terminal, she's a liability I can't afford.
"Nothing," she whispers, her voice cracked.
I bypass the security lockout, my fingers flying over the keypad of my hacking device with the muscle memory of a man who’s broken into half the high-security vaults in Moscow.
The building’s AI is actively fighting back, cycling the encryption every ten seconds.
I’m racing a digital clock, but I’m hyper-aware of the ragged, uneven rhythm of Ruby’s breath behind me. It’s loud. Too fucking loud.
I look back. She’s obsessively rubbing her thumb against her index finger, trying to scrape off dried blood that isn't even there.
"Almost through the firewall," I say, gritting my teeth. Her hyperventilating is clawing at my nerves. "Stop that noise. Control your lungs."
She gasps, a shallow, ugly sound.
"Thirty seconds. Keep it together for thirty seconds."
The blue glow of my device reflects off the sweat on my forehead. The high-pitched whine of the elevator motor finally engages from the shaft behind the wall. I hit the execution command.
The service elevator doors groan open with a heavy, industrial thud. The arrival chime feels deafening in the silence of the corridor. We just broadcasted our exact coordinates to the entire security grid on this floor. Stealth is gone. Now it’s just evasion.
I don't wait for her to process it. I grab the back of her neck, my fingers biting into her skin, and muscle her forcefully toward the dark, steel opening of the elevator car.
A small red 'Out of Service' light flickers erratically inside the cab, bathing the steel walls in a rhythmic, bloody pulse.
"Inside. Now," I order. She stumbles over the threshold. "Don't trip. Just move."
The smell of industrial grease, old dust, and the cold air rushing up the shaft hits us.
"If you vomit, do it in the corner."
I slam my hand onto the panel, hitting the button for the 50th floor. The doors slide shut with a heavy, finalizing clunk. The elevator lurches upward, a violent stomach-flipping sensation of rapid ascent that vibrates right through the soles of my boots.
The enclosure is the final trigger she needed to completely fall apart.
Without an enemy in front of her to fight, the adrenaline that kept her upright evaporates.
She slumps back against the wall, her knees buckling.
She slides all the way down the cold metal until she’s sitting on the floor.
Both of her hands go into her hacked-off brown hair, tangling in the strands and pulling hard.
"Stand up, Ruby," I command, looking down at her.
She doesn't hear me. She’s losing touch with reality, her chest heaving in short, frantic bursts that aren't getting enough oxygen to her brain. The hum of the elevator cables and the smell of her own terrified sweat mixing with the iron of the blood on her ruined slip fills the small box.
"Look at the floor numbers," I say, pointing to the flickering digital display above the door. "Focus on the light."
Nothing. The crash is hitting her with the force of a freight train. I've seen it a hundred times in my own men after their first kill, but she’s not one of my foot soldiers. She’s my asset. My obsession. I won't let her break inside this fucking box.
"I said stand up."
She starts to claw at her own throat, her dirty nails dragging down her skin, leaving angry red welts as she chokes on her own panic. She thinks she's suffocating.
"You're not dying," I say, stepping into her space. My shadow swallows her completely. "Ruby. Eyes on me. Right now."
She lets out a wheezing gasp, digging her nails in harder.
"Blyad, stop clawing at yourself."
I lunge down, grabbing both of her wrists in my hands.
I yank her to her feet with enough brutal force that her teeth clack together.
I slam her back against the metal wall. The jarring clang of her spine hitting the steel echoes over the hum of the cables.
Her combat knife slips from her numb fingers, clattering uselessly into the corner of the elevator.
I pin both of her hands high above her head, locking her arms in an iron grip.
"I own your breath, remember?" I snarl, crowding her. The heat of my chest radiates against her shivering body. She smells like my expensive cologne and her own gunpowder-laced terror. "Look at me. Look at my eyes and tell me you’re here."
I can feel her heart hammering like a trapped, dying bird right against my ribs. It’s too fast. I have to slow it down by force. I wedge my thigh forward, my knee pushing her legs apart so I can step directly between them, locking her lower body in place so she can't squirm.
I lean in, my face inches from hers. I don't offer her a single word of comfort. I’m going to use the horror.
"You felt it, didn't you?" I whisper, my voice dropping into a guttural, terrifying rasp. The stubble on my jaw grazes her ear. "The moment his life became yours. The way his skin popped under your blade. The heat of it spraying on your hands."
She whimpers, trying to turn her head, but I catch her chin hard with the point of my shoulder, forcing her to stay locked onto me.
"He bled so beautifully for you, Ruby."
I see the flicker of recognition in her hazel eyes. The blind, hyperventilating panic is cracking, replaced by a dark, confused shame. That’s better. Shame is an emotion. Shame means she’s present. I can use shame.
My free hand snakes down, my fingers hooking violently into the neckline of her torn white slip.
I don't pull the fabric away; I bunch it up in my fist, pressing my hard knuckles directly into her sternum to make her feel the overwhelming, suffocating weight of my physical presence.
I shift my grip on her wrists, twisting them just slightly to remind her of my absolute superiority.
"You’re a killer now. My little killer," I murmur, my hot breath washing over her neck. The cold metal of the wall presses against her bare shoulder blades. "Does your heart beat this fast for him, or for me?"
Her breathing hitches. The frantic gasping morphs into sharp, ragged pulls of air.
I move my hand lower, trailing the back of my knuckles down her stomach before reaching under the ruined hem of the slip.
I find the thin fabric of her underwear and sweep it aside with a single, rough movement.
My calloused fingers make direct, shocking contact with her slick, overheated skin.
She’s soaking wet. Terror and adrenaline have a sick way of manifesting in the body, and right now, her body is screaming for a release valve. I’m going to give it to her.
She gasps, trying to flinch away from the contact.
"Don't you dare look away," I command, my shoulder keeping her head pinned. "Feel this. This is the only thing that's real right now."
I shove two fingers inside her. Deep, hard, and without an ounce of ceremony.
The entry is a punishing shock to her system.
The back of her head thumps rhythmically against the steel wall as I press her flat against it, my thumb immediately finding her clit and grinding down with relentless, brutal pressure.
"Breathe for me. Deep," I order. The slick, wet sounds of my fingers sliding into her fill the elevator, louder than the mechanical hum. "That’s it. Give me that sound. Let the panic go and give me the moan instead."
Her vision finally clears, the glassy terror shattering as her eyes lock onto my ice-blue ones. Her muscles clench violently around my fingers, fighting the invasion before instinct takes over and she melts against my hand.
I don't slow down. I increase the pace as the display ticks past the 48th floor.
"You liked the way he looked when you took his breath," I taunt her, deliberately linking the act of slaughter to the violent pleasure I’m ripping out of her body right now. I’m rewiring her brain in real-time. "Tell me you want this more than you wanted him dead."
Her fingers, pinned securely above her head, stop fighting my grip and begin to curl tightly around mine. The instinct to flee is gone, replaced entirely by the instinct to cling. The heat radiating between us is boiling over, my dark ink pressing into her pale, bruised skin.
"Tell me," I demand, grinding my thumb harder.
She lets out a broken, sharp cry. I drive her straight over the fucking edge with one final, brutal surge of pressure.
Her body jerks wildly against the wall. The orgasm hits her like a physical blow—a violent, cathartic release that utterly annihilates the last remnants of her panic attack.
Her eyes roll back for a fraction of a second, her thighs trembling violently against my legs as the flood of her release coats my hand.
Her forehead drops heavily onto my shoulder as she finally, finally draws a full, deep breath.
"There you are," I say quietly into her hair. "Mine. You’re mine, Ruby."
The calibration is complete. The broken girl is gone. Only the hunter remains.
The exact second her climax begins to fade and her breathing regulates, I withdraw my hand and release her wrists. The transition is ice cold. No aftercare. No soft words. This wasn't romance. It was maintenance, and she needs to know the difference.
I take a step back, pulling a clean white handkerchief from my pocket. I wipe my hand meticulously, adjusting the lapels of my suit jacket as I glance up at the floor display. 49.
"Fix your hair," I tell her, my tone entirely professional again. "We have five seconds until the doors open. Be ready."
Ruby slumps against the wall for exactly one second before she pushes herself off the steel.
The flush of arousal drains from her face, leaving behind a mask of hollow, numb focus.
She reaches down, scoops her combat knife off the floor, and stands tall.
Her knuckles are white as she grips the hilt.
She roughly pulls her slip down, smoothing the blood-stained fabric with shaking hands.
She looks at me. Her gaze is completely clear. Cold. Lethal.
"I’m ready," she says, her voice devoid of any tremor. "Next time, just hit me."
The heavy clack of the elevator mechanism engaging echoes above us. The doors begin to slide open, spilling the bright, expensive halogen lighting of the executive floor into our dark little box.
I pull my suppressed pistol from my holster, raising it as I step out of the elevator first. I sweep the opulent, silent hallway over the sights of my gun. The plush carpet instantly mulls our footsteps. The smell of expensive beeswax polish and money hangs heavily in the sterile air.
Ruby follows a half-step behind me, her movements fluid and utterly silent. Her hyper-vigilant eyes are already scanning the ceiling corners for camera lenses.
I reach back without looking. My hand finds the small of her back, my fingers pressing in for a brief, bruising second just to ensure she’s exactly where I need her to be.
"Stay on my six," I say, keeping my eyes locked on the long corridor ahead. "Welcome to the penthouse."