CHAPTER 19
RUBY P.O.V.
The heavy deadbolt clicks home with a massive, metallic thud that feels exactly like a coffin lid slamming shut.
Silence instantly drops over us, suffocating and thick, snapping the chaos outside into a muffled, underwater void.
We’re both breathing like we just ran a marathon over broken glass.
Then there’s a heavy thump against the outside of the steel door—a body hitting it.
A split second later, a sharp PING echoes into the room as a bullet ricochets off the reinforced frame.
The vibration travels straight through the floor and rattles my damn teeth.
I walk up to the steel door and trace the seam with a shaking fingertip.
It’s impossibly smooth. There’s no gap. No weakness.
We are locked in a high-tech tomb and the sterile, windowless box is just amplifying the sound of my own ragged breathing.
"Is there a way out?" I ask, staring at the flawless metal joint.
"Don't look at the door, Ruby," Andrei snaps. He’s standing like a statue, his ice-blue eyes absolutely glued to the blue glow of the security monitors mounted above the desk.
"They're just waiting for the right tool."
My legs decide they are completely done taking orders.
The adrenaline crash hits me like a freight train, dissolving my muscles into water.
I slide down the cold steel wall, clutching Andrei’s heavy, blood-spattered suit jacket around my almost-naked body.
The floor bites into my bare thighs. Andrei doesn't even look at me. He ignores my collapse completely and starts pacing the four corners of the room like a caged, homicidal tiger. The rhythmic clack-clack of his expensive shoes on the metal grating grates against my skull. He’s running his huge, scarred hands over the seamless steel walls, frantically feeling for a hidden override panel, a weak point, or a ventilation duct big enough to squeeze his massive frame through.
The man physically refuses to accept a dead end, and his unhinged energy is creating a horrible friction in the tiny space.
He stops, kicks a heavy metal chair across the room, and it slams into the far wall with a deafening crash.
"Stop pacing," I tell him, tasting the copper in my mouth. "You're using up the air."
"There is always a way. I just haven't found it yet," he growls, not even turning his head.
"Look at me, Andrei. Look at the wall." I pull the jacket tighter. I can see the cracks in his armor right now. He isn’t some untouchable Bratva god in this little steel box. He’s just a man who absolutely fucking hates being powerless.
A high-pitched, grinding screech erupts from outside.
It’s an industrial drill, biting right into the steel near the locking mechanism.
The noise is instantly deafening, vibrating through the floor, up my spine, and straight into my skull until my vision literally blurs at the edges.
The guards aren’t trying to blindly shoot through the door anymore.
They are systematically tearing the barrier apart.
The sound is a physical, ticking clock gnawing away at the last bit of my sanity.
I slam the palms of my hands over my ears, pressing so hard I see white spots exploding behind my eyelids, but it doesn't do a damn thing. It’s inside my bones.
"Make it stop," I yell over the horrible grinding noise.
"They're halfway through the first layer," he shouts back, his eyes locked on the monitor showing the blurred feed outside.
"Jesus, it sounds like a bone saw." I realize this is exactly what Desmond must have felt like when he sold me out to these bastards. Just this grinding, inevitable reality of a choice being violently made for me without my consent.
The drilling abruptly stops. The sudden heavy silence is almost worse, leaving my ears ringing with a phantom whine.
Then comes the metallic tink-tink of heavy metal being struck by a hammer.
Andrei’s head snaps toward the door. His eyes narrow into frozen slits and he turns to look at me, his face dropping into a mask of grim, absolute realization.
"Suka," he breathes out. "They aren't going through the lock. They're setting C4 on the hinges."
He checks the magazine of his stolen pistol. His hands are rock steady, which is deeply infuriating considering we just got handed a death sentence. The cold fluorescent light bouncing off his shaved head makes him look carved out of marble.
"How long?" I ask.
"Two minutes. Maybe three." He slams the magazine back into the grip.
"We aren't going to make it out, are we?" The fear is just gone. Burned up. In its place is this strange, completely hollow clarity. If I am going to die in a billionaire’s heavily fortified panic room, I am not going out as a cowering victim clutching a bloody jacket.
I push myself up off the floor. The jacket slides off my shoulders, pooling in a heavy heap at my feet.
I stand there bare, bruised, and totally defiant in the sterile, freezing air.
I take one deliberate step toward Andrei, closing the distance until I can feel the absolute furnace of heat radiating off his towering, heavily muscled frame.
I reach out, grab the lapels of his ruined, custom-tailored shirt, and pull him down toward me.
My nails dig into the expensive fabric and I rip a button clean off in my fist. The smell of his cologne mixed with fresh sweat and burnt ozone floods my senses.
"Don't let the last thing I feel be the cold," I demand.
His eyes flare. "Look at me, Andrei. Not the door. Me."
His hands twitch at his sides.
"Make me forget what's on the other side of that steel." I want to drown in him. I want to be so completely full of him that there is zero room left in my brain to process the sound of the fuse being lit outside.
He seizes my waist. His massive hands nearly meet around my middle, his grip bruising and possessive.
He doesn't hesitate for a second. The fact that we are minutes away from being blown to pieces completely strips away any remaining pretense.
He lifts me straight off the ground, his mouth crashing down onto mine in a violent kiss that tastes like desperation and metallic dust. It isn't a caress. It’s a full-speed collision.
The heavy metal buckle of his belt clinks loudly against the edge of the desk as he crowds completely into my space, crushing his chest against my bare breasts.
"You're so fucking brave, Ruby," he mutters against my lips, his stubble scraping raw friction against my jaw.
"Give it to me. Everything." He’s a ruthless monster, but right now he is the only tangible, real thing left in the universe.
He steps sideways, sweeping a lamp, a tablet, and a glass of water off the metal desk with one single, violent backhand.
The glass shatters against the floor with a loud crash that mimics the chaos outside, a stray shard catching the blue light of the monitors as it skitters across the metal grating.
He sets me down on the cold surface. My bare spine violently recoils from the freezing steel, but his body is a burning shield right above me.
The sound of his zipper hissing down cuts through the ringing in my ears.
"Wrap your legs around me," he orders, his voice thick and rough.
I lock my ankles behind his back. The chilling bite of the desk feels like an open grave, but his hands are a complete riot on my skin.
"Don't close your eyes."
He enters me with one deep, singular thrust that punches all the oxygen straight out of my lungs.
It’s incredibly rough, totally unyielding, and exactly what I need.
There is absolutely no finesse. It’s just this raw, animalistic drive to mark me, to claim whatever is left of me, and to exist entirely inside me as the whole world gets ready to explode into fire.
My heels scrape hard against the unforgiving metal edge of the desk as I hold onto him.
"I’ve got you," he groans, burying his face in my neck.
The rhythmic thud of our bodies slamming against the desk vibrates through the room, cutting a new beat into the silence. The smell of rain-damp wool, sweat, and hot skin is intoxicating.
"Tell me you feel that."
I nod, burying my fingers in his dark hair. I have finally stopped hearing the damn drills and the hammers outside. There is only him.
He grips my hips so hard his fingers are going to leave permanent, dark bruises on my skin, setting a frantic, punishing pace.
Outside the heavy steel door, the muffled, high-pitched electronic whine of the C4 being armed bleeds into the room.
I completely ignore it. I throw my head back, tangling both my hands tighter in his hair, pulling his face up and meeting every brutal lunge.
His knuckles are turning pure white where he grips the edge of the desk to anchor us both.
Sweat slicks our bodies together, the overhead light flickering slightly from the power drain outside.
"Harder," I gasp out, matching his rhythm.
"You're mine, Ruby," he snarls, driving into me deep enough to make me see stars. "Even in the dirt, you're mine."
I want him to completely break me before the bomb does.
The low-frequency vibration of the room reaches a terrifying peak.
It’s the obvious sign the explosives are fully primed.
The tension snaps, and we hit a shattering, desperate climax at the exact same time.
It’s a violent, blinding release that feels like my entire soul is being ripped out of my body.
Andrei groans my name straight into my neck, his massive frame trembling against me with the sheer force of his spend.
I bite down hard on his shoulder to keep from screaming, tasting the salt and iron on his skin.
"Ruby..." he breathes out, completely out of breath.
"I'm here. I'm right here."
The intense, pulsing heat between us is the only thing keeping me grounded.
For a split second, there is absolute, dead stillness in the room.
The heavy scent of sex, sweat, and iron fills the space.
If this is death, it is a hell of a lot better than anything my miserable life ever handed me before tonight.
We don't break apart. We stay tangled together, Andrei still buried deep inside me, his forehead heavily resting against mine while we both gasp for oxygen.
Then the electronic beep from the other side of the door transitions into a steady, fast pulse.
Beep-beep-beep. The tiny window of peace is instantly gone.
The fuse is fully lit. He pulls back slightly, using his thumb to wipe a smear of blood and sweat off my forehead.
"Here it comes," he says, his voice flat and tactical again.
"Hold onto me."
Even now, staring down a massive explosive charge, the bastard is still trying to protect me.
He moves with blurring, terrifying speed.
He yanks himself out of me, grabs my arm, and drags me off the freezing desk.
He shoves me backward into the absolute furthest corner of the room away from the door.
He forces me flat against the floor, his massive body coming down over mine like a heavy, bulletproof blanket.
He tucks my head tightly under his arm, completely shielding me with his own flesh and bone.
I grip the back of his tactical vest, my knuckles turning white as I hold on for dear life.
"Stay down!" he barks over the rapidly increasing beeping.
"Don't open your mouth, protect your lungs."
The freezing floor presses against the side of my face.
The acrid smell of gunpowder is leaking through the seams now, growing stronger by the second.
I realize in this exact moment that I don't want to die. I really fucking don't. Not anymore. Not now that I’ve felt what it’s like to actually be alive with him.
The rapid beeping merges into one solid, unbroken tone.
Andrei tenses every single muscle in his back, transforming himself into a massive human shield made entirely of dark ink and jagged scars.
I squeeze my eyes shut, pressing my face as hard as I can into the hot crook of his neck, inhaling one last, desperate breath of air before the fire comes for us.
His large hand cups the back of my head, pulling me even deeper into his chest.
"Now!" he shouts over the rising pressure.
The absolute pressure in the air sucks the breath from the room.
"I've got you."
Whatever the hell happens next, we do it together. The detonator clicks. I keep my eyes closed.