Callie
The door shuts behind him with a soft click, and suddenly the silence in this penthouse is louder than the sound of rain on the casino floor.
For a long moment, I just sit there, staring at the place where he had been.
Where he’d looked at me like he was already cataloguing every possible use for my existence.
When I finally stand, my knees almost buckle, but I force myself toward the bedroom he pointed to, every muscle shaking like my body can’t decide if I’m still alive or already dead.
The room is quietly beautiful in that minimalist sort of way. A luxury hotel room made personal with light touches here and there. I’m scared to touch anything in case it shatters and I shatter with it.
There’s a closet full of clothes; crisp shirts, pressed trousers, and an intimidating lineup of suits that smell faintly of him, something deeply male and strangely clean.
But tucked on a shelf beside them is a stack folded black T-shirts and soft grey sweatpants that look so ordinarily human that I have to touch them to make sure they’re real.
I strip off my uniform dress with shaking hands, letting the beads and sequins slide off my skin and puddle onto a chair like a shed snakeskin. The T-shirt is too big, the fabric brushing the tops of my thighs. The joggers are soft, loose around my hips and waist, and far too long.
I wrap my arms around myself and try to breathe. Think. Survive.
I have to get word to Gran. She will wake up, ask where I am, and no one will have an answer. The idea of her confused and alone rips something inside me wide open.
She hasn’t got long left.
Telling him that felt like signing my own death warrant, but maybe it’s the only reason I’m not a crumpled body beside a dead stranger in a cold room right now.
I head back out to the living space and pace the length of the glass wall, feet silent against the lush floor.
The city outside looks unreal, like neon galaxies spinning in the desert.
I wonder if my boss will even notice I never returned from filling the drinks order.
Or if she’ll assume I just left. My tips were what kept Gran in a room with a window.
In a bed that wasn’t the worst one available. Losing my job means losing that.
Means losing her.
A trembling breath escapes me. I press both hands to the glass, forehead resting there, eyes burning. I don’t cry, I can’t, but panic circles closer, sharp-toothed and relentless.
There has to be a way out.
Phone? That’s in my locker along with my life outside of this job. Colleagues? None who would risk their own skin. Security? They answer to him.
He said I was alive because I am his to deal with.
What happens when he decides dealing with me is too much effort?
The elevator dings.
I whirl around.
He steps in like a storm that’s spent itself on the world outside but refuses to weaken here. His shoulders are tense beneath the suit jacket; his jaw shadowed from hours that must have passed while I paced and waited for my heart to fail.
He looks exhausted.
It doesn’t fit him.
The man downstairs, the one who executed someone without so much as a raised heartbeat, is not supposed to look tired. Or human. Or touched by anything as ordinary as fatigue.
He drags a hand across his jaw, eyes flicking to me as though checking I’m still where he left me. Still breathing. Still under his control. But there’s something else, too. Something unsettled in the way he observes me, like he’s revisiting a decision he thought was final.
For a second, neither of us speaks.
Then he exhales, low and rough, and the sound skates down my spine.
“You are hungry,” he says, voice stripped down, quieter than before, like words cost him something he isn’t used to giving.
Of all the things he could say, questions, threats, commands, that one simple statement knocks me slightly off balance.
I swallow hard and take a moment to recall when I last ate anything substantial. I can’t remember. Maybe dinnertime with Gran? That’s right, I bought an extra plate so we could eat mashed up meat and overcooked vegetables together.
“Yes,” I admit.
His brows lift a fraction, like he didn’t expect honesty. Like he’s been bracing for more lies from me. He steps into the kitchen area, opening his shirt cuffs as he moves. I shouldn’t stare at the motion, shouldn’t notice how elegant and dangerous he looks when he rolls up his sleeves.
But I do.
He opens the fridge and pulls out a plate already wrapped, like someone anticipated he’d need food at an hour normal people are asleep.
It smells good. Rich pasta and creamy sauce, my stomach twists painfully at the scent as it warms up in the microwave.
When he sets it on the table with a glass of chilled white wine, I hesitate.
“It’s okay to eat, I had it made earlier but had to…work.”
Every instinct warns me not to lower my guard.
“What’s wrong?” His voice cuts through the quiet.
“You tell me.” I lift my gaze to his. “You said you’re keeping me alive… but for how long?”
Something flickers behind his eyes, frustration or concern, I can’t tell. “Eat,” he says softly. “You’ll think more clearly once you do.”
He rolls his eyes with a huff and snatches my fork, stabbing a piece of pasta and thrusting it into his mouth.
“See, it’s fine, just eat already,” he says, dropping the fork back onto the plate.
I take slow, cautious bites, each one reminding me how long I’ve been running on desperation and adrenaline.
He watches me, not like a man observing a woman, but like someone cataloguing every tiny movement and precisely what it means.
I tell myself not to be intimidated by that.
To use it. To learn him the same way he’s learning me.
“You look…” I begin, searching for the right word. “Different.”
His brow arches. “Different?”
“Tired,” I say, the admission quiet, carefully. “Like you’ve been fighting something.”
The sharpness in his posture shifts, softens ever so slightly. He leans back in the chair, arms crossing his chest, a barrier that looks instinctive rather than planned.
“Fighting is what I do,” he says, his accent a little thicker with the fatigue.
“But this,” I press, gesturing between us, “isn’t normal for you, is it?”
He doesn’t answer. But he doesn’t look away, either.
I take a breath and, before I lose courage, I say, “You didn’t have to take me. You could have… handled me downstairs.”
His eyes darken, that dangerous storm rolling through again. “I told you. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“That’s not the full truth,” I say, though I can’t believe I’m challenging him. “If I’m not allowed to lie to you, you can afford me the same courtesy. Something changed your mind. What was it?”
He studies me in silence. The way his gaze traces my face makes heat pool low in my stomach. Something raw and primal takes root. Something possessive.
“You’re asking questions you don’t want the answers to,” he says.
“Maybe I do,” I counter, heart pounding. “Because I need to know if these are my last moments on Earth.”
“What if they are?” he asks, voice low enough to scrape along my nerves. “What if these were your last moments? Your last breaths?”
He is looking at me like my answer will be a revelation, but I can’t think of what to say. Because what if they were?
He stands and steps toward me, closing the last few feet of distance so slowly I feel every inch of space surrender. When he stops, he’s close enough that I have to tip my head back to look up at him. Close enough that his scent, clean, cold danger, fills my brain.
He pulls me up to stand in front of him and looks down at me. He is close enough that I can see the faint line of a scar running through his left eyebrow. The way one eye has slightly more blue in it than the other, but both are smoky quartz gray with thick, dark limbal rings.
“Tell me I’m crazy,” he says, and it comes out as a desperate plea. “Tell me you don’t feel this and I’ll figure out a way to get you out of here safely.”
But I can’t do that either. Because from the moment our eyes met in that small, cold room, I was hooked. And being here, in his penthouse, wearing his clothes, eating his food...I already feel like I’ve been assimilated into his life.
He nods slowly, my silence answering a question he never voiced.
“You’re mine, Callie. Whether you’re ready for that or not.”
The word mine coils around my heart like a fist tightening, but it doesn’t feel like suffocation. It feels like peace.