Chapter 011 Viktor
I follow her bloody footprints through the city.
Three in the morning. Sleep has been impossible since she arrived. I sit in the dark of my study, eyes fixed on the camera feed, watching her breathe beneath those coarse sheets. Every small shift of her body registers like a pulse in my own veins. So when her door opens at two, I see it instantly.
I do not raise the alarm. I do not call the guards. I simply follow.
She moves through my compound like a ghost—disabling the service-entrance alarm with a touch, timing the patrols to the second, slipping past every camera blind spot. She has done this before. Several times, perhaps. While I congratulated myself on keeping her contained.
Clever girl.
Out into the frozen Chicago night, barefoot. The detail lodges under my ribs. Her soles leave faint prints on the concrete at first, then darker smears as the asphalt begins to bite.
Blood.
She never slows. Never favors one foot. Just keeps that lethal, fluid stride I watched in the training room, painting the pavement with her own flesh.
Who are you, Isabella Moretti?
I stay far back, melting into shadows. One mile out, the parking garage. Level three, northwest corner. A black SUV idles, lights off.
From across the street I watch a man climb out—six-two, military posture, dark hair cropped close. One of her brothers. No doubt.
She steps into his arms. The embrace is brief, fierce. She presses something small and folded into his hand. Their heads bend together; I cannot hear the words, but I read the urgency in his shoulders, the way his gaze sweeps her for damage.
She has been feeding them intelligence the entire time.
My fingers curl, itching for the weight of a pistol. One shot through the windshield and her brother would drop. Another stride and I could haul her back by the throat. Make her bleed for this.
I do nothing.
Patience. Some things are shaped over years, not minutes.
I trail her return instead. The bloody prints are heavier now, more deliberate. She re-enters the compound the same way she left. The trail ends at her door, dark petals on pale tile.
Back in my study I pour vodka with hands that refuse to stay steady. The Barone shipment details—my bait. Did she pass those along? Or something worse?
I should end her. Should have ended her the moment I saw the paper change hands.
Instead I keep seeing those footprints. The discipline required to walk two miles on shredded flesh without a limp.
She is magnificent.
And I will make her regret it.
Seven a.m. I let her believe she succeeded. Let her taste victory for a few hours.
The guard admits me to her suite without announcement. She is already awake, sitting against the headboard, watching the door as if she felt me coming. Shadows bruise the skin beneath her eyes; she has not slept either.
I take the chair by the barred window. Morning light spills across the stack of designer boxes I had delivered before dawn.
“Good morning, kotyonok. Sleep well?”
“Well enough.”
“I thought we might try something different today.” I lift the lid on the first box. Red soles gleam. “You have worn those prison cottons long enough. I have been remiss.”
She remains on the bed, blanket drawn high. The caution in her posture is intoxicating. Good. She should be cautious.
“I had a few things brought for you. Clothes. Shoes.” I turn one Louboutin in my fingers, admiring the stiletto. “Try them.”
She hesitates only a heartbeat, then swings her legs over the side. The cotton dress slides to her knees.
“Give me your foot.”
She extends her right leg. I close my hand around her ankle—possessive, unyielding—and push the fabric higher.
The damage is worse than I expected. Deep lacerations crisscross the sole, blisters torn raw, dried blood flaking at the edges. The night’s walk has left its signature in ruined skin.
I meet her eyes and slide the shoe on.
The leather must feel like fire against every cut. Her face reveals nothing.
“Stand. Walk.”
She rises. Three measured steps forward. Turn. Three back. Spine straight, chin level. The heels ring against hardwood. A dark spot blooms inside the left shoe.
“Wrong size, perhaps.” I remove them slowly, noting the fresh blood smeared across the insole. “Try these.”
Jimmy Choo next—sharper toe, higher heel, weight concentrated on the worst wounds. She walks again. A single drop falls to the floor.
“You know,” I say, selecting Manolos, “I followed your bloody footprints last night.”
She freezes. For the first time the mask slips—genuine shock widening her eyes before she locks it down again. Her breath catches.
There you are.
“Quite a trail. Through the compound, out the service door, all the way to that parking garage.” I ease the new shoes onto her feet. “Interesting meeting. Your brother, I believe. You gave him something. Small. Folded.”
The tremor in her hands is minute, quickly hidden.
“You followed me.”
“Every step.”
Real fear flickers now, braided with fury. “If you are going to kill me, do it.”
“Kill you?” The laugh leaves me low and rough. “If I wanted you dead, printsessa, you would never have reached that garage. Neither would he.”
Blood seeps through the open toe of the Manolo. She barely seems to notice.
“Then what do you want?”
I rise, cross the space between us, take her chin in my hand. “I want you to understand the rules. You move because I permit it. You breathe because I permit it. You see your brother because I permit it.”
“You didn’t—”
“I watched for ninety minutes and chose not to stop you. That is permission.” My grip tightens. “You believe you are clever. You believe you are winning. But every freedom you taste exists only because I have not yet taken it away.”
Four more pairs. Each more punishing than the last. She walks every circuit while her mind races behind those arctic eyes, recalculating everything she thought she knew.
The final box holds simple flats—soft leather, merciful cushioning. Her body leans toward them without permission.
I set the box aside. “No. Those do not suit you. Back to the first.”
“Viktor—”
“Put them on.”
Pure hatred flares in her gaze, but beneath it something else—breath quickening, flush rising along her throat. Even now, knowing I watched her treason, her body answers me.
I watch her slide the blood-soaked Louboutins back on. Fresh crimson wells immediately. Her legs tremble, yet her posture remains regal.
This is the moment most would beg. She only stares, committing my face to memory for the day she repays me.
That thought sends heat straight to my cock.
She bares her teeth—half snarl, half smile. “I thought we were finished playing dress-up.”
“You do not yet understand the game.”
“What do you want from me?”
Everything. Her surrender and her defiance in the same breath. Her hatred and her need braided so tightly she cannot tell them apart. I want her on her knees, acknowledging me as master while despising me for it.
Right now, I want her to crawl.
“On your knees.”
She hesitates—barely a heartbeat. I wait for refusal.
Instead she lowers herself, blood pooling beneath the red soles, spine straight even in submission.
I look down at this woman who has killed men twice my size, who has danced through my security like mist, and feel the last thread of restraint snap.
“Look at me.”
She lifts her chin. Eyes blazing, lips parted, hair clinging to damp cheeks.
I fist her hair, yank her head back. Her throat arches, pulse hammering beneath delicate skin. I want to mark it.
Instead I press my thumb to her jaw, force her mouth open.
“You want to break me?” Her voice is raw silk.
“I want you to remember who owns you.”
“Then take it.”
Not surrender. Challenge.
I accept.
Belt unbuckled, every movement deliberate. Her gaze never wavers. I free myself, already aching. Grip the back of her head and drive forward.
She takes me deep on the first thrust. A single gag, then control. Breathing through her nose, she holds my stare.
I fuck her mouth without mercy—brutal, punishing strokes that hit the back of her throat again and again. Tears track down her cheeks, mascara bleeding like war paint. She chokes, but her eyes stay locked on mine, fierce and unbroken.
Her nails rake my thighs, scoring skin. Each thrust sharpens her gaze rather than dulls it.
She should be suffocating. Instead she moans—low, deliberate vibration that rips through me.
In that sound I understand: even on her knees, bleeding, she is steering this. She is winning.
Release crashes over me like violence. I spill down her throat, shuddering, forcing her to hold me through every pulse.
When I release her, she sits back on her heels. Chest heaving. A thread of saliva and seed at the corner of her mouth. She wipes it away with the back of her hand.
Then she smiles—blood-smeared, triumphant.
“Did I pass your test?” Her voice is hoarse velvet. “Or shall I try more shoes?”
I cannot hide the tremor in my hands as I fasten my belt.
“Clean yourself up. We are finished for today.”
At the door she speaks again.
“Viktor.”
I pause.
“I was not the only one on my knees just now.”
The door shuts harder than I intend. In the hallway I brace a palm against the wall, breathing ragged.
She walked miles on shredded feet without a sound.
She took me down her throat like it was her choice.
She is remaking me into something I do not recognize.
I should kill her. Should set her free. Should do anything except stand here shaking, tasting her defiance, following those bloody footprints deeper into territory there is no returning from.
The game has become something else entirely—something that tastes of copper and salt and ruinous hunger.
And I do not want it to end.