Chapter 17 — Red on Black #2
The sound was dry, sharp, and nauseating. Like a dry branch snapping in a silent forest.
Julian screamed.
It was a high-pitched, feminine, shameful sound. He fell to his knees on the marble floor, clutching his hand to his chest, crying openly. The finger was bent at an unnatural angle.
The crowd let out a collective gasp of horror.
Ethan didn't release Julian's broken wrist. He kept him on his knees, forcing him to bow before Maya.
“Apologize,” Ethan ordered.
Julian sobbed, snot running, dignity evaporated.
“I'm sorry!” he screamed at the floor. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!”
Ethan looked at Maya.
“Is that enough for you?” he asked.
Maya was trembling. She looked at the man on the floor, crying. Then she looked at Ethan. There was blood on Ethan's knuckles. Not his. Julian must have scratched him in the struggle, or maybe his nose had bled from the pain.
“Ethan, let's go,” she whispered. “Please. Everyone's watching.”
Ethan released Julian's wrist with a contemptuous flick, as if discarding trash. Julian collapsed on the floor, curling into a fetal position.
Ethan pulled a white linen handkerchief from his breast pocket. He wiped his hands calmly, meticulously, cleaning away the contamination of Julian's touch. Then he let the handkerchief fall onto the crying man.
“If you look at her again, Julian,” Ethan said to the trembling mass on the floor, “I'll buy your father's hotels tomorrow morning and turn them all into parking lots. And you'll be working the booth.”
He turned to Maya.
The mask of cold fury disappeared for a second when he looked at her. His eyes swept over her arm, searching for marks. There was redness where Julian had squeezed her.
Ethan's eyes narrowed. His jaw clenched.
He extended his hand to her.
“Come.”
Maya took his hand. It was warm. Steady.
Ethan didn't wait. He pulled her to his side, wrapping his arm around her waist, creating an iron barrier between her and the rest of the world.
They began walking toward the exit.
The ballroom parted.
If before they had made way out of respect, now they made way out of pure terror. No one dared make eye contact. People backed away, pulling their gowns and tuxedos clear, as if Ethan were radioactive.
Moretti appeared in the side doorway, drawn by the commotion. He saw Julian on the floor. Saw Ethan walking with the fury of a war god.
Moretti said nothing. He only nodded—a somber acknowledgment that the line had been crossed and retribution had been fair, according to the laws of the jungle they lived in.
Ethan ignored Moretti. Ignored the orchestra timidly trying to restart a waltz.
He dragged Maya out of the ballroom, up the stairs, past the doormen who opened the double doors with frantic haste.
The night air hit Maya's face, hot and dry, but welcome after the stale air of the ballroom.
The photographers were still there, but the aura of violence emanating from Ethan made them lower their cameras. They sensed the danger. No one shouted. No one fired a flash.
The limousine driver, sensing the urgency, already had the door open and the engine running.
Ethan practically threw Maya into the car, shielding her head with his hand, and climbed in right behind her, slamming the door with a force that made the armored vehicle shake.
“Go,” he growled to the driver through the intercom.
The car took off, tires squealing on the asphalt, leaving the Grand Palais and its shocked guests behind.
The interior of the limousine was dark, lit only by the passing streetlights.
Ethan leaned back against the seat, his head thrown back against the leather, eyes closed. He was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling in deep arcs. His hands were clenched into fists on his knees.
Maya shrank into the opposite corner, arms wrapped around herself. The diamond at her throat felt like it had grown hot, burning against her skin.
The silence was deafening.
She looked at his hands.
In the flickering light of a streetlamp, she saw the dark stain of blood on his right knuckles.
The fear she felt wasn’t of him. She knew that now, with a crystal clarity that frightened her more than the violence she’d just witnessed.
If he were an uncontrolled monster, she’d be terrified.
But he hadn’t lost control. He’d broken Julian’s finger with the precision of a surgeon removing a tumor. He’d done it for her.
It was twisted, violent, illegal protection. But it was protection. No one had ever broken anything for her. Kyle would have offered a discount on the car to the man who insulted her.
“Ethan,” she called, her voice small in the darkness.
He didn’t open his eyes.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
“No. Just… my arm. A little.”
His eyes snapped open. They gleamed in the dimness.
“Let me see.”
He held out his hand. The one stained with blood.
Maya didn’t pull back. She slid across the leather seat until she was beside him. She held out her left arm.
Ethan held it with a gentleness that belied the brutality of minutes before. He switched on the overhead reading light, a soft, focused beam.
On the pale skin of her arm, five red marks were already darkening into bruises. Julian’s fingerprints.
Ethan stared at the marks as if they were a personal affront, a desecration of a sacred temple. He ran his thumb lightly over her skin, just below the bruises, careful not to touch them.
“I should have broken his whole arm,” he murmured, his voice a low, vibrating growl. “I should have ripped his hand off.”
“Ethan, stop,” Maya said softly. “It’s over.”
“It’s not over,” he retorted, looking at her. The intensity on his face was overwhelming. “It never ends. They’ll always look. They’ll always try to touch. Because you’re beautiful and they’re greedy.”
“I’m not an object that can be stolen,” she said, trying to reclaim some sense of autonomy.
“No,” he agreed, surprisingly. “Objects don’t bleed. Objects don’t tremble.” He brought her hand to his lips, kissing her palm, ignoring the blood on his own fingers. “You’re alive. And that’s why it’s so terrifying to see someone put their filthy hands on you.”
Maya looked at his hand holding hers. The contrast was stark. His hand, large, strong, stained with violence. Hers, pale, trembling, adorned with invisible rings of possession.
She took the linen handkerchief from his other pocket (he always had spare handkerchiefs, apparently) and began cleaning the blood from his knuckles.
Ethan watched her, motionless.
“Are you afraid?” he asked, watching the concentration on her face as she cleaned his skin.
Maya stopped. She looked into his eyes.
“I am,” she admitted.
“Of me?”
“For you,” she corrected. “What you did back there… in front of all those people… there’ll be consequences. His father… the press…”
Ethan let out a short, arrogant laugh. He caught her chin, tilting her face toward him.
“Maya, look at me. I’m Ethan Vance. I own the debt of half those people. I own the secrets of the other half. Julian’s father will send me a bottle of wine tomorrow apologizing for his idiot son’s behavior. The press won’t publish anything because I buy the ink before it touches the paper.”
He leaned in, brushing his lips against hers.
“Don’t be afraid for me. The world out there can’t touch me.”
He kissed her. It was a kiss that tasted of adrenaline and iron.
“Be afraid of what I’m going to do to you when we get home,” he whispered against her mouth. “Because seeing that man touch you… seeing those marks on your skin…”
He pulled her onto his lap, not caring about the velvet dress or the cramped space. He buried her against his chest, hiding her from the world.
“It woke things in me I thought I had under control. And I need to erase his touch from your skin. Now.”
Maya closed her eyes, burying her face in his neck, breathing in the scent of sandalwood and violence. The car accelerated through the neon night, carrying them back to the tower, back to the cage, back to the only place where the monster could love her without destroying the rest of the world.
And God forgive her, she could barely wait to get there.