Chapter 11 #4
Yuri threw his arms out wide, voice booming. “The Cartel sent gifts,” he announced to the entire space. “And God bless them for knowing my taste.”
I blinked slowly. Of course. Of course he did.
Beside me, Rafael muttered under his breath, and I didn’t need to look to know that his jaw was clenched again.
But me?
I just smiled, slow and deliberate, and leaned back against the bar. This is going to be interesting.
Rafael didn’t move from my side. Even with the chaos unfolding around us—music pumping louder, laughter rising, hands trailing places I didn’t care to glance—he remained still.
Present. Anchored. His hand rested on the bar, fingers curled around the rim of his untouched drink, while the other settled on the edge of his thigh like he was biding time. Calculating.
But I felt the shift the moment he glanced at me again. Not just looked—glanced. Eyes dragging, burning, reading me like I was a language he already spoke but still wanted to relearn.
One of the women—half-naked, glitter-coated and smelling like vanilla and something sharp—planted herself in Ash’s lap.
He didn’t look surprised. Another one was already leaning into Kellan, whispering something in his ear that made his jaw tick.
Across from me, Yuri had a girl straddling his chair, a blade in his hand tracing lazy, tantalizing paths over her bare thigh.
She arched into it, eyes hooded. Not afraid.
I sipped my drink, not tasting it. Not caring.
And then I felt it—heat at the nape of my neck. Fingers, slow and possessive, threading through the back of my hair. Rafael’s hand. A calloused thumb brushing over my skin, down to the curve where my neck met shoulder, firm and deliberate.
He leaned in—close enough for his breath to tickle my ear, his voice low and laced with something dark. “You enjoy watching, Isabella?”
His words were laced with something dangerous. Something that dared me to look away. I didn’t.
Instead, I turned my head slightly, just enough for my temple to graze his jaw. “I’ve seen worse. Been through worse.”
His hand slid lower—along my spine, then curling slightly around my waist, his fingers grazing the edge of the barely-there dress I wore over my bikini. He didn’t rush. Didn’t grab. Just moved like he had all the time in the world and every right to touch me.
He pressed his lips to the shell of my ear, and this time, they stayed. “You shouldn’t get too close to Yuri,” he murmured. “He might joke, laugh, charm… But you can never know what he will do next.”
I didn’t flinch. I just smiled and murmured back, “Isn’t that why you keep him close?”
His hand tensed slightly at my waist. “I keep him close because he’s loyal. And because when things get messy, Yuri doesn’t hesitate. That’s rare.”
“You make it sound like you admire him,” I said, tone even, fingers tightening around the chilled glass in my hand.
“I admire results,” Rafael said simply.
My gaze flicked back to Yuri—still dragging his knife across the girl’s thigh, still smiling like the devil’s favorite child.
Then Rafael’s fingers slid back up my spine, over my shoulder, tugging gently on the strand of braided red thread Yuri had tied in my hair. He held it between two fingers, inspecting it like he already knew where it came from, but wanted to hear it from me anyway.
“You really let him do this, huh?” he asked. “Or did he just get lucky?”
I didn’t answer right away. I just tilted my head so the thread dangled freely beside my cheek. “He told me what it meant.”
Rafael’s gaze darkened. “You let a man braid blood into your hair, and you stayed?”
I turned fully toward him then, letting the music and the madness blur into the background. “You let men bleed for you every day and call it loyalty. At least mine didn’t need a gun.”
He studied me—eyes unreadable, chest rising slowly like he was weighing my answer against some scale only he could see.
Then he leaned in again, this time closer. His mouth found the side of my neck—hot, unhurried. A kiss. A bite. Pressure and heat all at once, making my breath hitch before I could stop it. His fingers dug into my waist, not hard enough to bruise, but enough to remind me that he was there.
That he wasn’t anyone else.
“You’re mine, whether you like it or not,” he whispered, lips brushing over my skin. “And no blood thread will change that.”
I didn’t answer.
Because my pulse was beating too fast. Because my body was too aware of his. Because no matter how much I told myself this was all a game—I didn’t know which of us was winning anymore.
His hand didn’t move, but it didn’t need to. It rested at the base of my spine, his thumb brushing the line of skin where my dress dipped too low and his palm pressed just enough to remind me that he was there. That he could move. That he was choosing not to. For now.
Rafael said nothing as he stepped around me, slow, deliberate.
His presence was gravity—I felt it when he circled, my breath tightening, my pulse slowing then surging again when he stopped in front of me.
And when he nudged my knees apart with his thigh, pressing himself into the space between them, my stomach coiled like a loaded spring.
I hated that I didn’t push him away.
I hated that the scent of him—smoke and spice and something darker—made my eyes flutter before I caught myself. My fingers gripped the edge of the bar behind me, grounding myself, because if I let go, I wasn’t sure what I’d do.
He leaned in slowly, his hands bracing the bar on either side of me now, caging me in without touching me anywhere else. His breath skimmed the shell of my ear before his lips moved.
“I’ll give you what you want, Isabella…” His voice was silk over steel, low enough that no one else could hear. “But not when you’re marked by another man’s hands—even if it’s just ink.”
My heart stuttered.
He didn’t mean Yuri’s touch. He meant the tattoo. The red thread. The dagger.
The dagger that, ironically, symbolized him more than it ever could anyone else.
He pulled back, just enough to meet my eyes. His expression unreadable. His gaze dropped for a beat to my lips, lingering there, then lower—to the pulse in my neck that betrayed me with every hammering beat.
And then he stepped away.
Just like that. Gone.
The space he left felt colder than it should’ve.
I didn’t move. Couldn’t. My body was still wired, my thoughts tangled somewhere between fury and fire, shame and desire. He didn’t take anything from me—but he left behind something I couldn’t shake.
Control.
He had it again. And I hated him for that.
But I hated myself more for letting him.
My hand lifted automatically to the braid in my hair, the one Yuri had twisted the red thread into. A war braid, he’d called it. But it felt more like a brand now. A challenge. A warning.
I stared across the pool where Rafael now stood, speaking to someone like nothing happened. Like he hadn’t just lit every nerve in my body and then walked away as if it hadn’t meant a thing.
The bastard.
I wanted to throw something. I wanted to make him bleed. But more than anything… I wanted to win.
Not yet, I reminded myself as I picked up my drink and took a slow sip, the ice brushing my lips like a second reminder of his absence.
Not yet. But soon.