Alexander carried Emily through the ornate corridors as if she were spun glass. His jaw was set in a hard line, his whole body vibrating with barely controlled violence. The guards had let them go at last—but only after Madame Zhou secured a promise of "continued conversations" tomorrow. Emily's legs were still liquid. Her thoughts drifted in and out of focus, smoke sliding between her fingers.
Their guest wing was understated luxury: emerald silk wallpaper, antiques worth more than most houses, windows opening onto a perfect view of Victoria Harbour. Emily barely noticed. All she felt was the strength of Alexander's arms—protective, trembling with fury he tried to hide.
He placed her gently on a four-poster bed. The jade-colored silk sheets were cool against her fevered skin. His hands skimmed her face, checking pupils, pressing her wrist and throat for a pulse with the steady touch of a man who had seen poison before.
"How do you feel?" His voice was rough, stripped of its usual control.
Emily tried to sit. The world tilted lazily around her. "Like I'm floating. Everything's… soft at the edges." She blinked up at him, and the truth serum loosened her tongue. "You look scared."
Alexander's mask cracked. "I am scared. Terrified." He sat on the bed's edge, suit wrinkled from carrying her, hair mussed, polish gone. "She could have killed you with the wrong dose. She could have—" He stopped, palms covering his eyes.
"But she didn't," Emily whispered. Her hand floated up, touching his cheek like it belonged to someone else. "I'm okay. Dizzy, weird, but okay."
He caught her hand, holding it hard to his face. "You don't understand. This is what I tried to protect you from. This world, these people—they don't play fair. They use whatever leverage they find, and now…"
"Now I'm your weakness," Emily finished. The serum made honesty burn through her chest. "That's what she called me. Your pressure point."
Alexander's eyes darkened. "You're not my weakness. You're my—" He cut himself off, as though the words themselves were dangerous.
"What?" Emily asked. The drug stripped her of every inhibition. "What am I to you, Alexander? Tell me. I need to know if I'm going to die for this—whatever this is between us."
His control shattered. "You're everything," he breathed, raw as a man confessing under torture. "Everything I swore never to want. The reason I wake and the reason I can't sleep. You're everything."
Her heart slammed against her ribs. Every nerve in her body hummed. The drug made sensation unbearable, his gaze like fire, his voice too honest to survive.
"I love you," Emily heard herself say. The words flew out like birds from a cage. "I know I shouldn't. I know you're dangerous, possessive, bad for me. But I love you anyway. I love that you protect me even when you can't. I love how you look at me like I'm precious. I love that you carry me when I fall apart."
Alexander froze. "Emily—"
"I love that you're scared," she pushed on, unstoppable. "It makes you human. It makes you real instead of some untouchable billionaire who controls everything."
He kissed her then. Desperate, shaking. Like she was air and he was drowning. Emily melted into him. Every touch seared through her drugged senses, electric and overwhelming.
When they broke apart, breathless, he pressed his forehead to hers. "I love you too," he whispered. "God help me, I love you so much it's killing me. Every second you're in danger because of me, every time someone looks at you like she did tonight—I can't breathe."
Tears blurred Emily's vision. Not all of them came from the drug. "So what do we do? How do we get out?"
He was silent, thumb tracing her wrist. When he spoke, it was a murmur meant only for her.
"There's a service elevator at the east corridor's end. Third floor, hidden behind molding that looks decorative. At three a.m., the guards rotate. Two minutes where the hall is empty."
Her pulse quickened, cutting through the fog. "Alexander, what are you saying?"
"The elevator goes down to the kitchens. From there, a delivery door leads to a side street." His gray eyes burned. "I have a contact who owes me. He'll wait with a boat at Aberdeen fishing village. Twenty minutes by taxi, if we make it."
"That's insane," Emily breathed. "What about the debt? What about—"
"The debt isn't real." His voice dropped. "My father never owed them. This is about something else, something Zhou wants from me she can't take in daylight. We're prisoners under a lie."
Emily stared. "Then why not tell her at dinner?"
"Because she has guns and we don't." His smile was grim. "Sometimes not playing is the only winning move."
The drug made Emily reckless. "When do we go?"
"We don't go. I go. You stay here—"
"No." She gripped his shirt with weak hands, dragging him close. "We're in this together. You just told me you love me, Alexander Drake. You don't get to leave me behind."
He looked ready to argue, then stopped. Something in her face silenced him. "It's dangerous. If they catch us—"
"Then they catch us together." Her voice was stronger now, cutting through the haze. "I'm tired of being something that happens to you. I choose you. Even when it's terrifying."
Alexander held her gaze. She saw the instant his choice was made. "Three a.m.," he said quietly. "We go at three."
Outside, neon lights bled across the harbor, colors alive against the dark. In six hours, they would be free—or dead. Emily should have been terrified. Instead, with his love burning inside her and his desperate plan whispered between them, she had never felt more alive.
"I love you," she said again, unable to stop.
"I love you too," he answered, kissing her forehead like a vow. "Sleep. We'll need strength."
But as Emily drifted under uneasy dreams, one thought gnawed at her. Madame Zhou was too clever to let them slip away. The plan felt flawless. Which probably meant it was exactly the move their captor expected them to make.