Day one in the safehouse crawled by with the speed of geological time.
Elara woke to find Kael already awake—or perhaps he'd never slept at all. He sat at the command center reviewing security feeds, freshly showered and back in his businessman armor of expensive clothes and controlled composure. The study door was closed, and when she glanced at it, his voice cut through the silence.
"It's locked."
Of course it is. Can't have me seeing him human again.
"I wasn't—"
"Yes, you were." He didn't look up from his screens. "Coffee's fresh. Food in the fridge. Viktor will be back this evening with a status report."
Status report on the warehouse. On whether people died for me last night.
The unspoken hung between them like smoke—the photograph, his vulnerability, her witnessing something he'd never intended to share. They moved around each other like strangers, maintaining careful distance, speaking only when necessary.
This is worse than the anger. This is like living with a ghost.
By afternoon, the silence had become oppressive. Elara tried reading from the surprisingly well-stocked bookshelf, but her mind wouldn't focus. Tried watching the monitors, but seeing the city continue without her just emphasized how thoroughly she'd disappeared into his world.
Mom must be worried. Sarah probably thinks I'm dead. The whole world moving on while I'm locked in a box.
"Your mother has been informed you're safe," Kael said without prompting, still not looking at her. "Sarah believes you're on an impromptu romantic getaway. Work has been told you're dealing with a family emergency."
He anticipated my thoughts. Of course he did.
"Can I call them?"
"No." Finally, he turned to face her. "Communications blackout until the situation is resolved. For their protection as much as yours."
Their protection. Because knowing me makes them targets.
"How long?"
"As long as it takes." He returned to his screens, dismissing her with practiced efficiency.
Evening brought Viktor with news she tried not to hear but couldn't avoid. The warehouse had burned as planned. Minimal casualties—three men hospitalized with smoke inhalation, one with burns. No deaths, but Lucien's operation was effectively crippled.
Three men in the hospital because I danced with someone. Because Kael couldn't stand someone else touching his property.
Kael's expression remained neutral as he received the report, but she caught the slight satisfaction in his eyes when Viktor mentioned the estimated financial damage: twelve million dollars, possibly more.
Twelve million. That's what my safety is worth to him.
That night, she lay awake listening to him move through the safehouse—checking locks, reviewing feeds, existing in a state of hypervigilance that apparently never turned off. Around three AM, she heard him in the kitchen, the soft clink of ice against glass.
Drinking again. Remembering again. Maybe looking at that photograph when he thinks no one can see.
But she stayed in her room, giving him the privacy he'd demanded even as every instinct told her to go to him.
Day two started with an argument.
Elara emerged from the bedroom to find Kael making breakfast—eggs, toast, coffee precise enough to be architectural. He'd rolled up his sleeves, revealing forearms that were distractingly well-defined, and his hair was slightly mussed in a way that made him look younger, more approachable.
Don't. Don't notice how he looks. Don't humanize the monster.
"You didn't have to cook," she said, heading for the coffee.
"I didn't do it for you. I did it because I was hungry and you were still asleep." He slid a plate across the counter without looking at her. "Eat. You barely touched dinner last night."
He noticed. Of course he noticed. He notices everything.
"I'm not hungry."
"I don't care. Eat anyway." His tone suggested this wasn't negotiable.
Something in her snapped—the accumulated weight of captivity, violence, his constant control over every aspect of her existence. "Stop telling me what to do."
His hand stilled on his coffee cup. "Excuse me?"
"I said stop telling me what to do. I'm not one of your soldiers or your employees or your—your property." The words came out sharper than intended, fueled by two days of suffocating proximity and the image of him drunk and broken that she couldn't erase from her mind.
Why does knowing he's capable of pain make this worse instead of better?
"You're right," he said carefully. "You're not my soldier or my employee. You're my fiancée, which means your wellbeing is my responsibility."
"I didn't ask for your responsibility."
"No, you asked for two million dollars and your mother's medical care." His voice had gone cold. "The responsibility came with the package."
Bastard. Beautiful, terrible bastard who's absolutely right.
"That was different. That was a contract, a performance—"
"That was you selling yourself to the highest bidder and pretending it was noble sacrifice." He set down his cup with controlled precision. "Don't rewrite history to make yourself the victim, Elara. You made a choice."
A choice. Right. Between watching my mother die or binding myself to a crime lord. Such an easy choice.
"You manipulated me into that choice."
"I offered you an option you were free to refuse." He moved around the counter with that predatory grace. "The fact that refusing would have had consequences you couldn't accept doesn't make it manipulation. It makes it reality."
Reality. His reality where everything comes with conditions and consequences.
"Your reality is insane," she said, backing up as he approached. "Violence and control and treating people like possessions—"
"My reality," he interrupted, still advancing, "is the only reason you're alive right now. The only reason your mother is receiving treatments that will save her life. The only reason you're not still serving coffee to men who thought you were too pretty to be taken seriously."
Stop. Stop making sense. Stop being right.
Her back hit the refrigerator, and suddenly he was there—close enough that she could smell his cologne mixed with coffee, close enough to see the gold flecks in his dark eyes, close enough that the air between them felt charged with electricity.
"You want to pretend this is all my fault?" His voice dropped to that velvet whisper. "That you're some innocent victim in a situation you had no hand in creating? Go ahead. Tell yourself whatever story helps you sleep at night."
Whatever story. Like the truth isn't complicated enough.
"I'm not pretending anything," she said, lifting her chin in defiance even as her heart hammered against her ribs. "I know exactly what I agreed to. I just didn't realize it came with assassination attempts and arson and being locked away like Rapunzel."
"Rapunzel." His laugh was sharp, dangerous. "Is that how you see yourself? A princess locked in a tower by a monster?"
Yes. No. I don't know anymore.
"What else would you call it?"
His hands came up to frame her face, pinning her against the refrigerator with his body without quite touching her. The heat radiating from him was overwhelming, making rational thought increasingly difficult.
"I'd call it protection," he said softly. "I'd call it the natural consequence of being valuable to someone who has enemies. I'd call it exactly what you signed up for whether you understood it or not."
Being valuable to someone. Not being valuable. To someone specific. Him.
"I'm not valuable," she whispered. "I'm just convenient. A solution to your image problem."
Something flickered in his dark eyes—anger, maybe, or something that looked almost like hurt.
"Convenient." He repeated the word like he was testing its weight. "Is that what you think you are to me?"
Yes. No. I don't know what I am to him beyond property and performance.
"What else would I be?"
His thumb traced her lower lip with devastating gentleness, the touch so light it might have been accidental if anything he did was ever accidental. "If you were merely convenient, I would have let Lucien's bullets find their target and found another woman to play the role."
Let the bullets find their target. He means me. He means he would have let me die.
"But you needed the contract fulfilled—"
"I needed you alive." His voice had gone rough with something she couldn't identify. "Not a replacement. Not someone else who could play the part. You."
The admission hung between them like a live wire, dangerous and impossible to ignore.
You. Not the role. Not the performance. Me specifically.
"Why?" The question came out barely audible.
"Because you're infuriating and stubborn and you slap me when I take liberties." His hand moved to her throat, fingers splaying across her pulse point. "Because you dance with my rivals and look at me like you're trying to solve a puzzle that doesn't have an answer. Because you witnessed me at my worst and didn't run screaming."
Because I couldn't run. Because I'm trapped.
But even as she thought it, she knew it wasn't entirely true. The door had been locked from the outside, yes—but some part of her had stopped trying to find escape routes. Had started looking at him and seeing not just the monster, but the man holding photographs with trembling hands.
This is Stockholm syndrome. This is trauma bonding. This is every psychological condition that makes captives fall for their captors.
"I should run screaming," she said, but her voice came out weaker than intended.
"Yes," he agreed. "You should. You should hate me, fear me, fantasize about my death."
His other hand came up to grip her hip, and suddenly the space between them disappeared completely. His body pressed against hers, solid and warm and overwhelming in ways that made her knees go weak.
"But you don't," he continued, his voice dropping to that whisper that bypassed her conscious mind. "You're angry, yes. Frightened, absolutely. But underneath all that..."
No. Don't say it. Don't make this more complicated.
His forehead came to rest against hers, and she could feel his breath against her lips when he spoke.
"You feel it too."
Feel what? The suffocating attraction that grows stronger every time he touches me? The terrible understanding that some part of me wants this?
"I don't—"
"Don't lie." His hand tightened on her hip. "Your pulse is racing. Your breathing is shallow. Your body is responding to mine in ways you can't control."
Because you've conditioned me to respond. Because weeks of your attention and control have rewired my nervous system.
"That's not attraction. That's fear."
"Is it?" His thumb found her pulse point, pressing just hard enough to feel the frantic beating. "Because I've seen you afraid, angel. This isn't what it looks like."
This isn't fear. This is worse. This is want and need and the terrible realization that I'm starting to crave his attention as much as I fear it.
"You're my captor," she said desperately, grasping at the only truth that might save her from whatever was building between them. "This is Stockholm syndrome. This is trauma. This isn't real."
"Isn't it?" His lips brushed against her ear, the touch so light it might have been imagined. "Then why are you leaning into my touch instead of pushing me away? Why are your hands gripping my shirt like you're trying to pull me closer?"
She looked down and realized with horror that he was right—her hands had fisted in the expensive fabric of his shirt without her conscious permission, holding him close instead of creating distance.
Traitor. My body is a traitor.
"This is wrong," she whispered.
"Probably." His agreement should have been reassuring, but the rough edge in his voice suggested he was fighting the same battle. "But wrong has never felt like this."