The kiss hung between them like smoke for the rest of the day—unacknowledged but impossible to ignore. They moved around each other with careful precision, maintaining distance that felt more like strategy than safety.
He touched me. I let him touch me. I wanted him to touch me.
The thoughts circled endlessly while Elara tried to convince herself it had been a moment of temporary insanity brought on by forced proximity and adrenaline. But every time she caught Kael watching her with those dark eyes that saw too much, she felt heat crawl up her neck.
He knows. He knows exactly what that kiss did to me.
Viktor arrived in the late afternoon with news delivered in his characteristic monotone: "Mercier has withdrawn to his European operations. Threat level assessed as minimal. Security recommends return to primary residence."
Primary residence. The penthouse. Back to the golden cage.
"Lucien ran?" Elara asked before she could stop herself.
"Retreated strategically," Viktor corrected with the diplomatic precision of someone used to translating violence into acceptable language. "After losing twelve million in inventory and three key personnel, he's chosen to... regroup."
Regroup. Not surrender. Just temporary retreat.
Kael stood at the command center, reviewing something on multiple screens with focused intensity. "What's the status on his movements?"
"Private jet to Paris six hours ago. Intelligence suggests he's consolidating with his European partners." Viktor pulled up flight manifests and security footage. "He left two men in the city—watchers, not operators. They're being monitored."
Watchers. People whose job is to watch us. To wait for the next opportunity to strike.
"And the message was received?" Kael's voice carried that edge of controlled satisfaction.
"Loud and clear, sir. Every major player in the city knows what happens when someone targets your—" Viktor's eyes flicked to Elara, then back to Kael. "—assets."
Assets. That's what I am. A valuable asset that requires protection and occasional arson.
"Good." Kael finally turned from the screens, his dark eyes finding her across the room. "Pack your things. We're going home."
Home. Like the penthouse is home. Like anywhere with him could be home.
But as Viktor coordinated the return with his usual military efficiency, Elara realized with growing unease that the penthouse did feel more like home than anywhere else had in months. Not because it was comfortable—though it was obscenely comfortable—but because it was where she'd learned to exist in Kael's orbit.
Stockholm syndrome. This is textbook Stockholm syndrome and you're experiencing it in real time.
The drive back felt different than the chaotic escape two days earlier. Same armored vehicle, same Viktor behind the wheel, but now there were two additional security cars—one ahead, one behind—and the tension in Kael's shoulders suggested the threat being "neutralized" didn't mean eliminated.
He's still worried. Still calculating scenarios where someone tries to kill us.
They sat in the back seat maintaining the same careful distance from the safehouse, but the air between them felt charged with everything unspoken. Every time the car turned, momentum would press them closer together, and Elara found herself hyperaware of his proximity.
Don't think about the kiss. Don't think about how his hands felt in your hair or how his body pressed against yours or—
"You're thinking about it." His voice cut through her spiraling thoughts.
Of course he knows. He always knows.
"About what?" she asked, keeping her eyes fixed on the city passing beyond bulletproof windows.
"About the kiss. About what happened in that kitchen." His tone was conversational, like they were discussing the weather instead of the moment that had shattered her carefully maintained emotional distance. "You've been touching your lips every few minutes."
Her hand, which had indeed been hovering near her mouth, dropped immediately to her lap. "I was just—"
"Remembering." Not a question. "Same as me."
He's remembering too. The king of criminals is thinking about kissing his captive.
"It was a mistake," she said, but the words felt hollow even as she spoke them.
"Was it?" He shifted slightly, and suddenly his thigh was pressed against hers—deliberate contact that sent electricity racing through her nervous system. "Or was it the first honest thing that's happened between us?"
Honest. Right. Because forced proximity and Stockholm syndrome are so honest.
"It was complicated."
"Everything about us is complicated." His hand found hers in the dark space between them, fingers threading through hers with devastating casualness. "But that doesn't make it less real."
Real. He keeps using that word like it means something different than what I think it means.
"We barely know each other."
"I know you bite your lip when you're nervous," he said quietly. "I know you read romance novels and pretend you don't. I know you'd sacrifice anything for your mother, including your own freedom. I know you're stronger than you think and more beautiful than you'll admit."
Stop. Stop knowing me so completely.
"That's just observation. That's not—"
"Knowing someone?" He squeezed her hand gently. "Angel, I've spent weeks studying you like you're the most important subject I'll ever master. I know you better than most people know their spouses."
Most people's spouses don't hold them captive in penthouses.
"That's not the same as trust."
"No," he agreed. "Trust is earned. But attraction?" His thumb traced circles on her palm. "That's honest whether we want it to be or not."
The car pulled up to their building, and the moment broke like shattered glass. Security swarmed immediately—Viktor and his team creating a protective bubble as they moved from vehicle to lobby to elevator.
This is normal now. Being surrounded by armed men is just part of going home.
The penthouse looked exactly as they'd left it, but somehow it felt different. Smaller, maybe, now that she understood what lay beneath the luxury. The art on the walls wasn't just expensive—it was bought with money from criminal enterprises. The view wasn't just stunning—it was the view of a king surveying his territory.
Everything is tainted. Or maybe I'm just finally seeing it clearly.
"Your things were brought up while we were gone," Kael said, shrugging out of his jacket with the controlled efficiency that characterized everything he did. "I've also made some changes to security protocols."
More cameras. More locks. More ways to ensure I can't leave.
"What kind of changes?"
He moved to his desk—the same one where she'd signed the contract that had bound her to him—and withdrew a sleek black phone from a drawer. "This is yours. Latest model, encrypted, untraceable."
A phone. He's giving me a phone.
She took it carefully, like it might explode. The screen lit up to show a simple interface—contacts, messages, emergency functions. But when she opened the contacts app, there was only one entry.
Kael.
"My number is the only one on speed dial," he explained, his voice carrying that clinical detachment. "You can add other contacts if you want—your mother, Sarah, whoever you need to reach. But if you're scared, if something feels wrong, if you so much as think there's a threat—you call me first."
Call me first. Not 911. Not the police who are probably on his payroll anyway. Him.
"I thought the threat was neutralized."
"Lucien's immediate threat is neutralized," he corrected, moving around the desk to stand before her. "But I have enemies, Elara. More than I can count. And now that you're publicly associated with me, you're a target."
The reality of that settled over her like a shroud. This wasn't temporary. This wasn't just about a six-month contract or playing a role at social events. Every person who wanted to hurt Kael now had another weapon to use against him.
Me. I'm the weapon. The vulnerability he's trying to protect.
"So I'm bait," she said flatly.
"You're a target," he corrected, his hands coming up to frame her face with that mixture of possession and tenderness. "Which means you need to be protected. Which means you carry this phone, you check in regularly, and you never—ever—ignore your instincts if something feels wrong."
Instincts. Right. The same instincts that told me to run from him and somehow led to me kissing him instead.
"And if I feel like the biggest threat is standing in front of me?"
His smile was sharp as winter wind. "Then you're showing excellent judgment. I am the biggest threat to your peace of mind, your sense of self, your carefully constructed walls."
At least he's honest about it.
"But I'm also," he continued, his thumbs tracing her cheekbones, "the only thing standing between you and people who would hurt you just to make a point. So yes, angel—I'm dangerous. But I'm your dangerous."
Your dangerous. Like danger can be possessed and controlled.
"What if I don't want to be protected?"
"Too bad." The words should have been harsh, but his tone was almost gentle. "You don't get to choose whether I keep you safe. That ship sailed the moment you signed that contract."
The moment I signed. Not the moment I kissed him back. The moment I signed.
He released her face and stepped back, creating space that felt more like abandonment than freedom. "There's food in the kitchen, fresh clothes in your room, and security has been doubled. You're safe here."
Safe. In a fortress built by a crime lord. That's his definition of safe.
"What about you?" The question slipped out before she could stop it.
"What about me?"
"Where will you be?"
Something flickered in his dark eyes—surprise, maybe, that she was asking. "I have business to attend to. Lucien's retreat created opportunities that need to be capitalized on before someone else moves into the vacuum."
Opportunities. He means claiming whatever territory Lucien abandoned. Expanding his empire.
"How long?"
"Could be hours. Could be all night." He moved toward his office, then paused at the doorway. "Use the phone if you need anything. Even if it's just..." He seemed to struggle with the words. "Even if you're just scared."
Scared. He thinks I'm scared of being alone in the penthouse.
But as the door closed behind him and the vast space of the penthouse settled into silence around her, Elara realized with growing clarity what actually frightened her.
She wasn't scared of being alone.
She was scared of how much she'd missed him during the few hours they'd maintained distance after the kiss.
Stockholm syndrome. Trauma bonding. Psychological conditioning.
She could name every clinical term for what was happening to her, could identify the mechanisms of her own captivity. But understanding the cage didn't make it any less real.
He gave me a phone. With only his number. In case I'm scared.
She looked at the device in her hand, at the single contact entry that represented her entire support system in this new life. The king of criminals, the man who burned buildings and ordered deaths with clinical efficiency.
The same man who'd checked her for injuries with tenderness, who held old photographs and whispered apologies to ghosts, who'd kissed her like she was oxygen and he was drowning.
This is my life now. Luxury and danger and a phone with one number to call when the world gets too terrifying.
And the most terrifying part was realizing that she would call him. That if something scared her, her first instinct would be reaching for the phone and hearing his voice promising that nothing would harm her while he was alive to prevent it.
He's conditioning me. Systematically making himself my entire world.
But as she sat in the quiet penthouse, surrounded by luxury built on violence, holding a phone that connected her only to him, she had to acknowledge the terrible truth.
It was working.
Hours passed in strange suspension. Elara tried to read, to watch television, to do anything that would occupy her mind. But every sound made her look up, every shadow made her reach for the phone that had become a talisman against loneliness.
This is pathetic. You're pathetic. He's been gone for a few hours and you're already obsessing.
But the penthouse felt too big without him, too empty, like a stage set waiting for the principal actor to return and bring it to life.
Around midnight, her phone buzzed with a text message.
Kael: Still awake?
Her fingers hovered over the screen, debating whether responding would be giving him more power or just acknowledging reality.
Elara: Can't sleep.
Kael: The bedroom on the east side has blackout curtains. Might help.
He's tracking my location through the phone. Of course he is.
Elara: I know about the GPS in this phone.
Kael: Of course you do. You're intelligent. Did you really think I'd give you a phone I couldn't track?
At least he's honest about the surveillance.
Elara: When will you be back?
The three dots appeared, then disappeared, then appeared again—suggesting he was choosing his words carefully.
Kael: Do you want me to come back?
No. Yes. I don't know anymore.
Elara: I want to know when to expect you.
Kael: That's not what I asked.
Bastard. Making me admit that I want him here.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard for a long moment before she typed the truth.
Elara: The penthouse is too quiet.
Kael: I'll be home in twenty minutes.
Home. He's coming home. To me.
She stared at the message, at the casual ease with which he'd promised to return because she'd admitted to discomfort. The king of criminals rearranging his schedule because his captive didn't like being alone.
This is how it works. He makes himself indispensable. Makes his presence feel like safety instead of captivity.
But as she sat waiting for him to return, phone clutched in her hand like a lifeline, she couldn't deny the flutter of anticipation in her chest.
Twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes until he came home.
And the fact that she was counting them was perhaps the clearest sign that she was already lost.