Aria awoke to screams.
They were sharp, electronic, and wrong not human, but the shrieking of alarms. The sound tore through the silent penthouse, a brutal invasion of the false peace. She bolted upright in the massive bed, her heart instantly hammering against her ribs.
The room was dark, but a pulsing, red glow now stained the walls, throbbing in time with the alarms. She scrambled out of bed, her bare feet hitting the cold marble floor. The screams were coming from the main hall.
She ran out, her thin silk nightgown fluttering around her legs. The source of the sound was a bank of security monitors mounted on the wall, usually dark. Now, they flickered to life, a chaotic collage of nightmare images.
Shadowy figures, dressed in black and moving with a terrible, practiced efficiency, were flowing over the estate's high outer walls like a dark tide. On another screen, a guard she recognized the young, silent Leo was falling, a dark stain spreading across his chest. On another, the iron gates she had arrived through were being wrenched apart with silent, hydraulic tools.
Panic, pure and cold, seized her throat. This was it. The abstract danger. The ghost story. Kreshnik. It was real, and it was here.
Before she could process it, before she could even think to run, he was there.
Dominic emerged from the hallway leading to his quarters, a stark figure in black trousers and an untucked white shirt, the sleeves rolled up. He wasn't rushing. His movement was a predator's glide, fast and utterly focused. His eyes, reflecting the hellish red light, found her instantly.
He didn't speak. He crossed the room in seconds, his hand closing around her upper arm. His grip wasn't cruel, but it was unbreakable, a steel band of purpose.
Come. Now.
His voice was a low growl, stripped of all its earlier teasing ambiguity, edged with a lethal, surgical focus. It was the voice of command, and in her terror, she obeyed without thought.
He pulled her from the main room, not toward the bedroom or the library, but down the hall toward the locked study. The one with the brass keyhole. As they ran, the alarms were joined by a new sound the distant, muted pop-pop-pop of gunfire. It was inside the grounds.
Stay close, he ordered, his body a shield between her and the direction of the noise.
At the study door, he didn't fumble at all for a key. He placed his palm flat against a smooth wooden panel beside the frame she'd never noticed. A soft blue light scanned his skin, and with a definitive hiss, the heavy door slid open sideways, revealing not a room of personal secrets, but a heart of controlled chaos.
Aria's breath caught. It was a tactical operations center. One wall was a live mosaic of security feeds, larger and clearer than the ones outside. Another wall held an array of weapons gleaming handguns, compact rifles, knives. A third was lined with communications equipment, lights blinking in the dim light.
Dominic's demeanor completed its transformation. The enigmatic captor was gone. In his place was a soldier, a general. His face was a mask of cold concentration as he swiftly crossed to the weapon wall.
He selected a sleek, black handgun, checked the magazine with a practiced flick of his wrist, and slid it into a holster at the small of his back. He grabbed a knife in a sheath and strapped it to his ankle. Every movement was efficient, devoid of wasted energy.
They found you, he stated, his voice flat. He turned to her, his stormy eyes meeting hers. In them, she saw no fear, only a terrifying calculus. Sooner than I expected. He's mobilized everything.
He strode to a drawer, pulled out a small, flat device like a sleek black credit card and pressed it into her palm. His fingers were warm, calloused, and they closed hers around it. Listen to me. This is a tracker. If we are separated if you press this center button. It will send a pulse only I can follow. Do you understand?
She nodded, her fingers curling around the cold device, her eyes wide on his face. In the midst of the terror, a strange, sharp clarity descended. This was the real him. The protector. The monster in his element.
Where is the panic room? she asked, her voice trembling.
There isn't one. Panic rooms are tombs. He moved to the monitor wall, his eyes darting across the screens. The shadows were closer now, at the main villa. We move. We adapt.
He turned back to her, and for a split second, his gaze swept over her the thin silk nightgown, her bare feet, her hair wild around her pale face. Something raw flickered in his eyes, a crack in the professional armor. Not desire, but a fierce, blazing protectiveness that was somehow more intimate.
You need shoes. Clothes. He yanked open another cabinet, pulled out a bundle of black fabric, and tossed it to her. Tactical pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Change. Now. You have thirty seconds.
He turned his back, giving her a semblance of privacy, his attention fixed on the screens where the battle was playing out in silent, green-tinted footage.
Hands shaking, Aria dropped the nightgown, letting it pool at her feet. The cool air hit her skin, but she barely felt it. She scrambled into the pants, which were soft but sturdy, and pulled the shirt over her head. It smelled of him sandalwood and gun oil. She was swimming in the fabric, but it covered her. She found a pair of sturdy socks and boots at the bottom of the cabinet and pulled them on.
Done, she whispered.
He turned. His eyes did another quick, assessing sweep. He gave a tight nod. Then he stepped close, so close she could see the pulse beating in his throat. He reached behind her, and for a heart-stopping moment she thought he would pull her against him. Instead, he gathered the mass of her hair in one hand, his fingers tangling in the dark strands at the nape of her neck. The touch was shockingly intimate.
It's a handle, he said, his voice a rough scrape near her ear. In close quarters. Don't leave anything for an enemy to grab.
Before she could react, he released her hair and pulled a black knit cap from a shelf, tugging it down over her head, tucking every strand away. His fingers brushed her neck, her jaw. Each point of contact was a brand.
A massive, concussive boom shattered the moment.
The foundation of the penthouse rocked. The lights in the ops center died, plunging them into darkness save for the eerie green glow of the battery-backed monitors. Another explosion followed, closer. Dust sifted from the ceiling.
In the sudden dark, his hands found her shoulders. That was the main floor. They're breaching the building. We're out of time.
On the central monitor, a feed showed black figures in the main villa's grand foyer, directly below them.
The service elevator, he said, more to himself than to her. It's shielded. Our only way down and out.
He grabbed her hand, his grip firm and sure, and pulled her toward the door. The ops center was now their only sanctuary, and they were leaving it. As they crossed the threshold back into the dark hallway, the world outside the study was a nightmare of flashing emergency lights and blaring alarms.
He moved swiftly, pulling her along, a solid, unyielding presence in the chaos. They rounded a corner toward a nondescript door she'd always assumed was a closet. He keyed a code into a pad, and it opened onto a small, industrial elevator.
He pushed her inside and followed, jamming his thumb against a button marked Sub - basement, The doors closed, muting the alarms to a dull throb. In the sudden, cramped silence of the descending elevator, the reality crashed down on her.
She was breathing in ragged gasps. She was trembling uncontrollably. The warmth of his body beside her was the only solid point in a universe that was collapsing.
Look at me.
She turned her head.His face was inches away, all sharp angles and shadow in the dim elevator light.
Breathe, he commanded, his voice low and intense. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Do it. With me.
He demonstrated, a slow, deliberate breath. She mimicked him, her eyes locked on his, following the rhythm he set. In. Out. The world narrowed to this metal box, his steady gaze, the shared air between them.
You are not going to die tonight, he stated, each word a promise etched in stone. Do you believe me?
She wanted to. God, she wanted to. She gave a shaky nod.
Say it.
I'm not going to die,she whispered.
Good. His eyes burned into hers. The elevator slowed. Stay behind me. Do exactly as I say. No questions.
The doors opened onto a concrete corridor, lit by sparse emergency lights. It smelled of damp and diesel. He drew the gun from his back, holding it in a ready position, and stepped out, pulling her behind him.
They moved quickly down the corridor toward a glowing red Exit sign. The sound of distant gunfire was clearer here, echoing down the passageways. He paused at a junction, pressing her back against the cold wall, his body shielding hers as he peered around the corner.
In that moment of forced stillness, pressed between the concrete and the solid heat of him, something shifted. Her fear was still there, a live wire in her gut. But layered over it was a hyper-awareness of him the coiled strength in the arm braced beside her head, the steady rise and fall of his back against her chest, the scent of him cutting through the garage smells.
He was her jailer. He was her only chance.
She hated him.
And in the raw,stripping light of mortal danger, a treacherous part of her wanted to cling to him and never let go.
He looked back at her, his eyes scanning her face in the gloom. He must have seen the conflict, the terror, the awful dependence. His gaze dropped to her lips, parted and trembling.
For a heartbeat that stretched into an eternity, the world outside the junction ceased to exist. There was only the charged space between their mouths, the shared breath, the unspoken everything that had built between them in the gilded cage.
It wasn't love. It was something more primitive. A claiming. A defiance against the death that hunted them.
He leaned in. She didn't pull away.
His lips met hers.
It was not a gentle kiss. It was a collision. A searing transfer of all the tension, the fear, the fury, and the desperate, blazing need. It was hard and possessive, his mouth moving over hers with a hungry certainty that shattered the last of her resistance. Her hands, of their own volition, fisted in the fabric of his shirt, holding on as the world exploded not from outside, but from within her.
He kissed her like he was memorizing her, like he was branding her, like this might be the first and last time and he would be damned if he didn't take everything. She kissed him back with all the confused, wild passion she had been fighting for weeks, pouring her terror and her trust into the connection.
A sudden, close burst of automatic gunfire shattered the moment.
He broke the kiss as suddenly as he'd begun, pulling back, his breath ragged, his eyes darker than the corridor around them. A look of fierce, grim satisfaction flashed across his face, followed instantly by the return of lethal focus.
That's for luck, he growled, his voice rough with unstated desire. Now, we run.
He grabbed her hand again, and they sprinted toward the exit door, the taste of him of danger and salvation still burning on her lips. The door led to an underground parking garage. A single, black SUV sat running, its driver's door open, a man she didn't recognize at the wheel.
As they sprinted for the open rear door, a figure emerged from behind a concrete pillar ahead of thembone of the black-clad invaders, raising a weapon.
Down! Dominic roared, shoving her hard to the concrete floor behind a car.
He didn't hit the ground. He spun, his gun already up. Two sharp, deafening cracks echoed in the garage. The figure fell.
Dominic was at her side in an instant, hauling her up and half-throwing her into the back of the SUV before diving in after her. Go now! he yelled at the driver.
The tires screeched as the SUV shot forward, up a ramp and out into the violent, chaotic night.
Aria collapsed against the seat, gasping, her lips still tingling, her body trembling from adrenaline and the ghost of his kiss. She looked at Dominic as he checked his weapon, his profile hard against the flashing lights passing outside the window.
The gilded cage was gone, shattered by explosions.
The rules had changed.
And the most dangerous thing of all was no longer outside.
I
t was in the backseat with her, smelling of gun smoke and sin, and tasting, still, of a promise that felt like both a salvation and a doom.