My jaw tightens. “Noelle, come here.”
Her eyes flick toward me, narrowing in irritation. She glares—defiant, unyielding—before nodding politely at Lev and making her way across the room. Every step drips with challenge, but eventually, inevitably, she reaches me.
“Did you sleep well?” I ask, my voice low.
She nods, but her eyes are restless. “What about the letter?” Her brows knit with worry. “Who wants me dead? Is it Anton?”
“Whoa.” Lev’s head snaps toward her, confusion shadowing his grin. “What letter? What’s she talking about, Niko?”
My jaw flexes. I don’t want to, but I don’t have a choice. With clipped words, I tell him about the letter—the crude threat, the warning that landed in our room like a snake in our bed.
Lev listens, silent, his expression sharpening with every detail. By the end, his jaw is taut, eyes hard with thought. He’s angry. I can see it. But he’s also calculating, already chasing threads in that mind of his.
What hurts me more than his reaction, though, is hers. Noelle.
Her face is pale, her eyes wide and glassy with fear. She looks…fragile in a way that makes my chest ache. And it guts me, because I hate seeing her like this. Because if I could, I would set the world on fire—reduce it to ash—just to keep her safe.
I tilt her chin up, trying to make her meet my eyes. “Noelle…I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll keep you safe. That’s a promise.”
Her lips press together, trembling at the edges, but she doesn’t look convinced. If anything, her fear deepens, like shealready knows I can’t control every bullet, every betrayal, every ghost crawling out of our past.
Demyan rushes into the room, pausing the moment his gaze lands on Noelle. I instinctively step in front of her, taking her hand. “Demyan, what is it?”
“I need to speak to you in private, Boss,” he says, his voice low but urgent.
I contemplate leaving with him, but Noelle wraps a hand around my wrist, holding me in place. The gesture makes me pause.
“You can speak,” I murmur.
Demyan hesitates for a beat, lips pressed tight, before nodding. “Anton Vostrikov…he’s managed to escape custody.”
Chapter 9 – Noelle
A few days pass, and everything feels deceptively quiet. No notes, no messages, no attacks—but my gut doesn’t let me breathe easy. Anton’s escape hangs over me like a storm cloud, heavy and inevitable. I don’t know why, but the thought of him being free after everything—the scandal, my name being dragged into it—feels…wrong. Dangerous.
I can’t stop imagining him coming for me. My mind keeps running through every possibility, every shadowed corner of Chicago. Every time I close my eyes, I see him lurking, waiting. My instincts scream at me to run. To move. To vanish somewhere that no one knows me—where even the Bratva’s reach feels distant.
But that’s not possible, not yet. Everyone already knows I’m with Niko. The thought makes my chest tighten. I can’t just disappear; I’d be leaving behind the one person who can protect me, and that terrifies me even more.
So I pace, turning over every plan, every possible escape route. My heart races at the thought of leaving Chicago, of starting over in some anonymous city where my name isn’t whispered, and my past isn’t waiting for me like a predator.
I’ve survived before, but the idea of running with Anton on the loose makes me feel like I’m trapped in a nightmare with no exit.
And yet…I can feel Niko. Not just near me, but on me, in a way that’s suffocating and protective all at once. Every time I move, he’s there—like a wall, a weapon, a shadow that mirrors my own steps. His presence is inescapable, constant, and it makes my chest tighten in ways I don’t fully understand.
I try to remind myself that he’s here to protect me, that I agreed to this life. But even knowing that, the intensity of hiswatchful eyes presses down on me. I can’t move without him noticing. I can’t breathe without him registering it. It’s both reassuring and terrifying.
And in that constant, unyielding gaze, I realize something else: I’m not just surviving anymore. I’m being owned—claimed. And the thought both scares me and ignites something deep inside that I’m not ready to name.
I’m curled up in the library, the soft leather chair swallowing me as I flip the pages of a book, trying to lose myself in another world. But it’s impossible to fully escape. Every sound in the house carries weight. Every creak of the floorboards makes me jump, my pulse picking up like a warning.
The door opens. I glance up, freezing when Niko walks in. It’s almost midday, and it’s my first time seeing him, yet he doesn’t even acknowledge me.
He steps inside, tall and silent, and begins to browse the shelves, his presence filling the room without a word. It’s disorienting—strange and frustrating all at once.
I shift in my seat, hugging the book to my chest. After our first night together, we haven’t been intimate again. He doesn’t even sleep in the same bed as me. Part of me aches at the absence, the physical distance, and yet…I remind myself that this marriage isn’t conventional. Not by a long shot. Not that I want it to be.
Still, it’s unsettling to feel him here, in the same room, so close yet completely untouchable. Every movement he makes seems deliberate, controlled, almost predatory, like he’s aware of every small thing I do. My skin tingles under his gaze, even when he isn’t looking directly at me.
