Dariy
I should have killed her.
She should be dead.
The thought echoes through me as I guide her into the private elevator, her pulse fluttering beneath my fingers like a frightened animal desperate to break free. It would be simpler to end this now, to put a bullet between those wide violet eyes and erase the problem she has become. Clean. Efficient. Exactly what I’ve built my entire life around.
But I didn’t kill her, and I’m not entirely sure why.
I watched her terror twist into something else…defiance, maybe. Acceptance? Fear didn’t make her collapse or beg or fall apart. It lit a spark behind those impossible eyes. Then she snatched the scotch from her tray, toasted whatever comes next, and swallowed it down in three big gulps.
People break in predictable ways when they face death. They plead, bargain, soil themselves, make promises they can’t keep. But she didn’t. She looked at me like she already understood the price and had accepted it long before she walked into that room. I know that look. It’s the look of someone who’s been carrying their own grief for so long that dying almost feels like rest. You don’t kill someone like that. You protect them. Or you claim them. Or, God help me, you do both.
Now she stands here with her back pressed tightly to the mirrored wall, trying to make herself smaller even though she has the kind of curves a man could break his hands worshipping. Her lashes tremble. Her breathing is shallow. She believes she’s heading toward execution.
“You’re shaking,” I murmur.
“I’m…cold.”
She’s lying. She’s afraid. I should prefer that, fear is useful. Fear makes people compliant, predictable. But on her, it irritates me. It doesn’t belong.
She’s too soft for this world. Too bright. Too breakable.
And I have always been a man who fixes what is broken…or buries it.
“That will be the last lie you ever tell me, Callie.” I keep my voice level but my tone is firm.
The elevator doors slide open to the penthouse, the lights from the Strip glittering like a thousand opportunities for people to have fun or ruin their lives. I step aside, expecting her to move. She doesn’t. She seems rooted, as though crossing that threshold will seal her fate.
I place a hand at the small of her back. She jumps from the contact and looks up at me, startled. That rabbit in headlights look that undoes me. I clench my back teeth together to keep from saying or doing something stupid. Because God knows my sanity is fraying with every second I spend near her.
Inside, the vast sweep of windows reveals everything the city pretends to be. Money. Power. Control. I own this view. My brothers and I own every quiet deal made in the rooms below. I clean the stains they leave behind. I’m a Fixer. That’s my job. I’m good at my job. It could even be argued that I’m the best Fixer in the Bratva.
But the woman in front of me? She is something bigger than what I am, and I don’t understand it.
I should call my brothers. I should tell them what happened, and I should clean up this mess, too. But instead, I ask, “Who is caring for your grandmother tonight?”
Her head snaps up. Surprise. Suspicion. She narrows her eyes, trying to find something in my question that isn’t there.
“No one,” she whispers. “No one who actually cares.”
That flicker of pain in her voice digs under my ribs and lodges there like shrapnel.
“Give me her full name again.” My phone is already in my hand even though I don’t remember taking it out of my pocket.
“Juliet Marie Hind,” she says, closer to a breath than a sound. “I got her a room at York Bridgeway Care Facility. I only came in tonight for the overtime.” She lets out a gasp of laughter that sounds all too close to hysteria.
I send a message. One I never send. One that signals involvement. Responsibility.
My responsibility.
She watches me, confusion playing over her features. She doesn’t understand that she has already sealed her fate more brutally than a bullet ever could.
She belongs to me now.
Her knees buckle slightly, the crash of adrenaline fading. I catch her elbow, steadying her. She stiffens at the contact but doesn’t pull away. I guide her to the plush sofa, and she folds into it, curling in on herself like a little pill bug. The dress she is wearing slides further up her thighs, and the glittery gold panties flash in the low light of the room.
Temptation floods me, foreign and uninvited, as my blood heats and surges to my groin. I’m not the type of man who getstempted by anything. Not gambling, drink or drugs. Not even beautiful women. But here she sits in this ridiculous glittery uniform made to encourage higher spends and bigger tips, and I can’t bear to think of any other man putting their eyes on her. Much less their hands.
