"Forced kiss. Poison on his lips." My voice broke. "He assaulted me to deliver it."
Cold and lethal rage flashed in his eyes, the kind that preceded body counts. His grip tightened before he guided me toward his car.
My legs threatened to give way. He caught me effortlessly, securing me in the passenger seat before sliding behind the wheel.
"He knows about the Volkov connections," I forced out through numb lips. "The FBI. RICO."
"Later." He cut me off with a single word. "Focus on staying conscious."
His command silenced me. Even drugged, decades of obedience ran too deep to ignore a direct order. He navigated through narrow streets, his profile sharp against passing streetlights.
The drug was winning. Darkness encroached on the edges of my vision. His hand left the steering wheel, fingers finding my wrist. He pressed against my pulse, grip firm enough to leave marks.
"You're mine, Maxime," he said, voice cold with certainty. "Always have been. Shaw touched what belongs to me." A pause, heavy with promise. "He'll answer for that."
As consciousness slipped away, I glimpsed his expression. This was Algerone Caisse-Etremont stripped to his essence, the predator I had devoted my life to serving.
Shaw had no idea what he'd just unleashed.
Two bodies cooled ina Zurich alley, blood seeping between cobblestones. The cordite smell still clung to my clothes. I'd killed for less. Tonight, I'd killed for him.
The hotel suite was too quiet. My leg screamed as I carried Maxime through the door, the same leg he'd spent eighteen months coaxing back to function. How many times had he lifted me like this during recovery? How many times had his hands steadied my weight when I couldn't stand on my own?
Now I was the one carrying him. My body remembered every humiliation of that reversal.
His tablet hit the floor. The thing was practically grafted to his hand, had been for decades. Seeing it discarded told me exactly how far gone he was.
I got him to the bedroom and laid him on the mattress. My hands were shaking like an amateur who'd never seen violence up close. When the hell had I turned into a man who trembled at the thought of losing what he owned?
Shaw would pay for this.
Maxime's breathing was shallow, too fast. I pressed two fingers to his throat, checking his pulse above the fingerprints I'd left on his skin. His heart was racing, the rhythm all wrong. Whatever Shaw had used was strong enough to drop a man with Maxime's constitution and tolerance.
I needed to know what Shaw had done to him, where he'd touched. I needed to map every point of contact and erase it.
I started with the jacket, fingers searching for traces of Shaw's touch. Then the silk shirt he'd used to hide my marks. Each button revealed more territory that belonged to me. His skin burned hot as I checked for injuries, for contamination.
There were no needle marks, just my claims and whatever poison was running through his system.
I got rid of his belt and shoes, leaving him in tailored pants and nothing else. The sight of him half-naked and helpless in my bed made rage surge through my chest. His pale skin stood out against the dark sheets. The smooth plane of his chest carried nothing but my bruises, a sparse trail of dark hair leading down from his navel. His wrists were delicate, and his neck bore every mark I'd put there.
Mine. Even with Shaw's poison in his blood.
But the bastard had kissed him, transferred poison through lips that should only ever taste mine.
I'd killed Shaw's men clean and quick. Shaw himself deserved to suffer. I wanted to peel his skin off in strips, hear him scream until his throat bled, show him exactly what happened to men who touched what belonged to me.
"Water." Maxime's voice cracked. "Please."
I grabbed a bottle from the minibar. When I got back, he'd curled onto his side, one hand pressed against his throat where my bruises throbbed darkest.
Even drugged, he reached for my marks.
"Sit up," I said.
He obeyed without hesitation. I slid onto the bed behind him, pulled him back against my chest so he sat between my legs, and held the bottle to his lips. He drank slowly. Water spilled, trickling down his chest.
I caught each drop before it could fall, my thumb brushing his collarbone. He shivered and leaned into me like he belonged there.
