He stopped a few feet away.
“Go ahead,” he told the men, voice calm, almost bored. “Dig the grave. Make it deep.”
The order rippled outward.
Men moved at once, splitting off into the maze of rusted containers and abandoned machinery. No questions. No wasted motion. The faint scrape of tools echoed in the distance—metal biting into earth.
I shuddered.
What grave?
The words didn’t make sense—my mind refusing to accept them even as the men were already moving, shovels biting into the earth with dull, final thuds. Each strike sent a jolt of terror through my spine.
A grave.
For whoever he was about to bury.
My chest tightened, breath turning shallow and erratic. Fear crawled up my throat, cold and choking.
Not me.
Please—God—not me.
He stepped closer.
Now he was inches from me, his presence suffocating, heat and shadow and power wrapped in human form.
“Do not ever run from me again,” he said quietly, every word deliberate. “It will only make your punishment worse.”
I tried.
God, I tried.
I opened my mouth, forcing air past burning lungs, willing my body to cooperate just this once. The truth clawed at my ribs, desperate to escape.
But the familiar vise slammed shut.
My throat locked. Muscles seized. Pain flared, sharp and merciless. Words died before they reached my lips. Only a faint, wet rasp slipped free—pathetic, useless.
Ruslan stared at me.
For one unguarded second, something broke through the armor.
Pain—raw, old, unmistakable—flashed in his eyes. The kind that never heals. The kind that festers.
Then the mask slammed back into place.
His gaze dropped slowly.
From my face...to the exposed column of my throat, pulse racing wildly beneath bruised skin...to the rapid rise and fall of my chest beneath the borrowed black top...down the curve of my waist...past my hips...to my legs—trembling, barely holding me upright.
I pressed my back harder against the container, as if metal could protect me from what stood in front of me.
He leaned in just enough that I could smell him—clean, expensive cologne threaded with something darker. Something dangerous.
“You don’t get to collapse now,” he said softly. “Not yet.”
His hand lifted—not to strike, not to touch—but to hover near my throat, close enough that I felt the threat of it.
