I felt a different kind of cold run down my spine, but I was determined not to let him see my fear. “Control is your oxygen, isn’t it?” I asked, my voice dripping with disdain, eyes flashing with defiance. “Once someone questions it, you feel suffocated.”
His brows drew together, accentuating the faint scowl on his face.
“Well, news flash.” I leaned in, my voice dropping to a low, hateful whisper. “I’m not one of those people you can easily manipulate with fear. I think you should know that by now.”
He paused for a while, as if digesting my words. Just when I thought I’d successfully gotten under his skin, a mocking grin appeared on the corners of his lips.
“You will learn silence,” he said, his voice flat, eyes devoid of emotion.
With that, he walked away, leaving me alone by the fireplace, struggling with the weight of his words and the cold seeping into my bones. I thought I’d have the last laugh today, but I guess the joke’s on me.
Maybe I should stop pushing my luck with this man. The fact that he hadn’t killed me yet didn’t mean he couldn’t.
Chapter 10 —Demyon
The girl was stubborn—intriguing, but stubborn. Even though part of me disliked how she spoke to me without an ounce of fear or reverence, another part of me still loved her fearlessness.
On the jet yesterday, she’d accused me of being lonely, which was the reason I preferred having her around. As annoying as that was, it was the truth. I wasn’t sure what pissed me off the most: the truth or the fact that she could read me like an open book.
One of my biggest weapons in this game was my ability to stay neutral at all times. I always believed that I was a hard man to read, that my blank expression made it next to impossible for anyone to predict me, or my next move. It wasn’t justmybelief, actually; it was a fact to most people. Especially my enemies.
But not to this crazy little devil.
She understood me without breaking a sweat.
Or maybe it was just a lucky guess—nothing serious. There was that. And there was also the possibility that my suspicion was true. If this crazy little devil could somehow truly read through my blank expressions, then there was a problem.
It would mean she was now a threat to my very existence, and that made her fucking dangerous. The problem was, I loved danger—the thrill, the rush of adrenaline, and everything else that often came with it. To me, the more dangerous something was, the more drawn I was to it.
Those who knew me knew that I loved playing with fire, and I had never once gotten burned. In this case, though, my crazy little devil was the one playing with fire, and I couldn’t guarantee that she wouldn’t get burned.
It had been a little over twenty-four hours since we arrived in St. Petersburg, and I still hadn’t told her why she washere. In her mind, of course, she already believed she was here for my entertainment.
Yeah. Right.
I sat on a sofa in her room, my legs crossed, my fingers absently grazing each other. I sat there under the dim light, silent as the night, watching the sun set outside the window. The sound of running water in the bathroom suddenly stopped, hinting that she’d just finished showering. I didn’t move, didn’t shift my weight—I just sat there, waiting. The bathroom door creaked open, and she stepped out, a white towel wrapped around her body.
Steam curled around her slick skin, her wet hair clinging to her face as she ran her fingers through the tangled strands. The hem of the towel grazed her thighs, somewhere above her knees. Not too much, but enough to reveal a lighter shade of her skin.
The sight of her alluring legs made my heart skip a beat, and something unfamiliar stirred up inside me. I leaned back on the sofa, drinking in her beauty and the work of art she called a body.
She was quietly singing a song I’d heard one too many times on the streets of Chicago in recent times.
“All that time
I sat alone in my tower
You were just honing your powers
Now I can see it all (see it all)….”
A faint smirk played at the corners of my lips as I listened to the sound of her melodic voice.
She continued, this time subtly shifting her body.
“Keep it one hundred
On the land, the sea, the sky
