RAPHAEL
I left the manor within an hour of promising her protection.
Cowardice, the wolf called it.I called it strategy.I needed distance.Needed walls that didn’t carry her scent, rooms where I couldn’t hear the soft rhythm of her breathing through the manor’s ancient bones.The glass and steel of Volkov Capital’s headquarters offered none of the warmth of my home, and that was precisely the point.
Cold.Sterile.Mine in a way that had nothing to do with her.
Sunday afternoon, and I was hiding in my office like a man running from something he couldn’t name.The wolf prowled restlessly as I reviewed reports at my desk.He’d been like this since last night.Since I’d sent her away in my robe, her skin flushed and her eyes bright with frustrated anger.Since I’d watched her walk down the hallway with her spine straight and her shoulders set, wearing my clothes, smelling like me, hating me for denying her what her body so clearly wanted.
You should have kept her.Should have finished what you started.She was ours for the taking.
I ignored him.Finished what I started.As if any of this had gone according to plan.
The plan had been simple.Contract signed, debts leveraged, her family’s legacy dangling by a thread I controlled.One year of her body in exchange for financial salvation.Cold.Transactional.A means to an end that had nothing to do with soft skin and defiant eyes and the way she’d played Chopin like her heart was breaking.
The wolf huffed in disgust.You’re lying to yourself.
Maybe I was.
Petrov arrived within the hour, summoned from his own Sunday.He brought coffee I didn’t want and information I did.My head of security moved with the quiet efficiency of a man who’d learned to read my moods and avoid the worst of them.He set a folder on my desk and stepped back, hands clasped behind him, waiting.
“The calls trace to a burner phone,” he said when I didn’t open the folder.“Purchased with cash at a convenience store in the valley.No surveillance footage worth anything.”He paused, and I heard the frustration in his silence.Petrov didn’t like unsolved problems.“Whoever’s making them knows her schedule.Knew she wouldn’t be at the hotel to answer.”
I stared at the folder without opening it.The dead corgi had been a message.A warning wrapped in cruelty, delivered to the front desk where she’d have to deal with the aftermath in front of staff and guests.These calls were another message.Escalation.Someone was watching her, tracking her movements, calculating their approach with a patience that spoke of obsession.
I waited for the familiar cold satisfaction to settle in my chest.The calculation I’d made a hundred times before.Fear kept her close.Her terror made her dependent on me.This served my purposes.
The words rang hollow.
The wolf snarled at my attempted detachment.She’s in danger.Our mate is in danger.Someone is threatening what’s ours, and you sit here trying to find advantage in it?
I pressed my palm flat against the desk, fighting the surge of possessive rage.My property was being threatened.My investment was at risk.Someone else was trying to terrorize what belonged to me, and that I could not tolerate.
No one touched what was mine.No one.
“Increase security at the hotel,” I said, my voice flat.Controlled.“I want eyes on every entrance.Cameras on every floor.And assign two men to her specifically.I want to know where she goes, who she sees, what she does.”
Petrov’s expression didn’t change, but I caught the slight lift of his eyebrow.More resources than the situation technically warranted.More attention than a simple business interest deserved.
I insisted it was about protecting my investment.The contract was worthless if she was too frightened to fulfill it.The arrangement required her presence, her compliance, her body in my bed every night.I couldn’t have that if some ghost was driving her to madness.
That was all this was.Strategy.Protection of assets.
“There’s one other thing.”He consulted his notes.“The general manager has been cooperative with our inquiries.Gave us access to shift schedules, guest logs.Nothing useful yet, but we’re still looking.”
I nodded.The stalker knew her schedule, knew her movements, knew enough about the hotel’s operations to time their attacks with precision.That meant insider knowledge.That meant someone who worked there, or someone who’d been watching long enough to learn the patterns.
“Keep looking.”
Petrov nodded and left.
I sat alone in my office, staring at the folder I still hadn’t opened.Somewhere out there, a ghost was circling.Waiting.Planning their next move against what was mine.
The smart play was to tell her nothing.Information was power, and her fear kept her looking to me for protection.Every strategic instinct I’d developed over two decades told me to use this situation.Keep her scared.Keep her dependent.Let her believe I was the only thing standing between her and whatever darkness was hunting her.
It should have been satisfying.Another lever to pull, another chain to bind her closer.
Instead it left a bitter taste in my mouth.
