The intruder collapses face-first onto the carpet, twitching once before going still. Blood spills out in a dark, heavy pool that spreads across the rug, soaking through the fibers until it glistens under the lamplight.
Artyom stays crouched beside him, one hand pressed to the man’s throat, his movements controlled even as the red seeps between his fingers. His breathing is steady, measured, as if he’s counting seconds. When he finally looks up at me, his eyes are calm, his voice level.
“Are you hurt?”
I shake my head, words caught somewhere in my chest. My hands won’t stop trembling. There’s blood on the sheets, splattered across my legs.
He pulls his phone from his pocket, presses a number. “Mikhail. Clean-up, now.” He ends the call, tosses the phone onto the dresser, and comes to me. “Get up, we are moving to the room next door.” Fortunately, whenever I stay in a hotel, I always book the two rooms next to mine for added security and privacy, so I can remove her from the mess immediately.
I can’t move. My knees lock. “I—he?—”
“I know,” he says quietly. “Come on.”
He takes my hand, careful this time, guiding me off the bed. My legs barely hold me. I stare at the stain spreading across the rug, the body already fading into shadow.
He leads me to the adjoining room, through an internal door, and into the bathroom. The smell of blood clings to everything. My pulse still won’t slow.
Inside, the light is too bright. I blink against it as he turns on the water, tests the temperature with his hand, then looks at me again. His eyes are calmer than they should be.
“Clothes off,” he says softly.
I freeze.
“You’re covered,” he says quietly. His voice has none of the usual steel in it. “You’ll get sick if you leave it on you.”
I look down. The blood has already started to dry, sticky against my skin, dark along my arms, dotted across my collarbone. The shirt clings to me, cold and heavy. When I peel it off, it makes a faint tearing sound. My sweats and underwear go next. For a second I just stand there, bare and shaking, unable to separate the heat of my skin from the memory of that man’s blood on it.
Artyom doesn’t turn away, but he doesn’t stare either. His gaze is focused, steady, like he’s keeping himself anchored. He takes a towel, wets it in the sink, and brings it back to me.
The first touch is careful. He wipes my shoulder slowly, the towel warm and rough against the cooling skin beneath. Each stroke lifts another streak of red, and I can smell the faint mix of soap and iron in the air. My body flinches on instinct, but he just keeps going—my arms, my hands, the side of my neck—methodical, efficient, but quiet about it, like speaking would break whatever fragile control we both have left.
I can’t tell if I’m shivering from cold or from what I’ve just seen. The blood has sunk into the small lines of my palms; he notices, takes my hands in his and works until the color fades from them. His hands are bigger, rough from old scars, yet his touch stays impossibly gentle, tracing over me like he’s terrified of doing more harm.
When he kneels to clean the blood from my legs, I feel something twist inside me—a mix of shame and heat and gratitude I don’t know how to separate.
“Why are you doing this?” I whisper.
“Because you’re shaking,” he says simply.
“I’m fine.”
He doesn’t answer and keeps going, wiping away every trace until there’s only clean skin and goosebumps. He cleans the soles of my feet, cleans the marble floor beneath me, eradicating the physical evidence until the air between us grows heavier with every breath, choked with the knowledge of what happened.
He tosses the towel aside, the sound muffled by the thick carpet. “Look at me,” he commands.
I do.
Whatever wall was left between us starts to crumble. The anger, the fear, the constant push and pull—it all collapses under the weight of something else entirely. His hand slides up, tracing the line of my hip, the contact searing. He stops just long enough to give me time to pull away. I don’t.
He leans in, his mouth close enough that his breath grazes my cheek. “Tell me to stop,” he murmurs, his voice a low, rough challenge. But I don’t want him to stop.
He doesn't look at my body. He looks only at my face, searching for the crack in the composure I can no longer hold.
Then he surges up, and his hands everywhere. They grip my hips, hard, pulling my body flush against his, the black fabric of his shirt pressing into my naked skin. The difference in texture, cold cotton against my searing flesh, is an immediate, jarring contrast. The scent of him—smoke, leather, and the lingering, metallic tang of fresh blood—is overwhelming, terrifying, and intoxicating all at once.
His mouth crashes down on mine. It’s not the controlling kiss he gave me in the cocktail room; this is desperate, demanding, driven by a need he can’t mask. He takes the small, terrified sounds I make, swallowing my fear, claiming my breath.
I finally let go. My hands fist in the black fabric of his shirt, clinging to the only solid thing in a world that just turned upside down. I kiss him back with the panic still raging in my chest, transferring the fear into something that felt like furious, violent need.
