"Do you understand?" he demands.
"Yes," I whisper.
"Good."
He steps back, the cold air rushing in to fill the space between us.
"Return to your room," he orders, pointing into the dark hallway. "And lock the door. For your own sake."
Not needing to be told twice, I turn and run, fleeing to my cage. I slam the door, slide down against the wood, and pull my knees to my chest.
My body tremors so violently my teeth chatter.
I thought I sold my soul to a devil.
I was so wrong.
I sold it to something much, much worse.
5
KONSTANTIN
I stand in the center of the hallway, watching the shadows swallow her.
Helena Blackwood runs. Her bare feet make no sound on the polished obsidian floors of my penthouse. She moves fast, fleeing back to the safety of the prison I built for her.
But I notice something.
She does not run with the frantic, stumbling gait of a victim. She runs with purpose, like a soldier retreating to regroup, not a prey animal accepting its death.
I stare at the empty space where she stood a moment ago. The ghost of her perfume still lingers in the cold air.
Most people scream when they hear a finger snap. I’ve broken men twice her size—hardened criminals, cartel lieutenants, men who claim to feel no pain—who vomited at the sound of bone giving way. I’ve seen grown men beg for their mothers before I even picked up a tool.
Helena didn't scream. She didn't faint.
She flinched, yes. The color drained from her face. But she stayed on her feet. She took in the blood, and then she looked at me.
She called me a coward in the car. She called me a monster in the hallway.
I almost laugh.
She has no idea.
A dark, cold satisfaction coils in my gut. Taking the money was business. Taking the company was strategy.
But taking her? That is the knife in Arthur Blackwood’s heart. And I intend to twist it.
I walk slowly toward the open door of the interrogation room.
My mind replays the look on Arthur’s face. The absolute devastation when I told him I was taking his daughter.
That was the moment I truly won. I didn't just want to bankrupt him. Bankruptcy is temporary. Money can be earned again.
I wanted to hollow him out. I wanted to take the one thing he actually loves, the one clean thing in his miserable, whiskey-soaked life, and corrupt it. I want him to wake up every morning in that empty mansion, knowing that his daughter is sleeping under the roof of a monster.
I want him to imagine what I’m doing to her. Let the guilt eat him alive like a cancer until he puts a gun in his own mouth and pulls the trigger.
