Page 62 of Arrow

“And what if I don’t?” I asked, voice husky from salt and rage.

Arrow uncoiled from the table, angled a hand under my chin, and pulled me to my feet. The motion was so rehearsed, so gentle, that for a blink, I almost mistook it for kindness. But he spoke softly, each word unhurried, a needle through silk.

“Then I’ll retrain you, over and over, until you do.”

He didn’t let go. He steered me through the house, past the silent shadow of his bodyguard in the entry, past the intimidating nothingness of his living room, right to the enormous window that faced the blacked-out city.

I expected pain or public humiliation. Rather, he pressed my back to the glass and stood so close I felt his body’s heat arc between us like a fuse. One hand went to my throat, not rough, just claiming, with the patience of a man who’d spent his whole life starving.

“Why do you always run toward the edge?” he asked, thumb stroking the hollow above my pulse.

“I don’t. The edge always comes to me.”

Arrow grinned and it was beautiful, and it was a threat. “It’s coming now.” He tapped the tip of my chin. “My father ran this city on loyalty and gunpowder. You think he’d have wasted time on a Virelli brat like you?”

I swallowed. “You’re not your father.”

“That’s true.” The hand at my neck moved lower, mapping the marks he already knew by heart. “He broke things for fun; I do it for a purpose. I only destroy what deserves it.”

His palm lingered over my collarbone, then slid to the back of my neck, holding me in place. My hair caught in his fingers, and he let it, before releasing me and returning to his side of the table.

The silence inside Arrow’s house was absolute. At some point, I realized there was no television, no music, not even the hum of a refrigerator. I expected him to make conversation, but then he didn’t. He poured himself another glass of wine and drank it standing, watching me like he could see the restlessness flicker and breed behind my eyes.

When I couldn’t stand the quiet another second, I turned on him, bracing for the next round. “What do you want from me?”

Arrow regarded me over the rim of his glass. “For now? Compliance.”

“You have it,” I spat, “unless you’re deaf or just pathologically disappointed.”

He finished the wine, then set the glass aside. “You’re not listening, Harlowe. I could chain you to the bed, and within a week, your spirit would rot, and I’d have nothing to show for it but an expensive corpse. What I want is something different.”

“And what’s that? Bitter tears and a grateful whore?”

Arrow moved closer, his face clean of joy or cruelty. “I want you to see yourself through new eyes. And then I want you to beg me to close them for you.”

I blinked, and in that slice of time, I understood.

He didn’t just want to break me—he wanted to teach me the taste of my extinction. My death would happen one atom at a time, and he’d leave me alive to mourn it forever.

“I’d rather die than be married to a fucking Romanov,” I hissed.

His lips drew back from his teeth. Nothing so grand as a smile, but more like a predator—where you’re cornered, but he’s still deciding whether to eat you or keep you as a trophy.

“Good,” he said. “But you’re not going to die.” His palm was so heavy on my neck, I could feel my pulse hammering fingertips away from his. “You’ll want to, eventually. I promise I’ll do my best to make you grateful for the alternative.”

And then, with a casual violence that startled me more than any blow I’d ever taken, he yanked me off balance until I crashed into his sternum, nose pressed under his jaw, arms locked behind my back with one effortless wind of his arm.

I thought he would choke me out, or force me to my knees—he did neither. Instead, he stood there, letting my breath saw up and down between his chest and the shiver in my own, as if experimenting with just how close you can bring prey to its panic before it learns to love the feeling.

His other hand slid up my spine, knuckles grazing the thin fabric of my nightgown. Everything in me contracted. I barely heard my own words, only the hum of blood in my ears and the staccato of Arrow’s breath on my hair.

He held me in silence, and the moment stretched.

“If you only knew what you look like right now,” he hissed. “Like a fucking curse. Like every goddamn Virelli in history at the moment before their neck snaps.”

His grip tightened, hard enough that my toes jerked up off the floor.

Arrow drove me backward, eyes locked on mine the entire time. When the table caught the backs of my legs, I braced for impact, but he only pressed forward with measured force, backing me onto the hard surface.