Page 5 of Take Me Darkly

And I hated him for it.

I hated that he had saved my life when I hadn’t been there to save hers.

I hated how desperately I needed his strength when every self-preserving instinct screamed at me to run from his darkness.

And I hated that even now—furious, broken, and grieving—the sheer physical proximity of his body sent a current of forbidden electricity melting through my veins.

“Mamma,” I choked out the word, refusing to let go of the idea that I could have somehow changed the outcome. Tears finally spilled over. “I should have been there.”

Silence descended over the room, thick with shared agony. We were both drowning in the ashes of that night, suffocating under a weight that threatened to crush us both.

Anton stared down at me, something dangerous and fiercely reverent flashing in the depths of his dark eyes. He stepped closer until his broad chest brushed against mine. He lifted a hand, his long fingers hesitating before sliding up to frame my jaw. I didn’t pull away. I couldn’t.

“I should be terrified by what you’re saying. The idea of you wanting to put yourself in danger, of being exposed to the people who tried to kill you, should set off all sorts of alarm bells. But seeing this fire in you... seeing that you haven’t let the darkness extinguish your spirit…” He swallowed hard, his thumb gently catching a stray tear on my cheekbone. “You’re still in there, princess. Buried under the grief, but you’re not gone.”

“They are going to keep coming for me whether I hide here or not,” I stated, my voice steadying with a cold, steel-backed resolve I’d inherited from my mother. “At least if I’m involved in finding who did this, I feel like I’m fighting back.”

Anton searched my face, scanning for any sign of hesitation. Finding none, his jaw set in a hard, uncompromising line.

“Fine,” he conceded, his voice dropping into that dark, possessive register that made my knees go soft. “I realize that running can only protect you for so long. Zeke and I were just discussing that this morning. But if you’re going to get involved in finding who did this to you—to your mother—we do it my way. My rules. My people. That’s the only way I let you out of my sight.”

I opened my mouth to argue the word ‘let,’ but the reality of my situation checked my pride. I was an archaeologist in a city I barely knew, recovering from a gunshot wound. I was entirely out of my depth.

“Agreed,” I said quietly. “But under one condition.”

“Name it.”

“If I stay here, I need to know exactly what this place is.” I gestured toward the floor beneath us, where the faint, rhythmic thrum of heavy bass was beginning to vibrate through the floorboards. “I need to see Club O. I need to know the layout, the guards, and find out more about the world you live in if I’m supposed to trust you and others with my life.”

His grip on my jaw tightened slightly, his eyes flashing with protective aggression. “Your exposure to the club should be limited. You need to heal first.”

“Let me guess—for my protection?”

“Yes.”

“I’m having a hard time figuring out where your protection ends and your possession begins, Anton.” I stepped back, breaking his touch, though my skin burned where his fingers had been. “I’m not naive. I know you operate in shades of dark gray, and that there are secrets you’re hiding from me. But after everything that’s happened, I deserve the truth.”

A heavy, charged silence stretched between us. The muffled music from the club below pulsed again—a seductive, dark rhythm inviting the elite to surrender to their wildest sins.

“I won’t apologize for keeping you alive.” Anton’s voice was raspy and laced with raw anguish. “I should have opened up about my suspicions sooner. There may have been things I could have done to protect your mother, and I will carry that failure to my grave. But going forward, every step we take will be calculated. I will not lose you, Serena. I cannot lose you.”

I looked at him then—truly looked at him. I saw the dark shadows bruised beneath his eyes, the tight strain in his broad shoulders, the subtle tremor in his powerful hands. He was consumed by the same suffocating guilt that was eating me alive.

The last of my anger evaporated, leaving me completely hollow. A wave of physical and emotional exhaustion crashed over me so violently my legs gave out. I sank back onto the velvet sofa, a sharp gasp tearing from my lips as the sudden movement pulled violently at my wounded shoulder.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “I don’t know how to be grateful to you and furious with you at the same time. I don’t know how to mourn my mother while hiding in this house of sin. I don’t know how to trust a man who invaded my life and took away my choices. I don’t... I don’t know anything anymore.”

Anton moved toward me again, unhurried, like a man approaching a wild, injured creature. He didn’t sit. He stood towering over me, radiating heat and unyielding protection.

“I know,” he murmured, his voice rough with emotion. “I know an apology doesn’t fix the nightmare. But I am sorry, Serena. For digging into your past. For sweeping you away without your consent. For every choice I made that took your agency away from you.”

I tilted my head back, looking up into the face of the man who had irrevocably altered my destiny.

“But you’d do it all over again.” It wasn’t a question.

“In a heartbeat, princess,” he answered without a second of hesitation, his dark eyes ablaze with a terrifying intensity. “I would burn the entire world to the ground if it meant keeping you alive.”

The ruthless honesty of his confession should have frightened me. Instead, it washed over me like a warm, intoxicating wave. Because I understood the dark logic of it. Because somewhere over the past seven days—between the agonizing grief, the fiery arguments, and the desperate need for a safe harbor—I had stopped just surviving him.