Who's There?
I froze.
Terror flooded my veins, icy and paralyzing. But beneath it... something darker stirred. Something hotter. His gaze pinned me in place, unrelenting silver-gray eyes slicing straight through me, and I felt it the pull.
Dangerous.
Magnetic.
Wrong.
He stepped closer.
Each heavy boot echoed across the warehouse floor like a countdown to my death. The air thickened with the metallic scent of blood and the faint, expensive trace of his cologne "clean, sharp, terrifyingly out of place in this tomb of concrete and shadows".
And in that moment, I knew.
I hadn't just stumbled into hell.
The devil had noticed me.
"Who... are... you?" I whispered, my voice trembling between raw terror and something dangerously close to awe.
His silver eyes dragged over me slowly assessing, calculating, hunting.
"You shouldn't be here," he said smoothly. "But now that you are..."
Before I could even twitch toward the door, his hand shot out and wrapped around my wrist.
Iron. Possessive. Unyielding.
I gasped as he yanked me fully into the dim, swinging light. My sneakers slid on the slick concrete; my knees scraped raw as I struggled to keep my balance.
"You shouldn't be here, little butterfly," he murmured, almost thoughtfully.
Butterfly.
The nickname slid under my skin like silk over a blade and stayed there, burrowing deep.
Two men stepped from the shadows behind him silent, suited, lethal. Their faces were blank masks.
"Sir," one asked evenly, glancing at me like I was already a problem to be solved, "should we kill her? She's seen your face."
My heart dropped into freefall.
Kill.
The word rang louder than the gunshot that had started this nightmare.
My legs gave out completely. I collapsed to my knees, palms slapping the freezing, blood-streaked floor, tears already burning tracks down my cheeks.
"Please!" I sobbed, the word ripping out of me in ugly, choking gasps. "I didn't see anything I swear! I won't tell anyone. Please don't kill me. I have no one. I—I can't die like this."
I wasn't ready.
My life was messy. Cruel. Small. Filled with Victoria's sneers, Damien's wandering hands, bills stacked like accusations, nights crying myself to sleep.
But it was still mine.
I wasn't ready to lose it.
"Cut the crap," he said.
Instant silence. Even his men straightened like soldiers hearing an order.
"I'm not killing you," he continued calmly. "Not yet."
He crouched until our eyes were level.
Up close, he was devastating. A faint scar sliced across one sharp cheekbone. His jaw could cut glass. Those eyes "cold, intelligent, bottomless" saw too much. They saw the exhaustion etched into my face, the desperation in my trembling lips.
His thumb slid under my chin, lifting my tear-streaked face with surprising gentleness that only made the fear worse.
"You're too pretty to waste a bullet on."
My breath stuttered, caught somewhere between a sob and a shiver I couldn't control.
"But you're coming with me."
"No," I whispered, shaking my head so violently my ponytail lashed my neck. "I can't. I have to go home."
Home.
To the apartment that smelled like cigarettes and resentment. To the people who drained me dry and called it family.
But it was familiar. Predictable. Safe in its misery.
His fingers tightened slightly around my wrist not enough to bruise, just enough to remind me he could snap bone without effort.
"You have two options."
His voice dropped lower, intimate, terrifying.
"If you want to live... you come with me."
A pause that felt like forever.
"If you want to die... go home."
My chest caved in. My lungs burned.
Live... or die.
My life wasn't good.
But I wasn't done with it.
I swallowed the lump of fear choking me and forced myself to meet his gaze through blurry tears.
"Why?" I demanded suddenly, voice cracking but edged with the last scraps of defiance I had left. "To be your maid? Your toy? What do you even want from me?"
A slow, dangerous smirk curved his lips "the first real crack in that cold, perfect mask".
"You're too weak to be my toy," he said quietly.
Humiliation burned through me like acid.
"And far too pretty to be my maid."
My stomach flipped, twisted into knots.
"So," he continued, voice smooth as silk over steel, "how about you be my wife?"
The word shattered the air between us.
"What?" I breathed, barely audible.
"Marry me."
"Never!" I shot back, fear igniting into sudden, reckless anger. "I would never marry someone who kills people right in front of me!"
His expression hardened instantly. The smirk vanished.
"It wouldn't have been in front of you," he said coldly, "if you had learned to mind your own fucking business."
Tears blurred everything. My voice came out small, broken.
"You're a monster."
He glanced at his watch, casual, almost bored.
"You have thirty seconds."
My breathing turned ragged, frantic.
"Tick."
My heart pounded so hard I thought I would faint.
"Tock."
The warehouse felt smaller. Closer. Suffocating.
"I'm bored."
He raised the gun.
The cold barrel pressed against my forehead unyielding, final.
Every thought vanished.
"I—I—"
The metallic click of the hammer echoed in the silence like a death knell.
I didn't want to die.
Not like this.
Not without ever knowing what it felt like to be wanted, to matter, to fight for something more than the life I hated.
"I'll go!" I screamed, the words tearing out of me in a broken, desperate sob. "I'll go with you! Please—don't—please!"
He held the gun there for one long, deliberate second "long enough for me to taste copper on my tongue, long enough for death to brush my skin".
Then he lowered it.
The smirk returned "darker, victorious, almost satisfied".
"Good choice, little butterfly."
My body gave out completely. I stumbled forward, catching myself against his chest before I could collapse again.
Solid. Warm. Steady.
His heartbeat was calm beneath my trembling palms—controlled, unhurried—while mine was pure chaos.
He tilted my chin upward with one finger, forcing my swollen, tear-filled eyes to meet his.
"Welcome to my world..."
A pause that felt like surrender.
"Wife."
And just like that, the devil claimed what was left of me.