Bait for the devil

The darkness wasn’t just an absence of light; it was a physical weight. It pressed against my lungs, smelling of damp limestone, old blood, and the metallic tang of expensive gunpowder. I leaned my head against the weeping stone wall of the cellar, the rough surface catching in my matted hair. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the flashing lights of the gala—the last moment I had been “Arielle Monet, the Syndicate Princess.”

    Now, I was just a bruised body in a torn silk gown, a prisoner of the most feared man in the French underworld.

    I had been here for three days. Three days of silence. Three days of refusing to tell Girard Roux’s interrogators the access codes to my father’s offshore accounts. I had endured the cold and the psychological terror of the shadows, fueled by a single, burning thought: My father is coming for me.

    Marcel Monet was a man who burned cities for less than his only daughter. He was a king of the old world. Or so I had believed.

    The heavy iron door at the top of the stairs groaned—a sound like a dying animal. I tensed, my fingers curling into the dirt floor. I expected the heavy-set guards with their cattle prods.

    Instead, the air in the room shifted.

    The temperature seemed to rise ten degrees in an instant. A scent—rich, wild, and intoxicatingly masculine—swirled into the stagnant cellar. It was the smell of cedarwood and rain-drenched earth.

    Girard Roux stepped into the dim light of the single flickering bulb.

    He was taller than any man I had ever encountered. His presence was so suffocating it felt as though the oxygen was being vacuumed out of the room. He wore a bespoke charcoal suit that hugged a physique that shouldn’t have been possible for a man who spent his days in boardrooms. His shoulders blocked out the light, and his face was a masterpiece of cold, predatory angles.

    But it was his eyes that froze my blood—a molten, predatory amber that seemed to glow from within.

    “Still silent, Arielle?”

    His voice was a low, gravelly hum that vibrated against my skin. It wasn’t the voice of a man; it was the rumble of a predator. “I must admit, your resilience is… impressive. Most men break within the first twelve hours of my ‘hospitality.’”

    I forced myself to sit upright, ignoring the sharp, stabbing pain in my ribs. I spat a mouthful of blood toward his polished leather shoes.

    “My father will burn Marseille to the ground to get me back, Girard. You’ve started a war you can’t win. The Monets don’t negotiate with monsters like you.”

    Girard didn’t flinch. Instead, a slow, dark smile spread across his lips—a smile that didn’t reach his glowing eyes. He stepped closer, his movements fluid and unnervingly silent. He tilted my chin up with a gloved hand.

    His touch was electric. A jolt of heat raced through me that made my breath hitch despite my hatred.

    “Loyalty is a beautiful thing, mon chéri,” he whispered, his thumb brushing over my swollen lower lip. “But it is a weapon that is easily turned against the wielder. You speak of your father as if he were a god. But even gods require sacrifices to stay in power.”

    He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a burner phone. He pressed play on a video file and tossed the device into my lap.

    The screen flickered to life. It was a recorded video call from barely an hour ago. The background was unmistakable: the plush interior of my father’s private Gulfstream jet. Marcel Monet sat in his favorite chair, a glass of vintage scotch in his hand. He looked tired, but there was no grief in his eyes.

    “It’s done,” my father’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Roux has the girl. Tell his people the port territories in the north are his. Just make sure his attention remains… occupied with her long enough for me to reach the island. She was always a good girl—she’ll play her part for the family.”

    The phone clattered to the floor.

    The world went silent. The betrayal was a physical blow, sharper and deeper than any blade. My lungs refused to expand. My father hadn’t been planning a rescue. He had handed me over like a piece of livestock. A distraction to keep Girard Roux busy while he fled the country.

    I wasn’t a daughter. I was bait.

    “He used me,” I whispered, my voice a hollow shell. “I was a trade.”

    “You were a trade,” Girard corrected. He knelt before me, his massive frame looming over me. The heat radiating off him was nearly unbearable now. “But Marcel underestimated one thing.”

    He leaned in closer, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. The scent of him enveloped me entirely.

    “I don’t play by the rules of the Syndicate, Arielle. And I never let go of something I’ve paid for in blood.”

    He gripped my waist, his fingers digging into the silk of my dress.

    “Your father wanted you to be my distraction. Instead, I’m going to make you my wife. You will bear the Roux name, and you will learn exactly what kind of monster he sold you to.”

    He stood up, pulling me effortlessly to my feet as if I weighed nothing. I stumbled, my legs weak, but his arm was a band of iron around my waist, holding me upright.

    “Tomorrow, the city will hear the bells,” Girard growled, his eyes flashing a brilliant, terrifying gold in the shadows. “And the world will know that what belongs to the Devil… stays with the Devil.”

    As he led me out of the cellar, a low, subsonic growl rumbled in his chest. In that moment, I knew the truth.

    Girard Roux wasn’t human at all. And I was about to enter a cage far more dangerous than this cellar.