Chapter 6: Poison & Flame

Three days later, the private Rosier estate on Long Island transformed into a fortress of light and excess.

Officially, the event was billed as an "Emergency Shareholder Appreciation Gala," a desperate PR stunt designed to calm the nerves of jittery investors following a turbulent week on the market. But beneath the surface of crystal flutes and forced laughter, everyone in the inner circle knew the truth. This was not a celebration. It was a hunting ground.

This was the final gambit by Alexander and Victoria—a last-ditch, scorched-earth attempt to drag Ava off her throne before she could cement her control over the family empire.

The ballroom was a sea of black ties and designer silk, a low hum of gossip vibrating against the vaulted ceilings. Then, the double doors swung open.

When Ava appeared at the top of the grand staircase, the room didn't just go quiet; the silence hit with the physical force of a shockwave. For three full seconds, not a glass clinked, not a breath was drawn.

She wore a floor-length gown of midnight-black velvet that plunged dangerously low in the front, a V-neck that defied gravity. But it was when she began her descent that the collective breath of the room hitched. The back of the dress was entirely nonexistent. The heavy fabric was held together only by a series of impossibly thin diamond chains, draped from her shoulder blades down to the small of her back. They shimmered under the chandeliers like cold, glittering whip marks against her pale skin.

And there, displayed with an audacity that bordered on madness, were the marks from last week. The faint, pinkish bruising on her collarbone and the curve of her breast—bite marks, fading but unmistakable. She didn't hide them with concealer. She wore them like medals of war, a silent provocation to anyone who dared to look too closely.

She reached the bottom of the stairs, the crowd parting like the Red Sea.

Victoria was waiting for her near the champagne tower, holding two flutes. She smiled, her lips painted a blood-red that matched the malice in her eyes. She looked like a rose that had been dipped in arsenic.

"You look breathtaking tonight, little sister," Victoria cooed, her voice pitched loud enough for the nearby board members to hear. She extended a glass. "Though... it is a pity. No matter how beautiful the packaging, it can’t quite mask the scent of something cheap and rotten inside."

The insult hung in the air, heavy and crude. Ava didn't flinch. Her expression remained a mask of bored elegance as she took the glass from Victoria’s manicured fingers. She swirled the golden liquid, watching the bubbles rise and burst, hypnotizing and deadly.

She didn't drink. Not yet.

Instead, she leaned in, her smile mirroring Victoria’s but with zero warmth behind the eyes. "Tell me, sister," Ava whispered, her voice like silk over steel. "Are you absolutely certain this vintage is... clean?"

Victoria’s smile stiffened at the edges. A flicker of panic darted through her eyes, there and gone in an instant. Before she could stammer out a denial or a deflection, Ava raised the glass high.

She didn't shout, but her voice carried a clear, crystalline quality that cut through the ambient jazz. Every eye turned to her.

"To Rosier Holdings returning to the hundred-billion-dollar club," Ava announced, her gaze locking onto Victoria’s trembling pupils. "And to certain people... may you not embarrass yourselves too thoroughly tonight."

With a defiant tilt of her head, Ava brought the glass to her lips and drained it in a single, fluid motion.

A ripple of shock went through the room. It was a power move, bold and reckless.

But no one saw the sleight of hand. No one noticed the tiny, white pill concealed beneath Ava's tongue, or the way she allowed it to dissolve into the champagne as it flooded her mouth. Colorless. Odorless.

It was the latest synthetic aphrodisiac on the black market, sourced by Victoria herself. The dosage was strong enough to bring a nun to her knees, begging for release within ten minutes. It stripped away rationality, blurred memory, and heightened sensitivity to an agonizing degree. The plan was simple and brutal: wait for the drug to shatter Ava’s composure, drag her disoriented body to a guest room upstairs, and unleash the paparazzi to livestream a "drug-fueled orgy involving the illegitimate daughter and multiple men."

Ava set the empty glass down on a passing waiter's tray. She looked at Victoria, whose eyes were wide with a mixture of anticipation and fear, and winked.

"Excellent vintage," Ava murmured.

She turned on her heel, the diamond chains on her back catching the light, and walked away. Her stilettos clicked rhythmically against the marble floor, a countdown clock ticking away her sanity as she headed toward the terrace doors.

Five minutes. That was all she had.

---

The fresh air of the terrace usually offered clarity, but tonight, it felt heavy.

At first, it was just a gentle sway of the horizon, a slight vertigo. Then, the heat hit. It wasn't a gradual warmth; it was a tidal wave of scorching fire that erupted from her lower abdomen and surged outward, setting her nerves ablaze.

Ava gripped the cold stone balustrade, her knuckles turning white. Her breathing grew shallow and ragged. The cool night wind brushed against her exposed back, but instead of relief, it felt like tongues of flame licking across her skin. The sensation was excruciatingly intense—the friction of the velvet dress against her hips, the weight of her hair on her neck, everything was amplified a thousand times.

Focus. You have to focus.

She bit down hard on the tip of her tongue, tasting the metallic tang of copper. She needed the pain. She needed it to anchor her mind, which was rapidly dissolving into a haze of lust and confusion.

But her brain betrayed her. Unbidden images flashed behind her eyelids—Landon. The garage. The rough texture of his hands gripping her waist, the heat of his body pressing her against the car. His voice, low and raspy, echoed in her ears, hallucinated but terrifyingly real: "Scream for me. I like the sound."

Damn it.

Her knees buckled. She couldn't collapse here. Not in front of the sharks.

Stumbling, Ava pushed herself off the railing and moved toward the side entrance, aiming for the staff restroom where she could splash cold water on her face, purge her stomach, anything to stop the burning.

She turned the corner into a dimly lit service corridor—and froze.

Victoria was there.

She wasn't alone. Flanking her were two hulking men in ill-fitting suits, their eyes scanning Ava’s trembling form with predatory hunger. In Victoria's hand was a DSLR camera, the lens cap already removed.

"My, my," Victoria sneered, stepping forward. "Leaving so soon? Can't hold it in anymore, little sister?"

Ava leaned against the wall, her vision swimming. The hallway seemed to stretch and warp.

"Don't worry," Victoria continued, her voice dripping with venomous glee. "I've prepared a special after-party for you. Three very capable gentlemen are waiting upstairs. I guarantee by the time they're done, you won't be able to walk for a week."

Ava forced her head up. Her eyes were glazed with a layer of unshed tears, the drug dilating her pupils until the irises were barely visible. Yet, despite the trembling of her limbs, her lips curled into a smile that was pure, unadulterated demon.

"Victoria," she rasped, her voice trembling but mocking. "Are you sure... are you sure the dose was enough?"

Before the words fully landed, Ava’s legs gave out. She slumped forward like a marionette with its strings severed, plummeting toward the hard floor.

Victoria’s face lit up with ecstatic triumph. She gestured frantically to the bodyguards. "Grab her! Get her upst—"

The command died in her throat.

From the absolute darkness behind Victoria, a hand shot out. Clad in black leather, it clamped over her mouth with bruising force, silencing her scream instantly. In the same motion, the cold, unforgiving steel of a gun barrel was pressed hard against her temple.

"Don't. Move."

The voice was a low rumble, tectonic plates grinding together. It carried a thick, heavy Spanish accent that scraped against the eardrums like sandpaper.

Simultaneously, a second figure emerged from the shadows near where Ava fell. He was massive, a towering silhouette that seemed to swallow the light. He moved with the silent lethality of a panther, catching Ava effortlessly with one arm before she hit the ground.

He scooped her up, cradling her against a leather jacket that smelled of high-octane fuel, night rain, and violence. The collar of his shirt was open, revealing the intricate ink of a black serpent winding its way around his collarbone, its jaws open in a silent roar.

Kai Reyes.

The King of the New York Underground. The man who made the NYPD nervous and the mafia respectful. Rumor had it that even Landon Voss, the city's golden boy tycoon, wouldn't cross the street if Kai was walking down it.

Kai looked down at the woman in his arms. Ava was barely conscious, her head lolling against his shoulder, whimpering softly from the heat consuming her. He stared at her flushed face, his tongue pressing against his back teeth in a gesture of suppressed rage.

When he looked up at Victoria, his grin was terrifying—a mix of rugged charm and promise of death.

"Little beauty," he drawled, the gun still pressed to her head by his associate. "Who gave you the balls to touch what belongs to me?"

Victoria’s knees turned to water. The camera slipped from her sweating hands and shattered on the floor with a loud crack.

Kai didn't waste another second on her. He turned, holding Ava tight against his chest, and kicked open the door to the nearest guest bedroom.

---

The room was bathed in shadows, the only illumination coming from the moonlight spilling through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Kai kicked the door shut behind him and threw the deadbolt. The click echoed like a gunshot in the silence.

He moved to the bed and laid Ava down. He intended to call for a doctor, to find ice, to do something rational. But the moment her back touched the mattress, she scrambled up, grabbing his leather lapels with a strength born of desperation.

"Hot..." Her voice was broken, a shattered whisper that tore at his restraint. Her eyes were rimmed with red, pleading and wild. "Help me... please..."

She pulled him down. Her breath was scorching hot against his throat.

Kai froze. His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, his eyes darkening to the color of obsidian. He knew exactly what was coursing through her veins. He knew the potency of that specific chemical cocktail. A dose like that would make a disciplined man lose his mind; for a woman of her size, it was a sentence to absolute, biological madness.

Ava’s fingers were frantic now, clumsy and trembling as she clawed at her own dress. The delicate diamond chains snapped—ping, ping, ping—falling to the hardwood floor like hail. The dress pooled around her waist, leaving her back and torso completely exposed to the moonlight. Her skin was radiating heat like a furnace.

"M****a," Kai cursed under his breath.

He dropped one knee onto the mattress, leaning over her. He gripped her chin, his leather gloves cool against her burning skin, forcing her to look at him.

"Ava. Look at me."

She blinked, fighting the haze. Her pupils were blown wide, consumed by lust, unable to focus. But then, her gaze drifted down. She saw it. The black serpent tattoo on his collarbone.

It was an anchor in the storm.

With a sob, she reached out, her fingers tracing the ink, digging into his skin.

"...Hurt," she cried, a bizarre mix of laughter and tears spilling from her lips. "It needs to hurt..."

The thin thread of Kai’s rationality snapped. Snap.

He didn't hold back. He couldn't.

He leaned down and bit the sensitive skin of her collarbone, hard enough to draw a bead of blood. His other hand grabbed the front of her ruined gown and ripped. The sound of tearing velvet screamed through the dark room.

Ava shrieked—not in fear, but in relief. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him closer, crying as she sought his lips.

Kai gripped her hips, pinning her into the mattress with a dominance that bordered on violence. The bed frame groaned under the sudden weight and movement. The moonlight stretched their entangled shadows across the wall, two distorted figures merging into one.

The room filled with the sounds of a desperate, drug-fueled storm—Ava’s broken sobs, the friction of skin, and Kai’s ragged, repressed groans. It wasn't lovemaking; it was an exorcism. It was a violent collision of need and possession.

The climax, when it finally hit, was more powerful than the drug itself. Ava arched off the mattress, her body convulsing, her nails raking down Kai’s back, leaving angry red welts in their wake. Kai growled, burying his face in the crook of her neck as he found his own release, marking her skin with the heat of his breath and the force of his body.

---

Silence returned to the room slowly, creeping back in with the moonlight.

Ava lay limp on the tangled sheets, her energy completely spent. She couldn't even lift a finger. Sweat matted her hair to her forehead, and tears were still drying on her cheeks.

Kai sat on the edge of the bed. He grabbed a stray corner of the sheet and gently wiped the sweat from her face, his touch surprisingly tender after the violence of the last hour.

"Is the poison out?" he asked, his voice ruined, raspy and deep.

Ava didn't have the strength to speak. She simply lifted a trembling hand, her fingertips brushing against the serpent tattoo on his collarbone—the snake now red and irritated from where she had clawed at it.

Kai let out a low, dark chuckle. He leaned down, his lips brushing her ear, and whispered something in rapid-fire Spanish. Ava didn't understand the words, but the tone—possessive, final—made her eyes well up with fresh tears.

Outside the door, the hallway was empty. Victoria and her bodyguards had already been dragged away by Kai’s men. They were unconscious, broken, and their futures were, at best, uncertain.

Kai stood up and walked to the window. He lit a cigarette, the flare of the lighter illuminating the sharp angles of his face for a split second. Smoke curled into the silver light, dancing around him.

He looked back at the woman on the bed—disheveled, ruined, and breathtakingly alluring. He ran his tongue over his teeth, savoring the lingering taste of her.

"Ava Rosier," he said, blowing a stream of smoke toward the glass. "Starting today, you owe me a life."

Ava closed her eyes. A smile, faint and bordering on insanity, touched her lips.

A life? She thought, drifting into the dark.

What I owe you, Kai... is far more than just one life.