FAZER LOGINElena
I know he’s not there before I even open my eyes. The space beside me is empty. Cold. My hand slides across the sheets anyway, like maybe I’m wrong, like maybe he just moved to the edge of the bed. But no. Nothing. I open my eyes slowly, staring at the ceiling for a second as everything settles in. He didn’t wake me. Again.
My jaw tightens slightly as I sit up, pushing my hair back and glancing around the room. No sign of him. No note. No message. Just&he
ElenaDarkness comes back in pieces. Not all at once. Slow. Heavy. Like I’m being dragged up from somewhere deep, and I don’t quite want to reach the surface.My head throbs. My body feels wrong. Too heavy. Too slow. For a second, I don’t move. I just breathe. In and out, in and out, in…. Something is off. Cold. Hard beneath me. Not my bed. Not the penthouse. Not safe.My eyes snap open. Dark ceiling. Unfamiliar. Wrong. Everything comes back at once. The restaurant. The explosion. The chaos. Cillian…My breath catches sharply. I try to sit up, and pain shoots through my arms. I freeze. Look down. My wrists are bound. Tight. Rough material digging into my skin. My heart starts racing. Fast. Too fast. No. No no no…I pull against the restraints instinctively. The rope bites deeper. My breath turns uneven. Panic claws its way up my chest, sharp and immediate, threatening to take over everything. This is real. Thi
CillianThe noise doesn’t matter. The screaming. The shattered glass. The chaos is ripping through the restaurant like it’s still alive. None of it matters. Because she’s gone. And someone is still breathing who shouldn’t be. I don’t leave. I don’t chase the exit. I don’t run after ghosts. I turn. Slow. Controlled. Deadly.“There,” Liam says, already dragging a man across the floor by the collar.Blood streaks across the tiles behind him. The man is half-conscious, face already swollen, one eye barely open. Good. Not enough.“Alive?” I ask.“For now.”Ronan appears from the side, cracking his knuckles, jaw tight with barely contained violence.“He’s one of them,” he mutters. “Didn’t make it far.”Perfect. I step closer. The man tries to move. Tries to crawl. Pathetic.
ElenaSomething feels… off. I don’t know when it starts. Maybe it’s the way the room is too quiet. Or the way everyone is pretending it’s not. Cillian and Kenji Takahashi are talking across from me, voices low, controlled, like every word matters more than it sounds.I try to follow. Numbers. Routes. Something about shipments. But my attention keeps drifting. Not to the conversation. To the room. To the way the staff move. To the way the guards stand just a little too stiff. To the feeling crawling up my spine. I shift slightly in my chair. Cillian notices. Of course he does.His hand brushes my knee under the table. Subtle. Grounding. Stay. I don’t look at him. But I still. Kenji’s gaze flicks to me again. Too observant. Too aware.“You’re distracted,” he says calmly.“I’m listening,&r
ElenaI didn’t expect to feel like this again. Nervous. Not scared. Not uncertain. Just… aware. Of everything. The room feels quieter tonight as I stand in front of the mirror, fingers smoothing over the fabric of my dress. It’s different from the gala, still elegant, still fitted, but darker. More controlled.More him. My reflection stares back at me, and for a second, I don’t fully recognize her. Not the girl from the bookstore. Not the one trying to survive day by day. This version of me, she knows she’s being watched. Judged. Measured. And somehow… she’s still standing. My breath leaves slowly.“You’re thinking too much.” His voice is low. Right behind me.I don’t turn immediately.“I’m going to dinner with a man you don’t trust,” I reply. “I think I’m allowed.”A faint huff of amusement brushes the air behind me.“T
CillianThe flowers are already in her room when I find out. Of course they are. Nothing about Kenji Takahashi is accidental. I don’t touch them at first. I just stand there, looking at the arrangement sitting on her table like it belongs in this place. White orchids. Clean. Precise. Expensive. Calculated.Everything about him is.“Who let these in?” I ask, my voice flat.Liam is behind me. “They were delivered through the main desk,” he says. “Cleared as a priority package.”Of course they were. I step closer slowly, my gaze dropping to the card tucked between the stems. I already know it’s from him. I don’t need to read it to know. But I do anyway. “For the woman who doesn’t fear dangerous men”.My jaw tightens. There’s more.“Dinner. Tonight. You and her. Consider it… a continuation of our conv
CillianI know something’s wrong the second I walk in. It’s not loud. Not obvious. But the air feels… off. The kind of tension that lingers after something has already happened.Liam is in the main room. Alone. That’s the first problem.“Where is she?” I ask, already moving.“In her room.”That makes me stop. Not because she’s there, but because of how he said it. Too controlled. Too measured.“What happened?”A beat passes, then he speaks, “She was approached.”Everything in me stills. Slowly. Dangerously.“By who?”“A journalist,” Liam says. “Bookstore.”My jaw tightens. Of course, it was the bookstore. Of course, it was the one place she’d feel safe.“What did she say?”“Nothing,” he replies. “
ElenaI don’t remember walking. I don’t remember leaving the dining room. All I remember is him. His hands. His mouth. The way everything inside me stopped making sense the second he pulled me against him like I belonged there.The world blurs around us as he carries me. My arms are still wrapped a
CillianI should stop. That thought is there. Clear. Sharp. Unavoidable. And I ignore it completely.My hand is still wrapped around her neck when she tries to pull away, her breath uneven, her lips still parted from the last kiss, her eyes flashing like she’s trying to gather herself back together
ElenaMy hands are shaking. I try to steady them before I pick up the phone, but it’s useless. The weight of it sits heavy in my palm, heavier than it should be, like it knows exactly what it means. This isn’t freedom. It’s not even close. It’s just another way he controls me, another thread tied a
ElenaI shouldn’t be thinking about him.That’s the first thing that runs through my head as I sit on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing, my fingers twisting into the thin fabric of my pajama shorts. The room is quiet again, too quiet, the kind of silence that leaves too much space for thought







