Saint’s POV

She hasn't said a word since we left her apartment, since the towel slipped off her body. Not even in the elevator, when it glitches for a minute, the threat from her apartment looms around. 

I hear her feet behind me, clacking on the cold tiles as we stepinto my penthouse. The door clicks shut behind us, just as Lucio, my right-hand man, disappears around the corner with her bag. 

I should be thinking about the men who set the building on fire, and planning ways to get back at them. Instead, all I can think about is her fucking skin.

The way to towel clung to her frame a second longer before it dropped to the floor. And her lips…the way they parted slightly, her eyes wide open, like she didn’t know whether to run away from me or stay rooted to the spot. 

“Fuck!” I mutter to myself, heading towards my bar in one corner of the vast living area. Sliding onto the stool, I retrieve my favorite bottle of brandy, pouring myself a healthy amount before returning the bottle.

I can still feel her behind me, her eyes scanning the place like she has been dropped into another universe. She probably has, because although she doesn’t know it, her life has just taken a dramatic turn. 

“Where are we?” She questions, her voice finally piercing through the silence.

“My home.” I stir the contents of the glass slowly, bringing the rim to my lips. “You are safe here. No one will touch you.”

She scoffs. “I wouldn’t have been in danger if you hadn’t come into my apartment last night. I would have still been in there by now, eating popcorn with my best friend and seeing some corny romance movie. It would have been better than this. Hell, anything is better than this.”

I turn around then, lifting my brow. “My showerhead doesn’t fall off when I breathe. My windows don’t cave in easily, and I sure as hell do not live in a dingy apartment above a bookstore, desperately holding on to life.”

"You can flaunt your money as much as you like, but at least my apartment felt like home. This…I don't even know what it is."

I try to look at the living area through her own eyes. Every surface is devoid of a personal touch, save a few artworks lining the white walls. The black couch blends perfectly, accentuated by the dark drapes, the black rug, and the black coffee table in the centre.

“You see life in colors,” I murmur, taking a small sip and letting the heat burn my throat. “But that won’t get you the survival you want.”

"I am not searching for survival," she shoots back, but I know as much as she does that that is a lie. Her limbs quiver as she moves towards the wall on one side. Maya is scared, but she has grown so used to hiding every bit of emotion that the last thing on her mind is letting me through the walls she has erected.

Walls that I shouldn't even be thinking about breaking down. 

As her hand grazed the painting of a half-naked woman bathing under the sun, I remember her, standing naked by the window, her towel in a pool at her feet. She has the body of a goddess, the setting sun on her petite curves making her look even more ethereal.

I try to bury the image along with the rest of my dark memories, but it just keeps resurfacing. 

Swallowing instinctively, I take another sip of my brandy. 

"Do you do this often?" She asks, still standing by the image. "Snatch women from their homes and lock them in your penthouse?"

“Do you think you are locked in?”

Her hair whips around her as she turns to look at me. “What is this, then? Why did you come into my apartment the night you got shot? How did you know I was a nurse? How did you know my name?”

Those are questions I cannot answer. 

“You came with me, Maya,” I remind her, sliding off the stool. “When I grabbed your hands and pulled you with me, you didn’t run away. Not once did you attempt to get out of the car.”

“Would you have let me?”

“I walked out of your house earlier today when you asked me to leave. It wouldn’t have been any different.”

“It would have been!” she yells, her voice bouncing off the walls. “Because you waltzed into my life and set everything I knew on fire. Because I know that I have nowhere else to go. I cannot put Ava’s life in danger, just as you have done to mine.”

I stare at her. “You have me now.”

She sighs exasperatedly, shaking her head. I am not offering kindness, and Maya knows it. 

The shrill of my phone on the bar top erupts the atmosphere. I don’t need to look to know it’s Lucio calling. I instructed him to get back to the scene when he dropped off Maya’s bag. 

Looking away from her, I retrieve my phone, scanning the screen. 

An unknown vehicle has been spotted near her apartment minutes after we left. We haven't been able to ID him yet, but one thing we know is that it is a man with a mask on.

My hand fold into a fist. Maya is right. I shouldn't have gone into her apartment last night. Now, I have made her a target as well, after keeping her safe for over five years. 

Tossing the phone back to the bar top, I head down the hallway, my half-finished brandy still in my hand. “I’ll show you to your room,” I call over my shoulder.

“Saint.”

Something about her voice causes me to halt. 

“What happens now?”

I angle my head, turning just enough to look at her. She is standing in front of the ceiling-to-window, the city of Los Angeles lit up behind her. 

“You get absorbed into my world.”