LOGINXavier’s POV The atmosphere in the boardroom was stifling, thick with the scent of expensive cologne and the static of high-stakes anxiety. Twenty of the most powerful executives in the hemisphere sat around the mahogany table, their eyes fixed on the digital projections shimmering against the wall. These were men who moved markets with a whisper, yet they sat in my presence as if they were waiting for a death sentence. I adjusted my cufflinks, my expression a mask of bored lethality. "The shipping lanes in the Adriatic are non-negotiable," I stated, my voice cutting through the room like a piano wire. "If the syndicate wants a piece of the Mediterranean, they pay the tax. Or they find their vessels at the bottom of the trench." A nervous cough rippled through the left side of the table. I didn't care. My mind was partially elsewhere—specifically, thirty floors up in the penthouse. Before coming do
Xavier’s POV The stinging heat of her skin was still vibrating through the palm of my hand. As I walked away from her room, the sound of the deadbolt sliding home felt like a serrated blade across my own throat. I hated locking that door. I hated the way she looked at me—that mix of terror and a defiance so bright it nearly blinded me. But she had to learn. In my world, a lapse in judgment doesn't lead to a lecture; it leads to a body bag. If the Scorpions had reached her before I did, she wouldn't be pouting in a blue lace dress. She’d be a memory. My hand curled into a fist, my knuckles white. Her skin had been so soft—dangerously so. When I’d struck her, every primal instinct I possessed screamed at me to stop playing the captor and start being the man who claimed her. I wanted to squeeze, to pull her flush against me until there wasn't a breath of air between us, but I couldn't. Not yet. Taking her now would be too fast, a fracture in the slow-burn torture of our proximity
Astrid Pov You're eating my food. You're wearing my gold." He looked down at the necklace, then back at my lips. "And you were just lying on that bed thinking about me," he rasped, his eyes darkening with a terrifying certainty. "I saw your face on the monitor. You weren't thinking about escaping. You were thinking about what it would feel like if I didn't stop at the wall last night." My heart stopped. He could see it. He could read the heat in my skin, the way my pulse was jumping in my throat. "You're delusional," I breathed, even as I stepped closer to him, drawn in like a moth to a funeral pyre. "Am I?" He moved then, his hand sliding around the back of my neck, his thumb tilting my chin up. He didn't pin me this time. He just held me, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw with a tenderness that was far more frightening than his anger. "Eat your food, Astrid," he whispered, h
Astrid’s POV When I finally blinked my eyes open, the world was a blur of throbbing pain and stinging salt. My eyelids felt like they’d been glued shut with dried tears, and my head was pounding with a dull, rhythmic ache that suggested my brain was trying to relocate to my neck. I didn’t move at first. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, feeling the uncomfortable bunching of the leggings and hoodie I’d worn for my "grand escape." I felt like a failure—a very tired, very rumpled failure. I rolled onto my side, my stomach letting out a low, predatory growl that echoed in the silence of the room. Hunger was a sharp, nagging needle in my gut. I sat up, rubbing my face and trying to piece together the wreckage of last night. The way Xavier had pinned me to the wall... the heat radiating off him, the absolute, cold fury in his eyes. He’s a monster, I reminded myself.
Xavier’s POV The air in her bedroom was too thick, heavy with the scent of rain and the salt of her tears. I had laid her on the bed, but the mercy in me had burned out the moment I saw her silhouette stepping toward that fire exit. My heart was still a jagged mess of adrenaline and cold, hard fury. I didn't move. I stood at the edge of the bed, looming over her. My 6’5” frame cast a shadow that swallowed her whole, making her 5’5” stature seem almost microscopic. She looked like a broken bird, but I knew better. Beneath that hoodie beat the heart of a rebel—a heart that had just tried to rip itself out of my chest. "Get up," I rasped. Astrid shivered, her gaze fixed firmly on the duvet. She wouldn't look at me. The defiance she’d worn in the alley was gone, replaced by a trembling stillness that made my jaw ache. "I said, get up, Astrid." She moved slowly, sliding
Xavier’s POV I sat in my darkened office, the only light emanating from the six monitors embedded on the wall. My jacket was off, my tie discarded, and a glass of scotch sat untouched at my elbow. Most men in my position would be sleeping, dreaming of their next merger. But I don't sleep. Sleep is a vulnerability I haven’t been able to afford since the day I realized that everything I loved was a target. Especially her. My eyes were fixed on the feed from her bedroom. Astrid was hunched over her laptop, her fingers flying across the keys with a frantic, desperate energy. I watched the way her brow furrowed, the way she bit her lip—a habit she had when she was trying to solve a puzzle. "Beautiful," I whispered, leaning closer to the screen. "But so incredibly naive." I tapped a command on my keyboard, bypassing her local encryption in less than three seconds. I didn't even need to 'hack' her, tru
Xavier's POVThe steel door of the bunker groaned as I disengaged the manual deadbolts. I shouldn’t have had to do it. This mountain was a fortress of my own design—triple-redundant encryption, biometric locks that required my specific pulse, and sensors sensitive enough to detect a hawk landing on
Xaviers povThe silence of the bunker was a living thing, heavy and suffocating. Every breath I took felt like a betrayal to the quiet, a jagged serration against the stillness she had finally found in sleep. I watched her—the rise and fall of her shoulders under that rough wool blanket—and felt a s
Xavier’s POV The silence in the bunker was a living thing, thick and suffocating. I watched Astrid as she pulled back from me. My skin felt cold the moment her fingers left the wound. She looked like a ghost in the red emergency light—fragile, pale, and wrapped in a tactical jacket that coul
Astrid povThe cold air of the ventilation shaft bit into my skin, but it was nothing compared to the ice in my blood. I had crawled until my knees were raw, the jagged edges of the metal ducts scraping against my shoulders. I had left the lavender sweater behind it was too bright,







