Chapter 7 - you're kidnapping me

Xavier's pov 

The vibration of the SUV’s engine hummed through my boots, a steady rhythm that usually calmed me. Tonight, it did nothing. My pulse was a jagged line, synced to the girl trembling three inches to my left.

​I didn't look at her. I didn't have to. I could feel the heat of her panic, hear the catch in her breath every time the tires hit a seam in the asphalt. Astrid. She was a debt I’d inherited, a liability I should have liquidated. Instead, I’d broken every rule in the book to pull her out of that ballroom.

​My thumb traced the tablet screen, tracking the three decoys moving toward the city. Viktor would follow them. He was predictable; a scavenger looking for an easy meal. He didn't realize I’d already moved the prize to a mountain he couldn't climb.

​"You're kidnapping me," she whispered.

​The word stung but I let it settle. I turned, letting the blue light of the tablet wash over her. She looked fragile, like a piece of the glass I’d just shattered, but there was a spark in her eyes that her father hadn't managed to extinguish.

​Good, I thought. A bird that doesn't fight the bars isn't worth the cage.

​"I'm keeping you," I told her, my voice more ragged than I intended. "There’s a difference."

​The leather of the SUV’s seat creaked as I shifted, the sound sharp in the quiet cabin. Beside me, Astrid was a ghost pale, vibrating with a fear she tried to hide behind a straight spine.

​I looked at her, and for a second, the mountain road vanished.

​Flashback: Three Years Ago.

​The rain in London didn't fall; it hung in the air like a damp shroud. I stood on the balcony of the traning school, my knuckles raw from a fight I’d started just to feel something other than the cold. I’d been sent away exiled by a father who saw me as a tool and nothing more.

​I pulled a crumpled letter from my pocket. It wasn't from them. It was from her. Inside was a piece of ribbon she’d used to tie her hair, soft and shimmering.

​I had whispered her into the gray London fog. It was the only soft thing left in my world. I promised then that when I returned, I wouldn't be the boy they kicked out. I’d be the man who owned the house.

​The memory tasted like copper and rain. London had stripped away the boy who wrote letters. It had taught me how to bleed people dry before they could do the same to me.

​"Xavier?" Her voice broke my concentration. She was staring at me, her eyes searching the hard, unfamiliar lines of my face for the stepbrother who used to hide candy in her coat pockets.

​She wouldn't find him.

​"Don't look for him, Astrid," I said, my voice sounding like gravel over silk. I reached out, my fingers grazing the gold charm at her throat. "That boy stayed in London. He died in the cold."

​I leaned in, watching her pupils dilate. The nickname felt like a confession on my tongue one I wasn't ready to make, but one she needed to hear so she knew exactly who held her leash now.

​"You’re trembling... Velvet."

​The way she flinched at the name satisfied me and sickened me all at once. She remembered.

​"We’re here," I snapped, the SUV slowing as the massive iron gates of the Heights ground open. "Welcome home."

The wind up here is different from the usually Georgia cold. I stood on the landing, my lungs burning from the ascent, listening to the faint, metallic ring of the skirmish below. My own men. Men I paid, men I fed, now clawing at each other like rabid dogs because they were too afraid to follow me into the clouds. Cowards. Lyrien is a shadow that stretches long, and I knew he wouldn't come quietly. That’s why I built this place.

​I looked at her angry, shivering, her eyes darting around the jagged, brutalist exterior of the house. From the outside, it looks like a tomb of poured concrete and rusted steel, a gray scar on the mountainside designed to be invisible to drones and overlooked by God.

​Then, I pushed the heavy, reinforced door open.

​The transition always catches people off guard. One step takes you from the freezing, jagged rock into a world of climate-controlled silence and soft, amber light.

The walls are lined with polished walnut, warm and deep. Underfoot, the floors are heated dark marble that reflects the glow of hidden LED strips. It’s a Tbilisi penthouse dropped into a fortress.

​ I saw her jaw tighten as she took in the velvet sofas and the floor-to-ceiling glass that despite the height was triple-paned and bulletproof. It’s luxury, but it’s a cage. A beautiful, golden cage.

​I led her upstairs, to the room I had designed before the first brick was even laid. I opened the door, and the sheer scale of it made her pause. It wasn't just a bedroom; it was a cathedral for someone who hated the world outside.

​The bed was a massive island of silk and down, but it was the walls that mattered. I saw her eyes drift to the right, and I couldn't help the small, sharp smile that tugged at my mouth.

​"I haven't forgotten, you know," I said, my voice low against the hum of the ventilation. "I knew your taste. I knew what you’d need to drown out the sound of the mountain."

​An entire side of the room was dedicated to her obsession. It wasn't just a few shelves; it was a mezzanine of books, soaring toward the high ceiling.

​The Collection: Thousands of spines—first editions, leather-bound classics, and modern journals—all organized by a system I knew she’d recognize.

​The Reading Nook: A deep, recessed window seat upholstered in forest-green leather, positioned so the light hits the pages perfectly at noon, even if the world outside is screaming.

​The scent of old paper and vanilla filled the space, a stark contrast to the smell of gunpowder still clinging to my coat.

​She was surprised, I could see it in the way her fingers twitched toward a spine, but the anger was still there, simmering beneath the surface. She hated me for bringing her here, but she hated more that I knew exactly how to make her stay.

​