MY CRUEL PROTECTOR

POV RUBY

The smell of oil and turpentine used to be my safe place. It was the scent of history, of things that stayed still while the world outside spun too fast. But that night, in the basement of the gallery's restoration lab, the air turned metallic. It tasted like copper. It tasted like blood.

My back was pressed against the cold brick wall and my fingers dug into the hem of my silk dress until I heard the crack of the seams breaking. Barely ten feet away from me, through the slit in the heavy velvet curtains, life was draining from a man's eyes.

I didn't know who the victim was. I only knew the man holding the silenced pistol. He was someone I had seen in the society pages: a philanthropist, a donor to the gallery. A monster who was now wiping a bloodstain from his designer shoe with the same indifference with which one brushes off a piece of lint.

Thwip.

The sound was disgustingly silent. A choked cough of air, and then the thud of a body hitting the polished marble. My breath caught, a small, splintered sound that felt like a cannon shot in the deathly silence of the room. I covered my mouth so hard that my own teeth cut into the skin of my palm. Don't move. Don't breathe. Don't exist, Ruby.

The killer began to turn. His eyes, cold and calculating, scanned the shadows of the lab. He was looking for the source of that small noise. He took a step toward the curtain. Then another. I closed my eyes, a silent prayer dying in my throat. I knew this was the end. I was going to be a footnote in tomorrow's newspaper.

Suddenly, a hand—massive, calloused, and terrifyingly hot—crashed into my mouth from behind.

I tried to scream, but the sound was swallowed by a palm that smelled of gunpowder and expensive leather. Before I could struggle, a chest as hard as a slab of granite pressed against my back, immobilizing me. The heat it gave off was suffocating, a violent contrast to the cold that had taken hold of my lungs.

"If you make a sound," whispered a voice directly into my ear, a vibration so deep I felt it in my bones, "I'll let him find you."

It wasn't the voice of a savior. It was the voice of a man who knew exactly how much a life was worth, and at that moment, mine was worth nothing.

The killer was inches from the curtain. I could see the tip of his shiny shoe. My heart was pounding against my ribs so hard I thought they would break. The man holding me didn't move. He didn't even seem to breathe. He was a statue made of dark intentions and pure muscle.

Then, with a speed that defied his size, the stranger moved. He didn't attack; he dragged me backward, deep into the service corridor. He didn't lift me like a bride; he carried me by the waist, my feet barely touching the ground, his fingers digging into my ribs in a way that I knew would leave marks the next day.

"Stop," I hissed against his palm, kicking out blindly.

He didn't hear me. He dragged me through the basement maze, past boxes of Renaissance art and stacks of gilded frames, until we reached the heavy steel emergency door. He pushed it open, and the icy Dublin night air hit my face like a slap.

He finally let go of me, pushing me toward the back seat of a black SUV waiting with its engine running. I stumbled and my knees hit the wet asphalt. The pain was a sharp sting that brought me back to reality.

"Get in," he growled.

I stumbled to my feet, looking for a way out, but the alley was a dead end. Finally, I looked at him. Really looked at him.

He was a tower, a shadow in human form. The streetlight caught the edge of an irregular scar across his eyebrow and the unsettling stillness of his blue eyes. They weren't just eyes; they were ice crystals that analyzed me as if I were a piece of evidence to be classified.

"Who are you?" I managed to articulate, my voice shaking so much it was barely a whisper. "Did you see what he did? We have to call the police... we have to..."

"We're not calling anyone," he said, invading my personal space. His height blocked out the moonlight. He smelled of winter and old secrets. The man in there owns the police. If you go to them, you'll be dead before the ink on your statement dries."

"I'm not going anywhere with you!" I exclaimed, trying to regain some of my pride as panic rose in my throat. I tried to get around him to run to the main street, but he moved with the speed of a predator.

His hand shot out, wrapping around my arm with an iron grip. It wasn't a caress; it was an edict of ownership. He pulled me toward him with a sharp tug, forcing me to look up at that tense jaw and those eyes that showed not a drop of mercy.

"My name is Nevan," he whispered, his voice a cruel promise. "And from this moment on, you belong to the shadows. You have no name. You have no life. You have only me."

He forced me into the car. I struggled, digging my heels into the gravel, but it was like trying to move a mountain. He shoved me into the back seat with a rough efficiency that turned my stomach. Before I could reach the handle of the other door, I heard the heavy clack of the electronic locks activating.

Nevan climbed into the driver's seat. His silhouette was terrifyingly large in the confined space of the vehicle. He looked at me through the rearview mirror, those steel-blue eyes cutting through the darkness.

"If you try to jump, Ruby, I'll tie you to the floor of the car," he said with a calmness that scared me more than if he had yelled at me. "I'm not here to be your friend. I'm here to keep you alive." Whether you like how I do it or not is irrelevant."

As the engine roared and we pulled out of the alley onto the rainy city streets, I sank into the seat, rubbing my arm where his fingers had left their mark. I watched through the window as the lights of the gallery grew smaller.

I realized, with a growing nausea, that I hadn't been rescued. I had been claimed.

And the worst part wasn't the killer we were leaving behind. The worst part was that, as Nevan drove in silence, I felt a strange, sickening pang of curiosity. How did he know my name? Why did it feel like this man had been waiting for this moment for a long time?

Nevan turned the steering wheel with one hand, his gaze fixed on the road, but I felt him watching me through the mirror. It wasn't the gaze of a bodyguard. It was the gaze of someone who had just found something he had been hunting for months.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked, trying not to let my voice falter.

He didn't answer right away. He lit a cigarette, the orange glow illuminating his hard features for a second.

"To a place where the world can't find you," he finally said, exhaling smoke. "A place where only I know you exist."

I closed my eyes, the sound of rain hitting the car roof becoming the soundtrack to my new life. I was no longer Ruby Lane, the art restorer. Now I was a prisoner of the shadows, and the man holding the steering wheel was the sole master of my destiny.