로그인ARESThe security feed showed everything in grainy black and white.Ivy was sitting on the floor beneath the window. Knees pulled to her chest. Rocking herself slightly. Her shoulders shook with silent crying.Lucas sat in the corner of the room watching her. The kid looked destroyed. Like watching his mother break was breaking him too.I should feel guilty.I didn't.Or maybe I did and I was just too fucked up to care anymore.I leaned back in my chair and poured another glass of vodka. Downed it in one swallow. The burn felt good. Familiar.What the hell was I supposed to do now?I'd spent weeks planning this. Getting her out of that hospital. Bringing her here where she'd be safe. Where no one could touch her. Where I could keep her alive long enough for her to remember that she hated me.But I hadn't planned for this. For her waking up with nothing in her head. For her looking at me like I was a stranger. For that brief moment when she'd stared at me and I'd seen attraction in her
IVY "Bought me?" I repeated slowly. "What does that mean?""It means exactly what it sounds like. You had debts. Significant debts. And when you couldn't pay them, you were sold to cover the cost. And I purchased you."My brain tried to process this. Failed."People can't buy people."His laugh was harsh. "You'd be surprised what people can do when they have enough money and don't give a fuck about laws."I looked at Lucas desperately. "Tell him. Tell him that's not true."Lucas was staring at the floor. His hands clenched into fists. Not speaking. Not denying it.Oh god."This isn't real." I tried to sit up and failed. My body wouldn't work. "This can't be real.""It's very real." Ares stood up suddenly. Towered over me. "You belong to me now. Everything you are. Everything you have. Mine."Terror flooded through me. Pure, primal terror."No." I shook my head. "No, that's not... I'm a person. I'm—""You were a person." He grabbed my chin. Forced me to look at him. His grip was iron.
IVY Something was beeping.I didn't know what beeping meant but the sound hurt. Everything hurt. My head felt like it was splitting open. My chest was heavy. Breathing took effort.I opened my eyes.White. Everything was white. Too bright. I closed them again.The beeping got faster.I forced my eyes open and tried to understand what I was seeing. Ceiling. White ceiling. Lights. Machines. Things I recognized as objects but couldn't name.Where...The thought didn't finish. Where what? Where was I? But where was I supposed to be? What did I know about where I should be?Nothing.The realization hit slowly, then all at once.I didn't know where I was. Didn't know where I'd been. Didn't know anything.My hand moved to my face. The fingers felt foreign. Wrong. Were these my fingers? I touched my cheek. My nose. My lips. The skin felt like it belonged to someone else.The panic started creeping in. I tried to sit up. My body wouldn't cooperate. Heavy. Everything was so heavy.The beeping
ARESWe stared at each other across ten years of loyalty and following my orders without question. "Fine," Ilias said finally. "But when this blows up in your face—and it will blow up spectacularly—I'm going to say I told you so." "Deal." He left to handle things and I stayed with Ivy, touching her face and finding her skin still too cold, still too pale. "I'm getting you out of here," I whispered even though she couldn't hear me. "Somewhere safe. Somewhere no one can touch you ever again." She didn't respond. Didn't move. Just kept breathing in that shallow, fragile way that made my chest tight. I pulled out my phone and started making calls. My doctor in Moscow first. "I need you ready tonight. Head trauma case. Arriving in approximately ten hours." Then my pilot. "Fuel the jet. We leave in ninety minutes." Finally Mikhail in Russia. "Prepare the east wing. Full medical setup. Everything Dr. Petrov needs for brain trauma recovery." Then I went to get Lucas. The kid was in
ARESI couldn't breathe right.Not because of the bullet wound in my side that had just been stitched up, or the three cracked ribs, or the fact that I'd lost enough blood to make the nurse keep shooting me worried looks. I couldn't breathe because Ivy was three doors down and I hadn't seen her in two hours.The hospital was chaos. Police swarming every hallway. Witnesses being interviewed. Crime scene investigators trying to piece together what the fuck had just happened to cause a shootout in the middle of the city.And me? I was sitting in this sterile room pretending I gave a single fuck about any of it."Mr. Mortivane." A cop appeared in the doorway. Young. Eager. The kind of stupid that gets people killed. "We need your statement about the attack.""Not now.""Sir, this is a murder investigation—""I said not now."He opened his mouth to argue. I looked at him. Really looked at him. Let him see exactly what kind of man he was dealing with. The kind who'd just killed four people
BOOK 2ARESPain.That was the first thing. Sharp and burning in my side where the bullet had torn through muscle and probably nicked something important. Every breath felt like swallowing glass.The second thing was blood. Mine. Hers. The kid's maybe—god, please not the kid's.The third thing was the smell. Gasoline and copper and burned rubber. The SUV's engine was still ticking, cooling down from the impact. We were upside down. My seatbelt was cutting into my shoulder. Everything was wrong-side-up and spinning even though we'd stopped moving.And the fourth thing—the only thing that actually mattered—was that they were coming.I could hear boots on pavement. Multiple pairs. Crunching over broken glass and twisted metal. Getting closer."Check for survivors.""Boss wants confirmation on all three targets.""The kid too?""Especially the kid. No witnesses. No loose ends."My vision was blurred, red-tinged from blood running into my eyes, but I could see Lucas. Hanging upside down in







