Chapter 2: The Predator's Debt

POV: Roman

I felt like a predator even before her appearance.

It was not the smack of her heels on concrete- like the popping of a gun. It was the air in the room. It moved and went cold and electric, odorously unnatural of a locker room crowded with filthy creatures.

Then I saw her.

Sloane Mercer was 24 and had a reputation of making monsters saints depending on the price.

There is no other way I can describe it, she was in the middle of my locker room, with 30 of the most violent men in the state around her and she was even so nonchalant. Most the men twice her size would wet themselves when they got in this room. They were aware that Ice Devils was more than a team. They were aware of us being the front line to the family of Thorne.

But Sloane? She was gazing on my men like they were a stench she had to take the odor out of.

I was looking through the door that was open in my quarters. I saw her stiff and icy gray eyes looking the room. Seat-searching was not what she was doing. She was seeking feebleness. She saw banded hundreds in the stacks on the benches and a Glock gleaming on a towel. And she did not avoid gazing away out of fear. She turned her head away in disgust.

Interesting, said I to the room which was vacant.

As she fell in the ice water with the speaker in her hand, my guys stiffened. I sensed the force of it in them, the desire to swarm her. I placed my hand on the handle of the door, preparing to get out there and break the first man that had dared to touch her, and this is not in consideration of her safety, I just hated the thought of somebody else having their hands on something that looked so nice.

I went out, and that silence, which succeeded, was of the kind that I most like. Total. Absolute.

She didn’t move. Majority of the civilians turn away when I come close. I am an ugly man, with ice scars and streets, and I am not ashamed to be a maniac. But Sloane Mercer remained there.

At a personal level, she was a work of art.

I leaned back and smelled her smell. Scented stationery, very dear perfume--bergamot, vanilla--and beneath them a blast of a bitter metallic odiferousness of lie. I have been around liars but this was her fraud. No lie of a coward, a hunter of his.

You came to bury us, I was whispering.

She throbbed on her neck as I said so. It was a better selling drug than I had ever sold. It was a frantic, wild rhythm. Her eyes remained level at the time she was terrified. She was a queen of iron and above all ice.

I saw her stroll out with her straight back, hips going, which made all the men in the house lose control of breathing.

My lead enforcer, Roman, complained on the benches. He had already stretched to reach the duffel bag that contained product that we had to get moved out in time before midnight. That whore has now threatened the Family. You want me to—”

He was stopped before he could get to the opposite side of the room. I held him and struck him a blow at the back of his head against the locker. The metal was groaning, it was a monotonous and hollow buzzing in silence.

Be it as it may, look at her longer than a second and I will gouge out your eyes, I groused, and I think I will spin my head around again and scare myself at the same time- and you too. Talk of her and I will cut out your tongue. She is mine to handle. Understood?”

Volkov made a nod and as he did it, his eyes flattened with true fear.

I threw him off and turned to the door which she had just passed through. My blood was humming. I was not bored like the first time in my life. I had a beautiful, brilliant little spy, who would get at me, and who believed she could destroy me.

I never knew that in my world, you do not ruin what you despise.

You break it until it’s yours.

I followed her down the hall. I didn’t knock. I didn’t ask for permission. I broke down the door into her little, improvised office and threw the door behind me, locking the deadbolt into home.

The clicking of the lock was a death-sentence.

She turned about on her heels and stared open-eyed and with her hands clinging desperately to the ledge of the desk.

I said wait until I call you in, Roman--I saidwait until I call you in,--I saidwait until I call you in,--I saidwait until I call you in,--I saidwait until I call you in,--I saidwait until I call you in,--I saidwait until I call you in,--I saidwait until I call you in,--I saidwait until I call you in,--I saidwait until I call you in,--I saidwait until I call you in,--I saidwait until I call you in,--I saidwait until I call you

I didn’t speak. I just walked toward her. The room was tiny. Gray concrete walls enclosed four sides, one desk, one chair, and the two of us.

When I was near enough to feel the heat of her anger I halted. I grabbed her, and my hand floated over her throat, and I put it on the wall behind her head and trapped her.

You tell a lot of lies, Sloane, I thought and spoke, low-pitched. The college directors believe that you have come to rescue their investments. My father believes you to be another bought off suit. But I see you.”

My face was just a few inches off of hers. I had noticed glimpses of silver in her eyes and the expression of take it and reckon on her face as she sought a weapon, a means of escape, an out.

"You hate me," I murmured. Hate, hate everything I symbolise. You want to see me in a cage. You would fain see this all empire go down.

With the other hand I reached, and my thumb brushed the bottom of her lip. She made an attempt to leave, when I took her by the chin and held her. Like silk my skin was, a sharp contrast against the rough cruelty of my taped joints.

"Tell me the truth," I whispered. "You will say you wish to destroy me, and Novaia, maybe, I will allow it.

She glanced at me, and truly looked. Once her working mask slipped and I peeked at unclothed hate.

Not to ruin you, Roman, I do not just want to ruin you, she hissed. Her voice was trembling with a furor which bordered on eroticism. "I want to erase you."

A heavy guilty tug was pulling in my gut. I pulled up, almost kissing her lips.

"Good girl," I rasped. "Give me your best shot. Know this however: as soon as you light a fire in my house I will make sure we both burn with it.

Roman is really willing to allow her to ruin him, or is it just another trap to bring his prey into the shadow?