Chapter 7: The Invitation of the Devil

POV: Sloane

My phone screen was glaring in the black bedroom.

The south docks. Noon. Don't be late.

I hadn't slept. The spectral aroma of his smell the intoxicating and frightening combination of dark mint and the scent of ozone still burned into the garment of my blazer, lingering in the air of my apartment, like an actual menace. And now, this text. An unmarked burner number. But I knew exactly who sent it.

Roman Thorne.

The heir in Thorne crime syndicate. The monster that now had just awakened to a night of proving to me that my locks, my boundaries, and my impeccable professional armour were of no use to him.

I awoke with a shiver of the coldness of the apartment cutting at my naked shoulders. I would have sent the information to my contact at the FBI. That was the protocol. That was the job. Dial the feds, provide the place and have them search the docks with a tactical team.

But protocol had not considered the flushed heat of my skin at the thought of Roman and his huge thigh crammed between my flesh pinning me against the door. I hated that reaction. I detested it to the bottom of my heart. It was precisely what the Thorne men depended on, which was the primal, oppressing power of the sickly male dominance that deprived women of their rights, silenced their shrieks, and reduced them to collateral damage. I had been living my life constructing a citadel of reason and regulation to demolish men who exploited their natural stature to seize all they desired.

However, as I checked the shining display on my screen, my thumb was trembling on the forward button. And then I locked the screen.

I didn't call the FBI. I dressed for war.

11:45 AM. The South Docks.

The air was reeking of rusted iron, rotting kelp and heavy diesel exhaust. The sky just above was of the color of a bruised plum, and promised a dreadful downpour. I left my sleek sedan at the end of the block of Pier 4 and got out into the biting wind. The stilettos had disappeared to-day. I had flat leather shoes, black jeans and a thick trench coat.

Warehouse 4B had something abandoned about it. The metal corrugated siding was flaking, bleeding up in streaks of orange rust to the broken concrete. I swung the heavy side door open. What protested, echoed in their hinges, in an awful, metallic cry, was the inside ringing out of the cavernous dark within.

"You didn't bring your dogs."

The voice was in the shadows low and jagged. It was like a pinch along my spine, deep and plodding in my stomach.

Roman came out of a pile of pallets made of wood. Today he was not in Briarwood hockey uniform. He was dressed in a custom blue dress shirt whose sleeves were rolled below the elbows showing the thick corded forearms that were covered with sprawling Bratva ink. He was wearing black trousers and big boots. It was unbelievable to contrast the violence in the streets, which is savage, and the expensive and inaccessible wealth.

He appeared to be a king in a cemetery.

I do not need the feds to have my hand, Roman," I said. My voice was cool, steady. A complete lie. My heart was mad frenzy beating on my ribs.

He laughed, a dark dry laugh, which did not come to the pitch-black eyes of him. He headed in my direction. Lazy. Cautious. The great impact of his boots on the concrete seemed like a time-piece.

"No," he murmured. You simply wanted me to yourself.

I have come to see you dig your own grave.

"Is that right?"

He did not halt until he overshadowed the dark light passing through the skylights smeared with dirt. He supported me till my shoulders were against the cold, rough metal of the warehouse wall. And they had no place to go back.

He cuffed me, his great hands squared on each side of my head, and on the metal. The blatant, choking bulk of him stole air out of my lungs. The warmth emanating in his body was an oven in the freezing warehouse.

You made a gigantic chance of coming here alone, Sloane, he thought, bending his head down until his mouth was only inches away from my ear. His breath was warm upon my cold flesh. Well, do you know what becomes of rats that walk into Thorne land without a guard?

I will not hurt you, I said, and, turning my head sufficiently to make eye contact. My lips were almost touching his jaw as we were so near.

Bet on my self-control not, do not bet, my life, said he rasped and his eyes blazed with an instant, furious heat. I am just keeping down demons you can not even imagine.

He moved around and plunged into my face. His knee was pushing my legs apart, an overt, possessive gesture that gave me a jolt of unmitigated heat that hit me like a shock. I cried out, the weak and betraying sound, which I was not able to suppress as soon as possible.

The eyes of Roman changed color. The pupil swallowed the iris. He took one of his hands out of the wall and touched my throat. He didn't squeeze. He simply put his thick and calloused fingers over my racing pulse, and appropriated the erratic beat.

I could take you here and now, he said, and his voice had gone down to a snarling, screeching pitch that sent a shiver through my thighs. "Against this wall. In the dirt. Where no body can listen to thee crying, and no body can deliver thee. I might shred you into a thousand fragments and make you plead with me, to sew you up again.

You think you can break me?" I challenged. I put my hands straight on his chest. I would have forced him to go, to put the barrier back up. However, beneath the fine cotton of his shirt I could feel the great, thundering bang of his heart beat. He wasn't calm. He had been hit by this sick twisted seriousness as I had.

I know I can, he said, his thumb running up the line of my jaw, over my bottom lip. I shuddered at the friction. But I do not wish that I should break you, sweetheart. I want you to shatter for me."

He bent down, and his lips brushed me. A devastating tease. A taste of absolute ruin. I held on to the front of his shirt and my nails tore into the cloth. I hated him. I detested the influence he had of this city, and I detested the black, sucking liquid fire, which was low in my stomach. But I didn't push him away. I chased his mouth.

Roman groaned, a guttural, rough groan, and squeezed his lips against mine.

It was a violent collision. Tongues and teeth and the flavor of adrenaline. He tasted like danger. The man kissed me, like a starved man, sliding his hand down my throat to his fist at the back of my neck and angling my head in the direction he desired. The kiss was recalcitrant and so wet and heavy. I sprang against his body altogether instinctively in pursuit of the stimulation of his hips rubbing against mine.

We had been standing in a freezing, filthy warehouse, with the stench of rotting of docks, but I felt like I was burning alive.

He ripped his mouth open, and his chest pushed my chest. We were both gasping for air. His eyes were mad, bereft of the cold and cold-blooded businessman mask of a mafia prince. A moment he looked at me, and his forehead touched mine.

When you take me to the feds, I will not be taken away, I said to myself, he will never gain upon me, I will not give him my word. I'll torch the entire city and I will carry you in the fire.

He jerked back and I was left chilled and completely disorientated. He turned to face the pile of pallets, and his jaw was so firmly closed that one of the muscles in it was violently jerking beneath his battered flesh.

He reached out and took a heavy iron crowbar and forced it under the lid of a wooden shipping box, and forced it open with a screech of nails as they pulled out of wood, a noise that dazed the entire crew of the ship.

I was hunching on the wall and attempting to have my trembling legs bear my weight. "What is this, Roman? Why did you bring me here?"

He reached into the crate. He did not bring out a block of cocaine or a pack of unregistered guns.

He drew a huge book, bound in leather.

He turned around to me, and kicked the big ledger at my chest. I automatically snatched it, cold wet leather in my palms.

My father has books in shadow, said Roman, and his voice had gone back to that dead, monotonous voice. Names, dates and offshore accounts. It confirms all the bribes that Thorne family has spread around the university board, local judges, and the port authority within the previous ten years.

I stared down at the book. It was the holy grail. It was the very bit of physical evidence my man of arms had been pleading me to discover, three years. It was the game which was going to reduce the Thorne syndicate to ashes.

"Why are you giving this to me?" I questioned, my words being scarcely audible. I raised my eyes and looked at him and sought the trap in the eyes that were blank. "This will ruin your father. It will ruin you."

Roman was near once more, following with one finger the lapel of my coat.

Your fingerprints are on it now, Sloane, because now your fingerprints are on it, said he. His sadism in smiling was magnificent. You no longer are no more than an informant. You have robbery mafia in your hands. My father will not even look at me in case he realizes that that book is missing. He will check on new PR girl who has been snooping around the archives. You're an accomplice now."

My blood ran cold. the intensity of our kissing was turned into pure, cold horror. He had come here with me not to give up. He had taken me here to put me in chains with him.

You arranged me, I said, the knowledge of it a physical shock to me.

I told you, Roman said, bending backwards into the darkness. I am not allowing you to see me drowning ashore. We are now into the deep water.

He gave her the weapon to kill him but put a chain on her throat in the process. Will she draw the trigger, in order to kill the bullet with him?