Chapter 1

ELARA POV

Fury burns so hot it feels like it’s searing through my skin as I storm into my father’s antique shop.

How dare he? How dare he try to preposition me? What does he even take me for to think I’ll sleep with him or anyone for money?

I know Mr. Frankley, my boss—ex-boss now since I kicked him in the groin and quit my job—was a shitty person when I caught him touching himself while staring at me.

That day, I swallowed by respite and disgust because I needed the money from the job to sustain myself and to pay for my sister’s hospital bill. But today, he’s proven to be much worse than I think he is. He actually asks me for sex. He told me he’ll pay me to sleep with him.

I’m boiling with anger as I collapse on the couch in the reception area of my father’s shop. I can’t believe this is my life now.

Three months ago, life was bearable. I wasn’t living in luxury, but at least my father wasn’t missing. I don’t have a tail of suspicious men behind my back, claiming my father owed them and threatening me to deal with me if I didn’t find him. And my sister…wasn’t sick.

I freeze when something wet touches my cheek. My hand lifts, brushing against my face, only to realize it’s my tears. The moment I acknowledge them it’s like a dam breaks inside of me. More tears spill down faster, until I’m shaking with sobs I can’t contain.

Maybe it’s the exhaustion of too many things falling apart or too many sleepless nights from back-to-back shifts, but my eyelids grow unbearably heavy, closing and surrendering to the only escape I have left. Sleep.

When my eyes open again, it’s already so dark I can barely see a thing. But what truly sends me into a frenzy isn’t the darkness, but the crushing weight pinning me down, and the rancid breath fanning over my face.

I squirm until a familiar, slimy voice hisses in my ear.

“Shh. I’ll be quick.” 

My stomach knots as bile crawls up my throat. I recognize the voice because it hissed slurs at me as I marched out of Mr. Frankley, my ex-boss’s office this afternoon.

Panic flares through me. How did Mr. Frankley know I would be here? How did he know my father’s shop?

“What the hell?” I hiss. “Get off me, you—"

A cold metal presses to the side of my head, choking my words in my throat.

“Say another word,” he chuckles, “and I’ll put a hole through that pretty little skull. You won’t mind me fucking you when you’re dead.”

I freeze, terror rooting me in place. Disgust starts at my toes and crawls up my skin as his hands start fumbling at my thighs.

“Just like that, Elara.” His giggles make my stomach churn. “I’ll be quick I promise.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, humming through the tears just to not feel his clammy fingers digging past my hem.

“Your—”

Suddenly the gun goes off with a deafening sound. And in the next breath, a hot spray hits me full in the face, wet and thick enough that it drips into my mouth

I choke on a scream as a coppery stench fills my nose. My arms flail, smearing the sticky warmth across my cheeks and my lips, and for a heartbeat, I’m certain it’s mine. That I’ve been shot, and this is what dying feels like.

But the weight on me doesn’t move. It slumps, still as the liquid keeps spilling over me.

My chest is heaving when the weight is kicked off me with a sickening thud. I gasp, eyes flying open with a scream clawing up my throat.

I choke on the scream as my eyes meet a tall figure standing over me, his icy-blue gaze pinning me down harder than the body ever did.

The sharp click of his tongue cuts through the silence as he wipes a bloody knife on Mr. Frankley’s shirt.

With an ease that shouldn’t exist in a man who just killed another, he pulls out a handkerchief with his other hand and extends it toward me.

I just stare, frozen, trembling from the terror that’s still seeping through my bones.

“Take it.” His voice is deep and gravelly, the kind that scratches down your spine and leaves goosebumps in its wake.

My hand moves before my mind catches up, taking the handkerchief from him.

When I just sit there clutching it, and still staring at him like a fool, he adds, “Help yourself.”

And I do like I’m on autopilot, wiping the blood from my face while watching his broad shoulders move to the couch opposite me.

He sits with a calm that shouldn’t belong in this room or with anyone who just took a life.

His gaze flicks to mine sharply, and the urge to look away presses against my chest, but I don’t.

His face is sin incarnate. Too beautiful for the kind of coldness in his blue eyes. Too calm for the brutality he’s just committed. Too hauntingly pristine for his muscular form cloaked in black suit that looks tailored only for him.

His silvery flash of his wristwatch blinks at me as he adjusts his cufflink, those icy-blue irises still on me, unnervingly composed against the chaos tearing through my chest.

Who the hell is this man? Why is he so indifferent to the blood he spilled right in front of me?

The evidence still lies sprawled an inch from my feet for goodness’ sake.

My stomach twists at the sight of Mr. Frankley’s lifeless body. Bile sears my throat and I squeeze my eyes shut. Christ, is this a nightmare?

I pinch the skin of my thigh until it stings, telling me this is very real.

The tense silence presses around me like a vise until I force myself to speak first.

“I…” My throat tightens around the word, but I try again. “Who—” I swallow hard. “You killed him. Why?” My voice finally breaks free, weak and shaky.

“What should be coming out of your mouth, Ms. Petrov,” he leans back, “is gratitude.”

“But you just killed a man,” I blurt out, horrified. As much as I want to thank him, I can’t get past that.

“A man who’s trying to take advantage of you?” His brow lifts.

“But…” My protest wilts under his stare. “That doesn’t mean…you can just take another man’s life.”

He tilts his head slightly, the mocking arch of his brow saying oh really?

His gaze drops briefly to Mr. Frankley’s body, a flash of disinterest crossing his face, as though the man was nothing more than an inconvenience. When his eyes return to me, I feel pinned in place.

“Where’s your father, Ms. Petrov?”

My heart skips a beat. The question catches me off guard and every resolute die in me.

Is he here to kill my father too?