Chapter 23

LOUIS

My legs trembled with terror as I backed out into the hall, my pounding heart sounded like a war cry in my chest. The sound the man made—his tortured screams—would not escape my mind. I had seen it. Everything.

The blood. The broken body. The cruel callousness of it all. Mercy wasn’t shown.

Mercy wasn’t shown, mercy wasn’t shown, mercy wasn’t shown.

I slapped a hand over my mouth, bile rising in my throat as I turned to escape. Elias… Elias wasn't simply powerful, or menacing, or mysterious. He was a monster cloaked in silk suits and quiet smiles. And I—I had kissed him. Wanted him. Let him touch me. The thought sent a fresh wave of nausea through me. 

"Where do you think you're going?"

The voice was a low, smooth, growl with a deadly undertone that made my blood freeze. A steel-hard hand clamped around my upper arm, yanking me back with terrifying ease. I crashed into a wall of muscle and stared up into eyes so green, they glowed like lanterns in the half-light of the corridor. His eyes bored into me, not like a man, but a predator deciding how best to rip me apart.

"I— I didn't mean to see anything, I swear—" I stuttered, my throat tight, heart racing. "Please—"

He leaned in slightly. "You know what happens to people who see what they're not supposed to?" 

My breath caught in my chest and speech failed me. I couldn't think. My knees felt like they were going to give way when the door behind him creaked open.

"Let him go," came Elias's voice quiet but so full of command it made Cathan step back at once. I blinked past Cathan's wide shoulders and saw Elias himself standing there, his shirt soaked in blood. I could still see remnants of red not washed properly on his hands. His eyes on the other hand were darker than I'd ever seen. He looked… unholy. A god of wrath conjured up in human flesh. I recoiled instinctively, but his gaze pinned me where I stood.

Cathan hesitated. "Don," he said slowly, his voice laced with warning, "he knows. We need to take him out."

My stomach dropped. Take him out. They were discussing me like I was some loose thread that needed to be cut up. Like my life was just a coin toss away from disappearing forever.

"No," Elias said, still calm but as sharp as a blade. "Terminate? No."

He locked those dark eyes on me. "Come."

That was it. A single word, and somehow it left me no choice at all. I followed him. What else could I do?

The walk to his office was silent. My footsteps echoed down the hallway and I didn't know if it was blood or sweat that made my hands slippery. My body felt like it didn’t belong to me anymore—like I was floating outside of myself, observing this nightmare unfold.

When we reached his office, Elias shut the door softly behind us with a soft click. I flinched at the sound. He didn't sit down, he just looked at me silently for a long time, arms still uncrossed by his sides and stained red.

"If I'd been following procedure," he said to me, his voice cold and devoid of emotion, "you'd already be dead."

I couldn't breathe.

"But I'm offering you something else." He tilted his head to one side, staring intently at me as if he could see every beat of terror behind my eyes. "You want to live? Then you let go of that pitiful excuse of a life you've been clinging to. You work for me. From now on, you're mine."

It wasn't a question.

"I'm not like you," I whispered. "I'm not a killer."

"No," he said. "And hopefully, it’ll remain that way."

I took a step back. "Why me? Why are you even giving me a choice?"

His gaze didn’t soften, but his jaw clenched. He walked over to his desk, picked up a cloth, and began wiping the leftover blood from his hands as if it were merely paint. Like it wasn’t the life force of another human being.

"Because you're already drowning, Louis," he said quietly. "I'm just offering you a different kind of water."

I wanted to scream. To cry. To flee. But I stayed there, all of me breaking down under the weight of what I had seen. Of what I now understood.

There was nothing for me out there anymore. Only hurt. Quiet. My father's fists. At least here, I'd be counted. I'd be seen.

Even if it meant selling my soul to the devil.

"Okay," I whispered, voice hollow. "I'll stay."

Elias did not smile. He just nodded once.

"You move into my estate tonight."