I didn’t move. I couldn’t. The anticipation rooted me to the spot, tangled with a thousand conflicting emotions clawing their way to the surface. Anger. Frustration. Resentment. And beneath it all, a deep, ugly ache I hated acknowledging.
The vibrations in the air seemed to settle overhead as the helicopter landed. My heart pounded in my chest and every beat echoed like a drum in my ears drowning out the crackle of the fire, hush of the wind and my thoughts. I clutched the edge of the table, my knuckles turned white, as I waited.
Five minutes. That’s all it took for the sound of footsteps to break the suffocating silence. Fast, deliberate, and his. I didn’t have to see him to know it was him. Judas carried a presence that filled the room before he even entered it.
But when the door finally opened, it wasn’t just him.
I was expecting to see him, to throw a fit and demand him for answers but the words caught in my throat and so my eyes widened.
She walked in first, her heels clicked against the wooden floor and her strides were confident almost mocking. Veronica. Her name slammed into my mind like a sharp edge, unbidden and unwelcome. She wore a dress so tight it clung to every curve, a stark contrast to the robe I had wrapped around myself. Her dark eyes swept over me, taking in my dishevelled state with a smirk that said more than words ever could.
My breath hitched, something ugly coiled in my stomach. What was she doing here? It simmered under my skin, sharp and burning, threatening to consume me whole. I hated it. Hated her. Hated him. Hated everyone.
She tilted her head. Her expression unreadable but deliberate. The smugness was subtle, but it was there, like a freaking taunt hidden in her gaze. And before I could speak-or scream-the sound of more footsteps broke through the haze of my thoughts.
Two men followed, their faces pale, their eyes darting nervously as if they weren’t sure if they’d entered the lion’s den. They carried several large bags and their shoulders hunched. They avoided my gaze entirely, setting the bags down near the door before stepping back as if proximity to Judas might burn them.
And then he stepped inside.
Judas fucking Romanovski.
He didn’t glance at the men or the bags or even Veronica. His eyes found mine instantly, locking onto me with a force that stole the breath from my lungs. He looked exactly as I remembered-calm, composed, dangerous. The storm in his gaze was unmistakable, but it wasn’t anger. It was something worse. Something that stripped me bare.
I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to. I had no reason to.
I wanted him to see me. To see the anger, the betrayal, the resentment, and the mess of emotions he had tangled inside me. I wanted him to know how much his absence, his presence, and everything in between affected me.
And he did. I could tell by the flicker of something in his expression-brief, almost imperceptible, but there. A crack in his perfectly designed armour.
And all I did was sit there.
Mathcing his gaze.
He knew I tried to run.
He knew he was the reason.
And I wonder if he knew I rummaged through his office.
Did that matter?
Did I matter?
Veronica’s smirk deepened as she stepped fully into the room and I wonder if she felt the cold or was just sued to it. It didn’t help how every time I look at her, all I could see was Judas standing behind her and fucking the daylights out of her. It was disgusting, making me want to rip my skin off cause he touched me with same hands he touched her. And she was just standing there. Why? Why she was not here instead of me? Why was I suffering when I should not be?
Her hips swayed with practiced confidence.
She moved she was testing boundaries she knew she could cross. Her gaze flicked between Judas and me, but I stayed silent, biting down on the venomous words threatening to spill from my lips.
She broke the silence first, her voice honeyed and sharp all at once. “Well. I see you’ve been busy playing house, Judas,” she looked at him over her shoulder. “Didn’t think I’d ever see you setting up camp for this long. What’s the occasion?”
Her hand found his arm, fingers lingering as she tilted her head up to look at him. It wasn’t an innocent touch. It was deliberate, possessive, a silent declaration of something I wasn’t willing to name. My fists clenched under the table, the bite of my nails against my palms grounding me as a surge of jealousy-ugly and unwanted-coursed through me.
Judas didn’t react to her touch, not immediately though. He just stood there, his eyes fixed on me like I was the only thing that mattered. And maybe I was. His presence was a storm contained in a body that shouldn’t be this composed. He radiated power effortlessly-broad shoulders draped in a perfectly tailored dark trench coat, the collar turned up slightly against the cold. Underneath, he wore a black turtleneck that hugged the hard lines of his chest, paired with charcoal slacks and boots polished to a mirror shine. He looked like sin wrapped in sophistication and untamed violence.
A true Russian mafia boss.
But the way he stared at me made it clear he wasn’t just a boss right now. He was a man assessing my every breath, my every glare, my every unspoken word.
“Are you fucking her?” She chuckled and I swallowed hard feeling every nerve in my body snapping. But I held my tongue. I wanted to hear what he had to say.
My jaw tightened at the mockery in her voice, but I refused to look at her. My eyes stayed on him, silently demanding a response, an explanation. But he didn’t give me one. He didn’t give me anything.
Instead, he shifted, his gaze flicked to the two men still standing awkwardly by the door. “Unpack.”
The men scrambled into motion, hauling the bags further into the room. One by one, they began pulling out the contents, laying them on the nearest flat surfaces. My eyes widened as I saw the sheer volume of items-months’ worth of clothes, coats, sweaters, jeans, and pants. But it was the lingerie that made my stomach drop.
Black. Red. Lace.
I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks, my chest tightening as I watched the delicate, intimate pieces being laid out like they were nothing more than inventory. My jaw clenched so hard it ached.
Veronica let out a low whistle. “So-”
“Leave.” He muttered.
Veronica’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “What?”
“You heard me.” His tone didn’t waver, his focus still on me as if I was the only one in the room. “Go downstairs. Wait there.”
Her lips parted as if she was about to argue, but the look in his eyes silenced her. She let out an exaggerated sigh, her heels clicking sharply against the floor as she turned and made her way to the door.
“Fine,” she said over her shoulder. “But don’t keep me waiting too long, baby. You know how impatient I can get.”
The door clicked shut behind her, and I exhaled slowly though my grip on the table finally loosened as I stared at him. My emotions tangled in web of anger, confusion, and something else I didn’t want to name.
W stayed like that for another moment and when his gaze became too heavy for me to bear, I broke it.
“Are you going to say anything,” My voice was quieter than I intended but no less gentle, “or are you just going to keep staring at me like that?”
Judas didn’t answer right away. He took another step forward, closing the distance between us until he was close enough that I could see the faint shadow of stubble on his jaw, the way his lips pressed into a thin line.
“You’re angry,” he said, not as a question but a statement.
I laughed bitterly, the sound escaping before I could stop it. “What gave it away?”
His eyes darkened, and for the first time, I saw a crack in his composure, a flicker of something raw and unfamiliar.
“Your eyes.”
I scoffed, my throat tightened and I bit my lips holding myself back from letting out a sob.
“Why? Why am I here? And not in your basement? I tried running from you, didn’t I? Didn’t you say you’d ruin me, destroy me… kill me if I defy you? Then why? Why the fuck am I in this room and not out there?!”
Judas didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink as though his face was carved from stone-sharp, rugged-but beneath the surface, a storm brewed. I saw it. In his eyes. In those pale arctic orbs of his. It was restrained, yes, but only just.
I stepped back fists clenched so tightly my nails bit into my palms. My chest rose and fell in uneven bursts. Each breath dragged against the sharp edge of my anger. My voice cracked as I forced the raw words out and my voice trembled. “Answer me. Why am I here?”
The silence that followed wasn’t calm; it was oppressive. A noose tightened around my throat. Then he moved, sudden and violent, his hand slammed against the edge of the table. The crack was deafening. I jumped, my breath catching as his shadow swallowed the space between us.
“You think I didn’t want to?” He growled animalistically as every mask of his dropped that made my stomach churn. Daggers, laced with venom that cut deeper than any scream. “You think I didn’t consider dragging you back to that basement, chaining you to the wall, and letting you rot until you begged me for the mercy I don’t fucking have?”
A sob clawed its way up my throat, but I swallowed it down, the bitter taste of fear mingled with something I couldn’t name. I hated the way his words settled into my bones, the way they made me ache in places I didn’t want to acknowledge.
“Then why didn’t you?” My voice was a whisper.
Judas exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. His trench coat shifted as he turned away, but the distance only made the air heavier. A suffocating force that left no space for escape.
“Because I don’t fucking want to destroy you no matter how much you tempt me to.” The words were a quiet snarl, raw and feral, each syllable sinking into me like a brand.
Temp him?
A bitter laugh escaped me and my fists clenched. “You don’t destroy me? You’ve already done that, Judas. Look at me.” My voice cracked on the last word, breaking under the weight of my anger and despair.
He turned then, slowly, deliberately, his gaze cutting into me like a scalpel. “You don’t understand a damn thing, do you?”
“Then make me understand!” I shouted as tears burned behind my eyes. “Explain it to me! Tell me why I’m here, why you’re playing this sick game instead of treating me like the prisoner I am! Tell me why you care enough to stop me from freezing to death in the snow!”
In two strides, he closed the space between us. His hand gripped my chin, firm but not cruel, forcing me to meet his gaze. His eyes burned with something terrifying and beautiful, a depth I couldn’t name but felt in every nerve of my body.
“I don’t fucking care,” he growled, “but the idea of you dying out there makes me angrier than I can stand.”
His words hit me like a blow.
My breath hitched as his grip softened, his thumb brushed against my skin. It wasn’t tender, but it wasn’t cruel either. It was something in between like a contradiction that mirrored the storm in his eyes.
I stared at him, searching his face for any trace of a lie, but there was none. Only brutal, unrelenting truth.
“Why?” My voice was barely audible.
Judas released me, stepping back as if the distance was the only thing keeping him tethered. His hand dragged over his face, lingering on his jaw before he finally spoke.
“Because you’re the only thing that makes this godforsaken world feel alive.” His voice was so quiet, so raw, that the words felt like a confession he didn’t want to give.
We all had our prisons. The soul was healed by being with children, but what of the soul that finds solace only in its captor?
The irony made me want to laugh, to scream, to sob.
Tears slipped from my eyes, hot and unbidden, as I choked on the pain lodged in my throat.
He turned around. And I sensed his stiffened voice. “Get dressed and come down.”
The world blurred, his words drowning in my tears, but one truth remained: the cruelty wasn’t in his anger-it was in his honesty.