POV: Ella
Morning in Kaiden Wolf's penthouse greeted me with a silence far more terrifying than any scream. The New York sun filtered through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating every speck of dust in this sterile, expensive tomb. I stood in the middle of the living room, feeling like an insect trapped between layers of costly glass.
Kaiden was gone. He had left early, leaving neither a note nor an explanation—only the lingering sense of his presence, hanging in the air like a heavy scent of cologne and power.
I approached the massive front door. My fingers brushed the sleek surface of the digital lock. A red light flickered, demanding a fingerprint or a code I didn't possess. I rushed to the other exit, then to the elevator—it was the same everywhere. A glass cage.
"You can't just keep me here," I whispered into the void, my own voice sounding foreign to my ears.
I could have broken a window. I could have screamed from the terrace. But every step I took was held back by a single thought: Thomas. My father. Kaiden had made it perfectly clear—if I disappeared, if I even attempted to break this contract, Thomas's debts would return to him in an instant. And this time, he wouldn't just be put behind bars. He would be destroyed. The people he owed knew no mercy. Kaiden hadn't just bought my body; he had bought the life of the only person I had left.
Driven by helplessness, I began to wander the corridors that seemed endless. I pushed at every door, hoping to find at least a landline or a laptop. Most rooms were unlocked—guest bedrooms, a home theater, a gym. But at the very end of the right wing, I stumbled upon a dark oak door.
Unlike the rest of the interior, there were no sensors here. Only a massive gilded handle and a real keyhole. The study.
My heart hammered in my throat. If there were answers to my questions about the woman in the photo and the true reasons for my "purchase," they were in there. I pressed the handle—locked. I pressed my ear to the wood, trying to catch even a faint sound, and at that moment, a voice rang out behind me, turning my blood to ice.
"Looking for a way out, or just too curious for your own good, Ella?"
I spun around. Kaiden stood two paces away. His jacket was off, the top buttons of his shirt undone, and his sleeves rolled up to reveal powerful forearms. He looked livid, but it wasn't the kind of rage that broke dishes. It was the wrath of a predator whose territory had been breached.
"I... I was just looking for a phone," I lied, struggling to steady my breathing.
He didn't say a word. He simply moved toward me. I wanted to retreat, but the study door was at my back. Kaiden closed in until I felt that unbearable heat radiating from him again. He braced his hands against the door on either side of my head, pinning me in place.
"A phone?" he repeated, leaning down so low his breath scorched my cheek. "Or are you looking for things you aren't meant to see? Was yesterday's truth not enough for you? Do you want to dig through my past until I turn yours inside out?"
"You're holding me here by force! I have a right to know what's happening!" I exclaimed, bracing my palms against his hard chest.
His eyes darkened, turning into two swirling pools of molten gold. The fury in him mingled with something else—something far more dangerous.
"Rights?" he rasped. "You have no rights here, except the ones I grant you. You're poking your nose into my secrets without realizing they could incinerate you."
Suddenly, he seized my wrists and pinned them to the oak door above my head. His body pressed into mine, leaving not a single millimeter of space between us. I felt every muscle in his legs, the strength of his torso, and the frantic thrumming of his heart.
"You're so brave when I'm away," he whispered, staring directly at my lips. "But right now, you're trembling. Why, Ella? Are you afraid of me... or of what I'll do to you for your disobedience?"
I wanted to snap back, to hurl another accusation at his face, but he gave me no chance. Kaiden smothered my lips with his.
It wasn't a kiss of tenderness. It was an assault. It was a punishing, raw kiss, fueled by possessiveness and rage. His tongue demanded entry, and when I involuntarily parted my lips to catch my breath, he claimed my mouth entirely.
I tasted his anger and the hint of expensive whiskey that still lingered on his breath. He kissed me as if he wanted to tear all my questions away and replace them with himself. My hands were pinned, my body was entirely at his mercy, and the most terrifying part was that I began to respond.
I hated him for every minute of humiliation, for buying me like an object, but now my body was betraying me. It answered his roughness with a hot pulse in my lower belly. I closed my eyes, my head spinning.
Kaiden released my wrists, but only so his hands could roam freely over my body. One hand tangled in my hair, pulling my head back to make the kiss deeper, more merciless. The other hand clamped firmly around my waist, pulling my hips flush against his hardened frame.
I felt his reaction—the firm, unmistakable presence of his desire beneath the expensive fabric of his trousers. It made my knees buckle. I would have fallen if he weren't holding me so tightly.
He breathed heavily against my lips, breaking the kiss for only a second to inhale the scent of my skin. His teeth nipped my lower lip, forcing a sharp moan from me that he immediately swallowed with another kiss. In that moment, he was losing control—the perfect Kaiden Wolf, who always held everything together, now seemed on the verge of madness.
His hands slid lower, bunching up the hem of my light dress, and I felt his searing skin against my thighs. I was certain he would take me right there, against the door of his cursed study. I was ready to surrender, ready to dissolve in this flame, because fighting him was beyond my strength.
But suddenly, he froze.
Kaiden tore his lips from mine as abruptly as he had started. He took a step back, breathing heavily, his eyes clouded with passion, but that same icy calculation was already bleeding back into them. He straightened his shirt, looking at me as if I were his greatest sin.
I stood against the door, disheveled, my lips burning and swollen, trying not to collapse onto the floor from my own weakness. My skin still stung where he had touched it.
"You're quite the actress, Ella," he said, his voice cold once more, though the rasp still remained. "Or perhaps you're just as transactional as your mother was? Did you think that if you gave me what I wanted, I'd hand over the keys?"
The words cut deeper than a slap. I wanted to say something, but he silenced me with a sharp gesture.
"Your father gave you to me to save his own skin. He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew who he was handing you to. Don't make me think he did me a favor by dropping off such an interesting toy—one who knows how to kiss so sweetly."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key—a real, metal key—and pointedly turned it in the lock of the study, securing it further. He slipped the key back into his pocket and looked me dead in the eye.
"You'd better learn to be obedient, Princess. Because the next time I lose control, I won't stop. And you... you won't want me to stop."
He turned and walked away down the corridor, leaving me alone in the silence. I touched my lips—they were still throbbing from his kiss. Inside, everything screamed with hatred for him and for myself.
"Your father gave you up to save his own skin."