The scent of roses fills my nostrils. She doesn’t only smell like them, she feels like them, too. Beautiful, small, and able to be plucked away by any passer-by. They bloom fast and die just as fast.

Unlucky for her, this passer-by is none other than her worst nightmare.

A small sigh leaves her lips and I want to reach out to my guards, Kolya and Yan, and erase that sound from their heads. I don’t like that they can hear or see her like this.

Though I shouldn’t particularly care, something has changed. I don’t know whether it started when I saw her that night or after her performance today, or if the deal was sealed when she moaned in my mouth as I devoured her lips.

They’re red now, a bit bruised, a bit broken, just like her.

Lia Morelli is a lot more than what her file contains. The pictures in it show a petite woman with angelic features, but none of them display the haunting look in her blue eyes or the loneliness eating at her soul.

There’s a certain fractured quality about her, a wound she’s hiding away from watchful eyes. But she’s been blinded to the reality that untreated wounds decay and rot.

Taking advantage of people’s wounds is my specialty. Smashing them in is what I do best.

My parents’ son through and through.

However, I shouldn’t want to get involved with Lia. Could it be because we share a trait? Or because she’s hiding her broken nature with a fragile façade?

When I watched her dance, shining under the spotlight, I didn’t see her ethereal beauty or angelic face. I didn’t see her elegance or her perfect technique.

I saw darkness attempting to fester in light. I saw a person trying their hardest to escape who they truly are.

And that’s what led to a chain of consecutive events.

“Are you sure you want to go to her place, sir?” Kolya meets my gaze from the driver’s seat, speaking in Russian.

“Wouldn’t it be better to take her with us?” Yan agrees.

“And do what? Torture her?” I speak in the same language.

I stroke a stray strand out of her face and keep my fingers in her soft hair that’s the color of dark honey. She shivers as if feeling the impact of my words.

Yes, it would be easier to torture her, but that won’t get me the answers I need and it’s for a simple reason.

“She knows nothing,” I say to my guards.

Kolya lifts a shoulder. “She could be faking it.”

“She doesn’t have what it takes to fool me, so no.” I inhale her rose scent and recall how she tasted, a bit like fear but a lot like surrender.

Will she submit to me or will I have to…resort to other methods?

I glide my finger over her bruised lips and they part, allowing my thumb to nestle between them. Dark desire coils around my gut with a desperate need to have these same lips wrapped around my dick as I ram it inside her tight little mouth.

“Then what are you planning to do with her?” Kolya asks the million-dollar question.

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On her worth.”

Truth is, I should’ve used her by now, whether she knows or not doesn’t matter. However, a rebellious part of me wants to see where she’ll go.

How far she’ll go.

I have a feeling I’ll come to regret my decision either way, so I might as well indulge my curiosity first.

The car comes to a halt in the parking garage of Lia’s building.

Yan opens the door and I step out with Lia in my arms. She’s light, tiny, and too soft. Her head drops against my chest, arm falling lifelessly to the side.

“Get some rest,” I tell my men and stride to the elevator. I tap in the code for her floor and after we reach her apartment, I enter a few other digits until a beeping sound fills the hall.

There isn’t a code my hackers can’t get me. We’ve dealt with more hardcore situations than her fancy building.

An automatic light goes off in the entrance as soon as I step inside. I stand with her nestled into me. Her weight—or lack thereof—strikes me again. She’s feather-light, almost like a child’s, and sometimes, when she dances, it looks as if she has no bones, or as few as possible compared to normal people.

Holding her tight, I take note of her apartment. It’s spacious and has a direct view over the city with its glinting lights. The shining flooring is spotless and she has soft pink sofas.

Countless ballerinas’ pictures hang on the walls, but their faces are either shadowed or invisible.

My gaze searches every wall and every surface, but there are no pictures of her.

Not a single one.

Several awards are displayed on glass shelves, but there’s no trace of her face.

Hmm. This engraves a few theories in my mind. The most prominent of all is that she doesn’t like being trapped with herself.

It doesn’t take me long to find her bedroom. I place her on the bed and slide her coat down her arms. Her cheeks are flushed red and her lips are parted.

When I rid her of the coat, she mumbles something unintelligible in her sleep before her breathing evens out. I watch her for a beat before my gaze flits to the rest of the room. This one is spacious, too, even though the furniture is minimal.

Two pill bottles on her nightstand catch my attention. According to her medical reports, she takes sleeping pills and antidepressants. While her depression comes and goes on a whim, as she told her supervising psychotherapist, her insomnia is persistent.

What she paid a shitload of money to hide from her reports, however, is her consumption of something a lot stronger than her antidepressants.

My attention strays back to her. She sleeps completely still and in a straight position. Her feet are parallel and her arms are on either side of her.

This woman is still alive but already sleeps like the dead.

Her eyes move behind her lids and her lips and chin tremble. A pained moan slips from her mouth as she bunches both hands in the duvet on either side of her.

There.

The reason she paid money to erase her record and even resorted to morphine a few years back.

Her body arches off the bed at an uncomfortable-looking angle before she flops back in her earlier position. Her moans of pain escalate in volume, gaining a turbulent edge.

This is why she lives in a soundproof apartment.

Though I have every intention of watching her, I don’t think it adds anything to what I already know.

Usually, I want to experience what I’ve learned firsthand in order to have a better grasp of the situation, but her broken moans and tears don’t bring me the desired effect.