Chapter 228
ROO POV
I stopped dead. My brain refused to reconcile the image in front of with everything I knew.
Katya was on her bed. She was laughing. Her legs kicking slightly against the mattress, like she didn’t have a care in the world.
Her bandaged head was tilted as she pressed a phone to her ear.
A phone?!
Where the fuck did she get that?
No one gave her a phone. I hadn’t authorized it. Nonna hadn’t ntioned it. Security sure as hell hadn’t logged it.
And she wasn’t just holding it. She was on a call. Who the fuck was she talking to?
How long had this been going on?
Who thought it was a good idea to let Katya Boris make private calls from inside my house?
My eyes narrowed, instincts flaring, I was about marching towards her when her eyes landed on .
"Mr Salvator?!" Katya eyes trailed from my exposed chest up to my exposed face.....FACE! I fucking froze. My face was exposed, I didn’t have my mask on. I didn’t think she would be awake.
Fuck she could see my scar, before I could breakdown the whole room lights went dark.
The lights cut out. For half a second, my brain stalled on the wrong detail.
What?
Not with panic nor fear but with precis calculation.Power failures didn’t happen in this house. Not accidentally. Not without alarms screaming and backup generators kicking in within a breath.
This wasn’t normal. My vision went useless instantly—true black, the kind that swallowed edges and depth. I couldn’t see a thing.
Attack?
The thought snapped into place. I wasn’t ard. My gun was in my room. My phone too. Everything that mattered, far away, stupidly out of reach.
I stood perfectly still, listening. Nothing. No footsteps. No shouts. No impact. No gunfire.
That was worse. My eyes adjusted just enough to catch movent—not detail, not shape. An outline.
Katya.
Still on the bed. My jaw tightened. If this was an attack, she was a liability. If it wasn’t—if this was internal—then soone had just cut power in the one room I hadn’t secured yet.
Either way, she wasn’t leaving this room. I moved silently toward the main door, every step asured.
I didn’t need sight for this. This was my house. I could walk these halls blind, drunk, bleeding—and still know exactly where everything was.
My hand found the handle. The lock slid ho with a muted click. Secured.
No one in. No one out.
Good.
I turned back imdiately, already moving toward the hidden passage. If this was an attack, I needed my gun.
If it wasn’t, I still needed it. But Katya—thoughts of her cut sharp through everything else.
A sharp sound cut through the dark. A fast amd uneven breath.
She was panicking. I paused for a fraction of a second longer than I should have.
Fuck. I couldn’t stay. Not unard. Not blind. Not like this.
I slipped into the passage, sealing it behind , and moved fast.
My room accepted like muscle mory—bed to the left, dresser three steps forward, safe behind the panel. I didn’t need light. My hands found the cold weight of steel instantly.
Gun. Magazine. Chamber checked. My pulse finally kicked up a notch.
What the fuck was happening? My hand went to the bedside table without hesitation.
I knew exactly where I’d left it. My fingers closed around my phone. I didn’t unlock it, just swiped, thumb snapping the flashlight on.
A thin beam cut through the dark, harsh and white. The room ca back in fragnts.
Bed. Sheets disturbed. The edge of the nightstand. And.....My mask.
Black, neatly placed where I’d dropped it earlier. My jaw clenched.
I hated the thing. Hated that I needed it. Hated that a burnt, ruined flesh over my eye had the power to turn into sothing people stared at instead of listened to.
Katya had already seen it. That thought burned. I grabbed the mask and pulled it on fast, fingers tight as I secured it into place.
The familiar pressure settled over my face, cold and impersonal, sealing the scar away from the world.
Good. I lifted the gun again, grip firm, phone angled just enough to guide my steps without broadcasting my position.
Breathing steady. Mind sharp.
I turned and moved back toward the hidden passage, every step silent, controlled. The house felt wrong but I didn’t slow.
Katya’s uneven breathing echoed in my head. She was still in that room. As soon as I slipped through the passage and erged into her room, gun raised, flashlight sweeping low and fast...the lights snapped back on.
Not gradually. Not flickering.
Instant. Blinding.
The sudden brightness burned my vision, sharp after the dark. I stilled, instincts flaring all over again.
Power restored.Which ant one thing. Soone had turned it off. And soone had just decided to turn it back on.
I blinked once, gun still raised on instinct, untill I saw her.....Katya.
She wasn’t on the bed anymore. She was on the floor.
Curled halfway on her side, one hand clutching her head, the other braced uselessly against the marble. Her body was shaking so hard the movent looked wrong—violent, uncontrolled.
Blood streaked down her temple, bright against pale skin. The grip on my gun tightened.
She must have fallen in the dark and she must had fallen hard.
My chest tightened sharply. "Katya." The na ca out rough, automatic. My voice ca out sharp with command threading through it.
I stepped forward without thinking, the gun lowering as my focus narrowed to her alone. She flinched like I’d struck her, jerking violently at the sound of my voice.
Too violently.
Her wild eyes flew open, unfocused as her head snapped up, breath tearing in and out of her chest.
She scrambled backward on instinct, heels dragging uselessly against the floor until her back which was definitely still healing slamd into the bedpost with a dull crack.
"Please—please—" The words tore out of her, broken, over lapping, slurred by panic. "I’m sorry. I won’t—I won’t do it again. Please don’t—don’t hurt ."
I stopped. Not because I chose to. Because sothing in that sound short-circuited .
This wasn’t fear of standing here with a gun. She hadn’t even looked at it. It seems she wasn’t even seeing the room. Or the lights. Or .
She was sowhere else. "Katya," I said again, slower, forcing my voice into sothing steady. "Look at ."
She shook her head violently, eyes clamping shut, apologies spilling out like a reflex she couldn’t stop. "I’m sorry... I’m sorry..."
My jaw clenched. Fuck. I didn’t know what to do with this. I wasn’t trained for this kind of damage.
I closed the distance in two steps. Not fast enough to scare her. Not slow enough to hesitate.
When she flinched again—bracing, waiting for sothing that wasn’t coming—my hand ca up without permission and caught her jaw. Firm. Controlled. Enough to stop the motion.
She went rigid instantly. Her body shook harder, breath tearing in short, panicked gasps. She was waiting for pain.
I didn’t pull away. Didn’t know why. Didn’t even care. "Katya." My voice dropped, sharper now, more command than comfort. "Hey. Stay with ."
She didn’t respond. Her mouth kept moving, apologies spilling out like she couldn’t hear herself.I hesitated.
A fraction of a second too long. Then leaned in. Not gently. Not softly.
I pressed my forehead to hers because it was the only thing I could think of that would stop the movent, stop her from slipping further away.
Solid contact. Grounding. Her shaking stuttered. Just slightly.
"Breathe," I said, low and asured. "No one’s touching you." Her breath hitched violently against my face.
I felt it, hot, uneven, real. My thumb brushed her temple without thinking. Wet. Blood.
My stomach twisted.
"Katya," I said again, closer now, firr. "Open your eyes." She resisted at first. Then her eyes flew open.
Confusion slamd into her expression first. Then recognition. She focused on like I was the only thing anchoring her to the room. Her breathing didn’t steady right away, but it slowed enough that she wasn’t spiraling anymore.
I didn’t move. Didn’t let go. Didn’t pull back. The mask was on. The scar hidden. One less thing to fracture her further.
"Good?" I muttered when I saw her actually see . Her body still trembled. Her head was bleeding. She was barely holding herself together.
And sohow, without aning to, I was the thing keeping her from falling apart.
††
Hi y’all, please and please check out my new book, thank you gatron93 for the tickets to the book. I hope you are enjoying it as much as I love writing it.
Btw, i wrote this Chapter so y’all would know where Roo was when Katya was panicking lol, don’t go thinking he left her.
Thanks for reading my book, I love y’all.
User Comments
0 comments from readers