Page 8 of Keeping Ruby

Well, fuck, I don’t know what I’d have done.

I fucking shouldn’t have taken her, though. Fuck Ilya and his fucking favor.

I’m a mess, and I’ve never been a mess in my life.

Gently, I stand with the object of my fixation, my obsession, in my arms. It’s not a hardship. She was tiny when she came to me. Now, she’s a fucking feather.

She doesn’t eat enough.

“You good?”

I look to my friend and right hand with a scowl that says if he tries to take her from me, I’ll fucking shoot him. And I will. In public, Dimitri plays my bodyguard. In reality, I don’t need a bodyguard. Being raised by Alexei Volkov, I’m more than equipped to protect myself.

But the CEO of Volk Vault Bank shouldn’t know how to fight like I do. My title is expected to employ a level of security I can’t refuse, and so I don’t.

I’m also not about hiring just anyone to play the part of my protector. Dimitri is my closest friend, a brother of choice. It’s his job to take a bullet for me, but I would take one for him by choice.

Dimitri chuckles, more than aware of the Volkov curse. Only a few months ago, I’d been laughing over drinks with Dimitri about the curse having snared Ilya. Now look at me. And look who’s laughing.

Fuck.

I’m done letting her spend her days in the cellar. I’m done letting her refuse her food, done letting her waste away.

And I’m fucking done letting her hold her silence when all I want is to hear her lovely voice. I want to see her ignite with passion. I want to taste her mouth and claim her body. I want to fuck the memory of the men she’s been with from her mind and body—replacing it with me, and only me.

The idea that she’s been with a man who isn’t me fills me with a kind of possessive rage I can’t explain. Can hardly contain. It hums below the surface of my flesh, ready to maim. But it won’t be hard, fucking them from her system. From my research, I’m more than aware the men she spent her time with were more like boys, in their early twenties, lacking the life experience one needs to truly know how to fuck a woman.

Still…

I enter the room she destroyed early in her stay with me—I’ve had it fixed—through the door that connects it to my own rooms. On the bed that has been draped in cream, like her skin, with pillows as vibrant and red as her hair, I lay her down.

I want to lay with her, but she’s been through enough for one night. She needs to rest.

And I need to figure out how the fuck I’m going to make her mine. Forever.

Whether she wants me or not is no matter to me.

I’m a Volkov, and in the end, we always take that which we desire.

I desire her.

Five

Ruby

It takes me a minute to recall the events that led to my spiral. Admittedly, I’m distracted by the pillow of softness that I’m lying on, cocooned in the warmth of a?—

I sit bolt upright in the bed. It’s not the bed I’ve come to know, in the cell I’ve come to think of as mine. These walls aren’t dank concrete, and there are no bars. The wet chill that stings my lungs with every breath doesn’t assault me now.

Fingers curling around thick, luxurious material, I sweep the room with my gaze. The familiarity tells me it’s the room I’d known as my first prison. The pretty prison I destroyed before I’d been introduced to the cell that would become my home.

It’s not as I recall leaving it, kicking and screaming in the angry arms of my captor. Then, the beautifully polished bedposts had been dented and chipped, the gauzy cream curtains that were tied to the posts in tatters on the floor. I’d smashed lamps, tossing them into the walls and watching through tear-blurred vision as prisms of glass rained onto the floor. The lovely antique desk had been flipped, and I’d managed to tear one artfully carved leg from its body, before I’d tried my hand at breaking the windows. They didn’t break, and that had scared me like nothing else.

What kind of windows don’t break?

That panic had fueled my attack on the doors. And that was when he’d barged in, looking like he might truly hurt me.

He'd taken me to my cell, where I’d remained until now.

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