Page 20 of Dangerous Beginnings

There are so many questions I have, so many I want to ask. I don’t know how many questions I have to spare, so I need to think carefully about my questions. But I cannot help the next question that leaves me without any hesitation.

“Why am I here?” A deep sigh fills the room.

Diable

One thing about me? I won’t lie. Brutal truths, sharp and cutting, are all I know. I don’t waste words, but when I speak, my honesty lands with the weight of a fist.

“Because I can’t kill you.”

The words taste bitter even as they leave my mouth. She freezes, her lips parting, her breath catching in her throat. For once, she’s silent, caught between shock and fear. Her wide eyes snap up to meet mine, searching for meaning, for an explanation I won’t give her. Confusion clouds her gaze, but there’s something else too—an unwilling hope that I despise. I hate admitting it, even to myself. The truth disgusts me. I’ve never spared anyone. Not a single life. I’ve ended men twice her size without blinking. Women too. The world doesn’t care aboutfairness, and neither do I. I should have put a bullet in her and walked away like I’ve done a hundred times before. But I didn’t. Her very existence here is a problem. A liability. I can’t keep her unnoticed for long, not with the attention her presence is bound to draw. Yet, here I am, playing this twisted game, sitting across from her when I could be anywhere else. Doing anything else. Instead, I choose to stay and watch. To see how far she can fall. To measure how much I’ll enjoy dragging her down. I already know everything about her. Every detail of her life is filed away in my database, locked in one of our black files. I don’t need to ask her questions—I have answers she doesn’t even know exist. This is all for her, a psychological puzzle she’s desperate to solve. A cruel game. But why am I playing? Why her? The question circles in my mind like smoke, and I brush it aside. I’ve never cared about thewhybefore. Why start now?

The silence stretches between us, taut as a wire. Seconds tick by before she speaks, her voice trembling but pushing through the fear.

“What…what did you give me? That night in the prison?”

Her question is inevitable, predictable. I don’t hesitate.

“Etorphine and chloroform.”

The words fall flat, clinical. I watch her face closely as the answer sinks in. A flicker of recognition crosses her features; she’s heard of at least one of those names. She knows I could have killed her. Probably wonders why I didn’t.

Her lips part again, a crack in her armor, and she asks the question I knew was coming. The one she can’t help but ask.

“Who are you?”

Her voice is barely a whisper, and I see it—a desperate glimmer of hope in her eyes, a fragile plea for clarity in the chaos I’ve thrown her into.

I lean back slightly, my gaze steady, dark. I don’t answer right away, letting her squirm under the weight of the silence. Lettingher feel the void where answers should be. Because I know the truth, and she knows nothing. And that’s exactly how I want it.

Chapter 13

To Dare is to Do

Diable

“Who do you think I am, Isabella?”

The flicker of amusement in her eyes fades quickly, replaced by hesitation. She doesn’t answer immediately, her lashes fluttering as if the right words might materialize with enough effort. I lean back, watching her squirm. Intrigued. Curious. Does she know who I am? Does she understand the storm she’s caught herself in?

“Answer me, Isabella,” I demand, my voice cool but weighted.

She hesitates too long. Seconds stretch, testing my patience. I thrive on control, yet she tests it effortlessly, her silence grating against the thin thread of composure I’m clinging to.

Her gaze finally snaps to mine. “A kidnapper at least,” she sneers, the bratty tone laced with rebellion. I can’t help the chuckle that escapes me, low and humorless, because her audacity both irritates and amuses me. She doesn’t stop there—of course, she doesn’t. “I don’t know, a sadistic man who thrives on other people’s pain, so he doesn’t have to attend to his own.”

The words hit harder than she intended. My jaw clenches as I lean forward, closer to her, so close I can see every line of tension on her pale face. Her green eyes stay locked on mine, unblinking, defiant, as if she thinks she has a weapon in this fight.

She doesn’t.

I study her, taking in her disheveled red hair and the fire burning in her gaze. That fire might be the last thing she clings to before I snuff it out. I reach out, my inked fingers tangling in her hair, pulling it sharply so her head jerks back, exposing her neckto me. She hisses in pain, and for a moment, I savor the sound.

“Stop trying to humanize me,” I growl, my voice low and laced with warning. “That doesn’t work on people like me, solnyshko.” I tighten my grip, forcing her to arch further, making sure she understands just how powerless she is.

“Sorry! Sorry!” she cries out, her voice high-pitched and frantic. Her hands claw weakly at my wrist, a pathetic attempt to free herself.

Her cries should please me, but instead, they frustrate me. She doesn’t understand who she’s dealing with—not really. My hand itches to teach her, to make her understand, but I catch myself. Not yet. My free hand lifts, hovering in the air, a threat hanging heavy between us.

She flinches. It’s instinctual, the kind of reflex you don’t fake, and something in the way her body curls in on itself stops me cold. This isn’t the first time she’s braced for a hit, the first time someone has left their mark on her.

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