Page 109 of Stricken

Maybe that's why you're so easily broken. Why you keep submitting to me.

The reality hits, a sucker punch to the gut. This will never work anyway.

And perhaps… perhaps he is right. Perhaps we are nothing more than two people carried away in the trap of intimacy.

With that thought in mind, I drive back to Eclipse.

* * *

I slam on the brakes a little too hard as I pull into the Eclipse parking lot. My anger—seething force that threatens to consume all reason entirely—thrusts me forward. I storm through the lobby, jabbing the elevator button with a vengeance.

In my suite, I open the closet and yank out my gym bag. Clothes, toiletries, essentials—I toss them in haphazardly. There's this furious energy thrumming through my veins, making me do this, making me want to run away. Vlad's words continue to echo in my head, taunting me.

A fuck.

It that all we are?

Is that all I am to him?

After everything we've been through?

I zip the bag with a violent tug. Shouldering it, I cast one last glance around the room. The bed where we'd tangled together, the couch where we'd shared drinks and childhood stories. All tainted now, poisoned by Vlad's cruel dismissal.

I leave, slamming the door behind me. In the elevator, I grip the handrail, my reflection in the mirrored walls a stranger—all shadows and livid eyes. Vlad has unleashed something in me, an animal I barely recognize. And I don't know if I can cage it again.

Downstairs in the parking structure, I toss my bag into the back seat of my Maserati and peel out of the lot. I drive on instinct, that very instinct guiding me to the Regal Arms. The hotel that has no affiliation with the Russians. A property a friend out of LA owns.

At the front desk, I slap down my credit card. "I need a room."

The agent smiles up at me from behind her desk. "How many nights, sir?"

"A week," I bite out. "For now."

A loaded pause, then a nod. Transaction complete, I snatch the key card and stride to the elevators.

* * *

Light needles my eyes, stirring me awake the next morning. At first, I think, I had a nightmare and in that nightmare, Vlad and I had a nasty argument, but as I lift my eyelids and scan the space around me I see that I'm wrong.

Ceiling. Unfamiliar.

Sheets. Not my bed. Not the one I've been sleeping in recently.

Reality rushes in, chased by the gut-punch of memory. The fight was real. The words were too. He said them without blinking. As if all this was just a game of pretense for him.

I lie there, staring into nothing. My chest feels hollow. I hate it.

I don't know how much time passes before the buzzing of the phone finally punctures the fog in my head.

I glance at the device on the nightstand.

Vlad's name flashes at me from the screen.

I ignore it. Burrow deeper into the bedcovers.

Bzz. Bzz.

The insistent sound won't stop.

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