Page 15 of The Boss
By the time the bell chimed, she felt as if she’d already survived awar.
They were ten steps from the conference room when Leif’s quiet voice threaded through the air and he dropped names like warnings. “Gallo and Ruiz,” he said, clipped. “Two men who test a new chief by probing his edges. One laughs while he watches you bleed.”
Mariah forced a smile. “What are they testing for?” she asked.
“Strength and patience,” Leif answered without looking at her. “Eyes for weakness. Hands that can be bought.” He paused then, as if weighing how much to tell her. “Watch the man on the left. He smiles with knives.”
They slowed to a halt, almost unconsciously, the corridor narrowing as if it were a stage that had been set forthem.
“Keep your head down and your mouth closed until I tell you otherwise,” Leif continued, voice flat. There was a dry note to it she couldn’t place. She opened to answer—then the world exploded.
The blast split the air into shards of fire and thunder. The doors blew outward, glass shattering into a rain of knives. Aroar of flame and pressure punched her backward. She screamed, but the sound was swallowed by smoke and the mass that slammed into her, hard and solid and alive.
Leif. He drove her down, his body covering hers with brutal finality. The floor slammed against her back, his arms bracingaround her head, his chest sealing her against him. Glass rained down. Heat surged past. The breath crushed from her lungs, but all she knew was the heft of him, the scent of destruction and his cologne, the sound of his heart hammering against herribs.
For a stupid, sharp moment Mariah thought—if we’d been on time, if we hadn’t paused to talk—
She could taste copper in the air, acrid smoke filling her throat. Somewhere beyond the haze came the sharp screams of twisting metal and the thud of falling beams. And yet her entire world had shrunk to the cage of his body around hers. She hated herself for how safe it madeher feel.
Shouts. Boots pounding. The whine of tortured steel. She blinked against the haze, ears ringing, vision fragmented. Overhead, light fixtures blinked madly, shadows cutting across the walls. Her hands had fisted in his jacket without her knowing, nails biting into his skin. His blood smeared her fingers where glass had cut him. Her own dress hung, torn, fabric sliced by shards. But nothing mattered. Not while he was pressed to her, anchoring her in chaos.
“Stay down.” His voice at her ear was a command carved from steel.
She couldn’t have moved if she wanted to. The Brand roared inside her, flooding every nerve until she couldn’t tell where terror ended and desire began. He was heat and might and possession all at once, and she wanted to fight it even as she curled tighter beneathhim.
Guards stormed the corridor. Magnus was first, towering and sharp-eyed, weapon already raised. He scanned them, his mouth hard. “You’re hit?”
“Cuts,” Leif answered, low, controlled. He pushed himself upright, dragging Mariah up with him, his grip fierce around her wrist. “Nothing more.”
Magnus’s gaze flicked to her, his eyes narrowing as they swept over the blood on her dress, the shards still clinging to her skin, the way Leif held her too close. Suspicion gleamed there, cold and unforgiving, and when he finally spoke his voice carried unmistakable judgment. “She’s the variable.”
The words cut deeper than the glass. Mariah froze. Her lungs burned, the accusation sliding under her skin like poison. She wanted to deny it, wanted to scream she had nothing to do with this, but her voice locked in her throat. Every scarlet streak of blood on her dress suddenly seemed like proof of guilt. Her mind raced, how easy it would be for them to believe she was the weakness, the infiltrator, the cause of the blast. Leif’s hand held her, the single barrier between her and Magnus’s suspicion. Outrage and fury tangled in her chest, and her pulse hammered so loudly she thought the whole hall must hearit.
“She’s with me.” Leif’s voice cracked like thunder. No room for doubt, no space for challenge. He drew Mariah closer, his body angled between her and Magnus as if he’d cut down anyone who took a single step toward her. His stare pinned his brother in place. “You question her, you question me. And I don’t repeat myself.”
Magnus stiffened, but stepped back. His silence said enough. The guards around him shifted uneasily, every one of them recognizing the danger in Leif’stone.
Mariah’s heart pounded so violently she thought she might be sick. Claimed. Defended. Not as an employee or an assistant, but as something far more dangerous. The public strength of his words wrapped around her like chains, unbreakable andinescapable. She should have resisted, thrown the words off, but heat coursed through her veins, adark thrill she couldn’t deny. Every man in that hallway had seen it too, had seen the way Leif had pulled her close and spoken as if she were his. Her stomach twisted with a rush that left her both unsettled and unbearably alive under the press of his claim.
Smoke thickened. Survivors stumbled away from the wreckage—men in suits with cuts, pale, coughing. They’d been lucky. If she and Leif hadn’t been late… Mariah shoved the thought away, nausea curling in her stomach.
Leif hauled her back into the elevator. Guards crowded in, weapons at the ready, but his presence made them seem like shadows. His palm was iron around her wrist, hot and steady, the Brand burning through both ofthem.
The lift carried them up in tense silence until the doors opened into a hushed private hallway, wide enough for security to fan out and take position. Two men moved ahead, checking angles, while Magnus stationed himself by the stairwell. Only then did Leif guide Mariah forward, past the line of guards, and toward the heavy double doors that opened into his penthouse.
The penthouse doors closed behind them, sealing them in privacy. Silence fell, broken only by the hiss of ventilation and the distant wail of sirens below. He let her go then, finally, and the absence was agony.
She staggered into the living area, shocked awareness dawning as the adrenaline ebbed, leaving room for the cold bite of shock to settle in. The space opened wide around her—high ceilings, glass walls framing the skyline, polished stone gleaming under soft recessed lights. It was a world removed from the chaos below, too calm, too pristine.
Her knees trembled. Blood streaked her arm, warm against her skin. Ashard cut deep across her unBranded palm, searing. She braced herself against the edge of a massive marble-topped bar that divided the room, her uninjured hand pressed hard to its cold surface, grounding herself against the unreality of itall.
Leif moved like a storm contained in flesh, stripping off his ruined jacket, tossing it aside. His shirt was torn, blood at the collar, and still he looked like power incarnate.”Sit.”Her body obeyed before her mind caught up, sinking onto the sofa. His gaze swept over her for an instant before he spoke again. “Stay there. I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared deeper into the vast space, the sound of a cabinet opening and closing echoing faintly, before he returned with a first-aid kit. Dropping it on the end table, he crouched before her and seized her hand, palm up, blood gleaming.
“Glass.” His tone was clipped. Without waiting for her answer, he plucked a shard free. Pain flared, bright and brutal. She hissed, her chest heaving. His gaze flicked up, caught hers, and for a moment she swore he felt it too—the sting, the pull, the sharp intimacy of her pain in his hands. “Hold still.”
Every brush of his fingers set her nerves on fire. He cleaned the wound with merciless precision, his thumb steady against her pulse. Her breath stuttered and she stared at his face, cut and shadowed, the line of his jaw flecked with blood. Agash streaked his cheek. The sight of it twisted her chest.
