Page 95 of Santa Daddy
“You did this,” she said. Her voice shook, but the rage in it was clean. “You dragged me into your world, and now somebody wants to put a bullet in my skull for it.”
“Yes.” No point lying. “This is on me.”
I met her eyes. Let her see it.
“And that is why you do not leave apartment,” I went on, forcing my tone into the cold, flat register that made grown men shut up. “Not alone. Not to ‘walk.’ Not to play games with elevators. You do not step outside without full security detail, and even then I decide if risk is worth it. You do not move in building without me knowing.”
The air between us thickened. One step from blood. One step from breaking.
She pushed to her feet, book forgotten on the couch.
“You don’t own me!” she shouted. The sound cracked against glass and marble. “You don’t get to decide if I breathe.”
I picked up the crystal tumbler from the side table and threw it at the far wall.
Whiskey, glass, and money exploded together. Shards skittered across the marble, catching tree light like fake stars. The music system clicked off mid-carol.
“You think this is game?” I asked. My voice stayed quiet. Dead. “Someone sends you to me with crosshairs on head, and you are worried about… freedom?”
Her chin trembled, but she didn’t back up. “I’m worried about being a thing,” she spat. “A possession. An asset you move around a board.”
I walked toward her slowly. No rush. Letting each step register.
She retreated until the back of her shoulders met cold glass. The city sprawled beneath her. Snow, lights, traffic—a world that had no idea what was happening forty floors up.
I put my hands on the window, one on each side of her head, caging her in.
“You breathe right now because I allow it,” I said quietly. “You live in building because I decide not to send you back to that tree lot in a box. You fight me on this,kotyonok,I chain you to this penthouse until there is no mark on your head but mine.”
I meant it.
I would rather have her hate me and alive than happy and in the ground.
Her eyes went wide. The defiance in her shoulders sagged, just a little. Not surrender. Realization.
She wanted me to choose her.
Instead, I’d chosen the only thing I knew how to guarantee: control.
She nodded once. Short. Jerky.
“Fine,” she said. The word sounded like broken glass. “Jail me for my own good. Classic move.”
It hit harder than the tumbler had hit the wall.
I stepped back, putting a useless foot of space between us. My hands felt empty.
“Dinner will be brought up,” I said. The words tasted wrong. “Do not open the door for anyone but me.”
“Right,” she said. “Wouldn’t want to make it easy for the next guy with a scope.”
I almost told her I’d already doubled the men on this floor. That no one was getting past my security without losing pieces. That I’d put my own body between her and any bullet.
But that was my language. Walls and guns and threats.
It was not hers.
I walked out instead.
