Page 19 of Take Me Darkly

Zeke held my stare, his dark eyes reading the unyielding wall in my mind. “If this escalates⁠—”

“No. Feds,” I repeated, every word dragged through shattered glass. “We use our own intelligence. Our own operative channels. If we need muscle, we hire the best money can buy. But no government badges.”

Zeke stared at me for a long, agonizing beat. He knew the origin of my dark scars better than anyone. He understood what I was protecting, and what I was willing to burn to keep it buried.

Slowly, he gave a single, resolute nod. “Your call, boss. We run it dark. Off the books.”

Chapter Six

Serena

* * *

After Zeke left, the apartment felt suffocatingly quiet. The leather portfolio was gone, but the horrific photographs and damning documents he’d spread across the table remained burned into the back of my eyelids. None of it felt real. It was like standing in the epicenter of an avalanche, watching my entire life be swept away in slow motion.

I wrapped my arms tight around my ribs despite the perfectly controlled climate provided by Anton’s luxury apartment. My shoulder throbbed with a dull, persistent ache—a sharp reminder of the bullet that had nearly taken my life. I had corticosteroids in the medicine cabinet for the inflammation, but I avoided them because they made me nauseous. I could have used the ice packs, but they sat melting on the kitchen counter. I was too restless to sit still, and too mentally battered to care about physical pain. In a strange, twisted way, the biting pain anchored me. It was one of the few tangible things proving I was still alive.

Behind me, Anton approached. His measured, heavy footsteps were a testament to the man he was—unshakeable, lethal, and perpetually in control even when the world was falling apart.

“You should sit down, Serena,” he said quietly, his low baritone vibrating through the stillness. “Let me hold the ice to your shoulder.”

I didn’t turn around immediately. Instead, I pressed my forehead against the cool glass, staring out through a blur of unshed tears. Everything Zeke had just laid bare crashed over me in violent waves—my father’s slow, deliberate murder, Cade’s insidious betrayal, my mother’s fiery death, an international cartel, and a web of corruption that had systematically dismantled my family.

“Serena.” Anton’s voice was closer now, gentle but insistent. “Princess, please.”

Princess.

The endearment should have grated on me. It should have felt possessive or patronizing. Instead, it acted as a lifeline, cutting through the dark current of my grief and reminding me that despite everything I’d lost, I wasn’t entirely alone.

I turned slowly to face him. He stood a few feet away, carrying fresh ice packs wrapped neatly in clean linen towels. His dark, onyx eyes were pinned on me with an intensity that stole the air right out of my lungs. There was concern written across his sharp features, but beneath it burned something far darker—a fierce, unyielding possessiveness. It was as if learning the full extent of the danger I was in had only hardened his resolve to claim me, protect me, and destroy anyone who dared touch me.

“Come here,” he commanded gently, gesturing toward the plush velvet sofa. “Sit.”

I moved on autopilot, my body heavy with bone-deep exhaustion. The sheer emotional violence of the morning had left me completely drained.

Anton sank onto the cushion beside me, his movements fluid and deliberate. “Let me see the shoulder.”

I shifted the neckline of my oversized shirt, exposing the pristine white bandage beneath. His long, calloused fingers were impossibly gentle as he positioned the ice pack against my skin. The contrast of his heat against the biting cold made me suck in a sharp breath.

“Too cold?” he murmured.

“No. It’s good.”

He adjusted the towel, his free hand settling on my uninjured shoulder, his thumb stroking a slow, reassuring line across my collarbone. We sat in silence as the quiet settled over the room like a heavy velvet blanket, offering a brief, fragile respite from the storm outside.

My mind drifted back to the beginning—to the glittering, surreal night at the Met Gala where I had first laid eyes on Anton Romano. It felt like an eternity ago. I had been a completely different woman then—an ambitious archaeologist consumed by research grants, permit approvals, and the anxiety of walking a high-society red carpet in a borrowed designer dress. That version of Serena had struck a brazen deal with a devil in a bespoke suit: thirty days of my life in exchange for his millions.

At the time, it had seemed purely transactional. Cold logic. He wanted my “mind and body,” as he had so arrogantly declared, and I desperately needed his funding. It was a contract I never would have entertained under normal circumstances.

But somewhere between that night and this moment, everything had shifted.

The agreement that had felt so temporary now seemed impossibly distant, as if it had been written for two different people. The woman sitting here today—bleeding, grieving, and hunted by a shadowy crime syndicate—wasn’t the naive scholar who’d signed on for thirty days.

And Anton... God, help me. Anton.

My heart fluttered just looking at him. He was nothing like the polished, ruthless billionaire I had braced myself for. He was domineering, relentless, and unyielding, making decisions about my life without asking and guarding secrets he had no right to keep.

Yet, he had opened up his dark sanctuary to me, letting me see the empire built on the bones of his painful past. He had trusted me with his secret, even if the deepest scars remained hidden behind his impenetrable armor. Most importantly, he had saved my life. He had dragged me out of the abyss, giving me the space to mourn while stubbornly refusing to let me drown in my own sorrow.