: Chapter 8

I should be terrified, but it isn’t like it was before. The last time he came for me, I practically ran from the shadows, waiting for him to make his move.

But this time… I can’t even explain it. The moment I saw him at the bar, standing with his bottle of whiskey, I should have felt terror claw up my spine. But instead, something inside me exhaled.

Relief.

As if I needed further proof that I’m fucking losing my mind.

For months, I’ve been running. Forging new names. Slipping through cracks. Changing disguises and burning bridges before they could even be crossed, and it’s exhausting. Always having to look over my shoulder. Never feeling at ease. Never knowing if the next breath is my last—somewhere along the way, it wore me down.

Maybe I got sloppy.

Maybe I did it on purpose.

And now he’s here, Matvei Kopolov.

Yeah. I’ve done my homework.

I outplayed him once before, but he swore he would make me pay.

I’ve thought of him every fucking night since I escaped. I remember the way he looked. The way it felt under the heat of his intense glare. I remember staring at the marks of ink that showed him to be Bratva.

He looks even more raw now, like he just spent six months subsisting on a diet of pure vengeance. He still has an aura of quiet, controlled rage. But there’s something else—I don’t know.

I clench my fists.

I knew he was here. It wasn’t a phantom that stocked my shelves with food.

The bar is still full of people. I could try to slip out the back, but he’ll find me.

And I am so tired of running. So fucking tired.

Even if I escaped him, what next?

He’ll find me.

I have to play along for now.

I’m done trying to pretend that I won’t have to face what I’ve done.

I’ve never been weak, and I won’t cave now.

Even when I escaped him, I did so on my terms. I don’t know what he’s going to do with me, but I know this—I’m not getting away a second time.

So I don’t fight. Maybe he wants me to. Maybe he wants me to kick and scream or force me into submission. Perhaps he wants me to realize there’s no escape.

I know this: He gets off on my fear, so I won’t give him the satisfaction. Instead, he just tells me to clear the bar.

Of course he does.

I reason with myself… if he were going to kill me, I’d be dead by now. Instead, he meets my eyes…and winks.

Winks.

“Bar’s closed,” I say out loud with finality. I try unsuccessfully to hide the tremor in my voice because I know shit all about what he’s up to next.

I shut off the taps and fold my bar top—indications that I’m done. “Everyone has to go home for the night.”

Some businessman with a briefcase and half a glass of whiskey still in front of him shakes his head. “You don’t close till ten,” he snarls at me.

“We close when she fucking tells you we do,” Matvei snaps. “Get the fuck out of here before I make you.”

I stare at him.

I was never free. I was just delaying the inevitable.

But I am not surrendering. I’m not breaking. I’m choosing—to take whatever consequences come, even if he kills me.

“You heard her.” Matvei goes over to the door, opens it, and escorts everybody else out. “Out.”

“I’ll sweep the bathroom,” he says in a low growl.

I nod and swallow hard like we have some sort of fucked-up agreement to work together.

God.

I gasp when I spin around and find him right there, so close I can feel the heat of his body next to mine. He grabs my wrists, holding me in place as if waiting for me to struggle—but I won’t.

I hold his gaze. “This is where you tell me some kind of bullshit about you taking care of what’s yours? How you’re going to punish me for what I did? Go ahead, Mr. Cliché. It’s your turn. But I promise you’re not going to get a chance to break me.” I smile and cock my head. “Kinda missed you.”

His grip tightens as if in warning. I just smirk at him, but he’s got a glint in his eyes that looks familiar. Comfortable.

He’s close now. Too close. The air between us is charged with electricity, but I won’t flinch. I won’t shrink back. That’s what he wants—to gain the upper hand, to punish me for escaping him the first time.

But the way he looks at me—his eyes fiery, his grip firm, his nearness making me shiver. Hatred coils between us. But there’s something else, too, something I can’t put my finger on.

Something darker.

He leans in, his fingers brushing my chin, forcing me to look up at him. “You’re more beautiful than I remembered, solnyshka.”

Sunshine. He calls me sunshine.

Awww.

I smile. “It’s because I ran, isn’t it? You are a kinky motherfucker.” I lower my voice and eyelids. “Got a primal kink, big guy?”

He steps closer, the wicked smirk confirmation.

Well, damn.

He does.

I can’t move. There’s nowhere to go when the walls are closing in.

No. He’s closing in, his presence suffocating. And as the silence stretches between us, it’s like he savors it.

“Finders keepers,” he croons. “There are no cages to shove me in this time.”

“Shame,” I say with a shake of my head. “A face like yours really does belong behind bars.”

The door slams shut, the heavy lock clicking into place. My stomach twists. The bar’s empty—no backup, no witnesses. Just me and my hot, furious, wicked stalker. Matvei.

“Matvei Kopolov,” I say by way of greeting, but I quickly stutter to silence when his hands find his belt buckle.

Uh-oh.

It clinks as he leans back against the bar, lazy and predatory, like he has all the time in the world to decide what to do with me—even as his fingers unfasten the buckle and tug the leather through the loops.

My pulse beats too fast in my throat. I’ve faced killers, survived interrogations, and outwitted men smarter than him—but none of them ever looked at me like this. Like they wanted to ruin me, own me, and devour me all in the same breath.

“I’ll give you ten seconds to run,” he says softly, eyes glinting.

I shake my head. “I don’t want to.”

“Now you decide to stay? Ha. Go. It wasn’t a request,” he says. “Ten. Nine.”

His voice drops deeper. So he wants to chase me first. Chasing me through the streets of Paris wasn’t enough? No. I’m not going to play that game. Plus, I know there’s nowhere to run in here. It’s a stupid fucking bar in Paris—you have to pull down a rope just to get to the basement, and they stock the damn liquor bottles outside in an alley so narrow he couldn’t even fit his left arm in it.

“Eight, seven⁠—”

When he gets to three, I decide—what the hell.

Too little, too late. I know I won’t get far because—fuck me—I don’t want to.

I turn around, and the second my feet move, he says, in a rush of words, all in one breath, “Three, two, one.”

Holy shit.

He grabs me by the hair, yanking me forward and tossing me across the bar. My hands go flat on the glossy top, scrabbling for purchase where there is none.

“What’s your plan, solnyshka?” I taunt, the word twisting my mouth, mocking his affectionate term. “You gonna beat me into submission?”

I feel the slow stretch of his smile across those beautiful lips when I look over my shoulder.

“No, beautiful. I’m going to whip your ass raw for your first punishment. Because you’re as fucking kinky as I am, and it’s gonna make you wet. Because I don’t just want you, Anissa. I own you. I want my cum dripping from your hot, wet, needy cunt.”

Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

I blow out a breath, dizzy and a little nauseous. I wasn’t expecting that.

I can hardly hear my own words from the blood pounding in my ears. “You’re such a gentleman. Tell me how you really feel.”

My hips hit the bar, and I twist, trying to break his grip—but his hand is already in my hair, shoving my face down on the surface. My cheek scrapes against the wood, my breath catching—and I am so fucking wet. Not one goddamn porn scene I’ve watched in years has made me this wet.

Fuck. Fuck.

I can’t see him, but I can feel him—his heat pressed close, his breath skimming the back of my neck. That breath I’ve heard in my dreams, for whatever fucking reason he gave me.

“Let me go,” I snarl, but it’s half-hearted. Part of the game. I have to push back so he pushes with me. I elbow him and connect with skin—he lets out a surprised little grunt—before the belt loops over my wrists.

“Naughty, naughty,” he chides, shaking his head at me.

“Aww. You’re not as predictable as I thought. I really thought you’d whip me with that first, with all your big-guy talk of punishment and all.”

I’m wet at the very thought. God, I love a fucking belting.

As if answering a prayer, his hand slaps against my skin hard. Welting.

I gasp, hating how wet I already am, how my pulse pounds between my legs.

I feel the loss of his heat at my back and crane my neck to see him bent over the pool table. When he prowls back toward me, he has a long pool stick in his thick hands, his predatory gaze pinning me in place. In one swift move, he snaps the stick in half over his knee. The sound alone makes my stomach drop—and my pussy clench.

Oh no.

He grabs my neck, pushes my face onto the gleaming bar top, and slaps the thin part of the stick across my ass. Even over my clothes, it stings like hell.

The second slap lands.

The third.

The thin end of the pool stick whips across my ass, sharp and merciless, and I let out a scream. I try to wriggle away, but he pushes one broad arm across my back and holds me in place, his grip like iron. The next lash whistles through the air before it hits so hard the sting makes me see white. My hips crashing into the bar, a startled yelp escaping my lips.

I hate him. I hate myself even more—because I fucking want this.

“You know you deserve to be punished,” he says, his voice dark silk. “You broke a promise. You played games. You thought you could get away with this, didn’t you?”

The next strike lands right where my ass meets my thighs. My knees buckle—and my panties are fucking soaked.

“You thought you could get away from me, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did,” I snap, my voice ragged. “You fucking sadist.”

His low, dark chuckle makes my nipples hard. My thighs tremble, my face burns, and I’m desperate for friction between my legs. The need claws at me, tinted with shame.

I should be afraid—but what I’m really afraid of is that he’ll tie me to this bar and leave me.

I expect him to stop, to pull back.

“Good girl,” he murmurs in my ear, dragging the thicker end of the stick down my spine. He slides it on the bar as he reaches for my leggings and rips them down. “Give me that wet cunt. Give me my wet cunt so I can fuck it. Own you. Mark you.”

He kicks my legs apart with one booted foot, and the sheer force of it—the casual ownership of it—makes me shudder. I’m scared, I’m shaking, and I’ve never wanted anything so badly in my fucking life.

He doesn’t tease. Doesn’t ease me into it. The pool sticks in Paris are thinner than other ones, but still—this thing isn’t—is he—no.

The glossy, thick end of the pool stick presses against my dripping heat, forcing my body to stretch around the unyielding wood. I gasp, half pain, half pleasure. The wood scrapes just enough to remind me that this isn’t gentle. This isn’t romantic.

This is punishment.