Page 67 of Captive Ruin

Empty. It’s fucking empty.

I know I left it loaded. I know I did.

“That’s earned you a punishment for later,” he says, turning back to the food on the counter.

I open the dresser drawer, taking out the box of 9mm rounds. It’s empty.

“Where the hell did you put my bullets?”

“Don’t worry about it. Get in the bath. Go and relax.”

“Relax?” I echo, my voice high and tight. He’s insane. He’s absolutely fucking insane. “You want me to… how the hell do you… Relax?”

“Yes. Do that. This wine isn’t quite cold. Would you like an ice cube?”

“An ice cube?” I can only stare in disbelief at his broad back, that damn shirt stretching across his shoulders. He’s not even looking at me.

“Yes. You can’t drink a Sauvignon that isn’t chilled.”

“No, of course not,” I say scathingly, like we’re in some upscale restaurant somewhere and he’s the fucking sommelier. Not a man who has, yet again, invaded my home without consent, and is in the process of cooking me dinner.

I don’t understand what’s happened to my life. This is past surreal. This is… a nightmarish hallucination. It has to be.

He’s chopping an onion so damn fast that the knife makes a sharp staccato on the board. Is he a chef? Is that why he knows his way around knives?

No… he’s security.

“Are you still there, Amelia?” he asks without looking around. “If I don’t hear that bath running in ten seconds, then I’ll have to assume you want me to do it for you. Then dinner will be delayed.”

I swallow hard. He threatened to cuff me to the taps and wash me himself. I know him well enough to know that’s exactly what he’ll do. He doesn’t say things without follow-through.

The one promise he’s made that he hasn’t kept was keeping Serranto away. And now there’s a severed finger in the dumpster halfway down the alley behind my gallery.

“Five seconds,” he prompts.

“I’ll take a bath,” I reply, my chin up even though he can’t see. “But I’m doing it because I want to, not because you’ve asked so nicely.”

I glare at his back even as I walk through into my bathroom, turning on the taps and scowling at the mirror.

At least I’m alone in here.

That man. He has to be the most aggravating creature I’ve ever met. How does he get off, ordering me around in my own damn apartment? Walking in here—being in here before I’ve even gotten home. How does he do that?

Premium-grade locks my ass. Five hundred bucks I’ll never see again.

I dump half a bottle of bath foam in the water, the bubbles rising up like a jasmine-scented volcanic eruption. There’s no lock on the door. He’s going to walk in here with a glass of Sauvignon, and I’m going to be covered even if it’s with suds.

Stripping off my clothes, I climb in with a sigh. The hot water is a comfort I need after the day I’ve had. If Van Wyk wasn’t in my apartment, I’d take a book in here and probably fall asleep. It’s soothing, but I can’t relax, not with him in my apartment.

I’m too angry, anyway. How dare that man?

The door opens without warning of his footsteps, he moves so silently. There’s a glass of wine in his hand, a single cube of ice floating within.

“Can I get you anything else?” he asks as he sets it down on the shelf beside the bath.

“Some alone time for the next… fifty years.”

“Cute.” He reaches over and boops my nose, so damn fast that I jerk away only after he’s done it. “Dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes, unless you’d like longer?”