Chapter 4
Elise's POV
"Why don't you leave him and come to me instead?"
Victor's voice was low and husky, his lips nearly brushing against the shell of my ear.
My back was pressed tight against the cold wall, his arms braced on either side of me, trapping me in the few inches of space between him and the stone surface.
The stairwell was dark, moonlight slanting in through the narrow window—just enough to illuminate half of his face in silhouette.
"What are you talking about?" I kept my voice low, trying to keep it steady.
"You know exactly what I'm talking about." He tilted his head slightly, his nose grazing my cheek. "You don't have to suffer humiliation at that man's side."
"Victor, we've only met once—"
I didn't finish.
Because from the corridor beyond, Liam's voice suddenly rang out.
"Elise?"
My blood turned to ice in an instant.
"Elise, where are you?" Footsteps approached, the sound of leather shoes clicking against marble flooring.
One step, then another, clear as drumbeats striking directly against my heart.
I tried to push Victor away, but his hand pressed against my waist, holding me utterly still.
"Shh."
His lips curved into a smile, and something I'd never seen before flickered in his eyes—not murderous intent, not mockery.
Malice.
Pure, undisguised, almost gleeful malice.
The footsteps drew closer.
Through the half-open door of the stairwell, I could see Liam's figure at the far end of the corridor. He was holding his phone, making a call as he walked in our direction.
"Damn it, where did she go..."
Less than twenty paces away.
Victor's fingers tightened.
Then—
His hand slid down from my waist.
Through the thin fabric of my dress, I felt his cool fingertips trace along the outside of my thigh, moving upward with a suffocating slowness.
My pupils dilated sharply.
"You're insane." I mouthed the words, my voice barely more than a breath.
Victor ignored me.
His gray-blue eyes stared straight into mine in the darkness, the curve of his mouth unchanged, even his breathing steady and controlled.
As if he were doing something perfectly ordinary.
Fifteen paces.
Liam's silhouette stretched long in the moonlight, his shadow falling across the corridor floor.
Ten paces.
Victor's fingers hooked the hem of my dress.
Every muscle in my body went taut as a bowstring, my heart hammering against my ribcage so violently I thought it might shatter bone. Adrenaline surged through my veins, my fingertips tingling, my eardrums buzzing—
Half of it was fear.
The other half, I didn't want to admit.
Five paces.
He lifted my skirt.
His fingertips made direct contact with the inside of my thigh.
Cool, calloused pads of his fingers.
I nearly cried out, biting down hard on the back of my own hand.
Liam's footsteps stopped just outside the door.
"Elise?" He peered tentatively into the stairwell.
I couldn't see him, but I could sense him there—separated by half a door, by the shadow at the corner of the wall, barely three meters between us.
And Victor's fingers were sliding across my leg with unhurried deliberation.
His expression showed no change whatsoever, as if he were simply leaning against the wall to rest, rather than running his fingers inch by inch along the inside of my thigh right under Liam's nose.
"Uncle?" Surprise colored Liam's voice. "What are you doing here?"
Liam's voice was very close, so close I knew he was just behind me.
Uncle?
The word struck my brain like a bullet. I looked at Victor, shocked and confused.
But Victor's voice had already resumed that polite, distant tone.
"Getting some air. Too noisy inside."
"Oh..." Liam paused. "Uncle, have you seen a girl in a white dress? About this tall—"
"No."
Victor answered too quickly, too decisively.
His fingertip pressed lightly between my legs, like a silent punctuation mark.
"She probably went to the restroom," he said.
"Right." Liam laughed self-deprecatingly. "Well, Uncle, I'll head back. We'll talk later."
"Mm."
The footsteps resumed, gradually fading away.
The corridor fell quiet again.
I felt as if I'd been pulled from underwater, gasping for breath, my legs trembling uncontrollably.
Victor withdrew his hand, glancing down at his own slender fingers.
Then he looked at me, that dangerous amusement still lingering in his gray-blue eyes.
"Your heart is racing," he said softly, his tone like someone appraising the completion of a work of art.
I stared at him hard, nails digging into my palms, furious and frightened yet unable to form a complete sentence.
He had merely been enjoying a game, but what he'd gambled with was my dignity.
Though he'd won.
Won effortlessly.
"What exactly do you want?" My voice shook.
Victor didn't answer.
He simply used the hand that had just touched me to gently smooth out the wrinkles I'd crushed into my skirt.
The movement was slow, careful, like someone tidying a little girl's soiled hem.
Then he released me and turned to face the corridor.
The corridor settled into quiet once more.
I emerged from behind the stairwell corner to see Victor still standing in place, facing toward the corridor.
His silhouette looked tall in the moonlight, his shoulders straight as a blade sheathed in its scabbard.
I walked out softly.
"Just now, you—"
"Shh."
He raised his hand again, signaling me to be quiet.
Then I heard another voice from the far end of the corridor.
It was Liam's voice, but more distant than before, as if he were on a phone call with someone.
"...Yeah, my uncle came back. Just got here, wearing all black, face as grim as ever... Don't know why he came back today, probably to celebrate Mom's birthday. But something feels off..."
The voice grew fainter and fainter, finally dissolving into the cacophony of the banquet hall.
I stood behind Victor, my mind racing.
Liam called him "uncle."
Liam said he worked "in the upper echelons of the Church."
I looked at the man before me in his black turtleneck and dark suit jacket.
Three days ago, in another building in this same city, he'd worn a white bathrobe, wiping down a gun, a corpse with a bullet hole through its brow at his feet.
And the uncle Liam spoke of was someone who worked for the Church, a rarely-seen elder who didn't often come home.
How could these two people possibly be the same person?
"What are you thinking about?"
Victor turned to look at me, moonlight illuminating his profile from the side.
"You..." I chose my words carefully. "You're Liam's uncle?"
He didn't deny it.
His gray-blue eyes merely narrowed slightly, as if appraising my expression at that moment.
"My father had two sons," he said, his tone as flat as if reciting a report. "The legitimate son stayed home to inherit the family business; the illegitimate son was sent abroad. I'm that illegitimate son."
"You work for the Church?"
"More or less," he said. "Though that's only one layer of my identity."
He didn't continue explaining.
But I didn't need him to explain anymore.
I thought back to that night when I'd walked into that unlit room, seen the silent dark figure in the office chair, watched Victor calmly instruct his subordinates to "clean up" that corpse.
A man who could move between the Church and organized crime.
A man who let everyone think he was far away while actually controlling everything from the shadows in this very city.
My palms began to grow cold.
Not from fear.
But from realizing I'd walked into a game far deeper than I'd imagined.
"Victor." I looked at him. "You knew who I was from the very beginning."