Chapter 10 10

Chapter 10 10


Caelum's POV

The man bound to the chair in front of me was sobbing. I hated when they cried.

“Please,” he wept, blood streaming down his shattered nose. "I don't know anything else. I swear."

I wiped my knuckles on a rag, thinking. He was one of Nikolai’s stringers, nothing high-up, but useful. He’d handed me names, addresses, information about shipments. But something felt off.

"You're lying," I said calmly.

“I’m not, I swear, I already told you everything —”

My phone buzzed. I motioned for him to be quiet and glanced at the alert.

Celine's location tracker. She was moving. Fast. Erratically.
Running.

Ice flooded my veins.

In three long steps, I was across the warehouse. "Kent, handle this."

"Boss, we're not done—"

"Now."

Before Kent could answer, I was in my car and opening the tracking app. Celine’s location pinged near the maintenance sheds on campus. She'd stopped moving.

I hit the gas and my mind was spinning. This was my fault. I had had noticed that Nikolai was observing her. I’d had her under surveillance, but apparently not enough.

I would burn the world to the ground if they harmed her, not laid a hand on her but harm, I would end it all.

The commute to campus was eight minutes. It felt like hours.

I double parked and ran up the street, following the tracker’s signal. My gun was a good weight against my back, covered under my jacket.

The maintenance structure appeared ahead. And then I heard it.

A scream.
Her scream.

What erupted in my chest was something primal and violent. I turned the corner and there they were. Two men. Celine pressed herself against a wall, her face pure terror.

One of them grabbed her arm.

I didn't think. I moved.

The other guy didn’t have time to see me coming before I punched him in the jaw. The bone chilling crack was delicious, visceral. He went down hard.

The second man went for his waistband, reaching for a weapon. I was faster. I yanked his wrist and twisted it until I heard tendons snap, and then kneed him in the gut. He doubled over, gasping.

The first of the men was attempting to raise himself from where he had fallen. I kicked him in rib, winning victory from the frail flesh under my boot. He screamed.

"Caelum, stop!"

The scarlet mist dissolved as Celine's voice broke through it. I stared at her, panting, my hands bloody.

She was looking at me with big eye balls. Not relief. Something else. Something between fear and fascination.

The other man attempted to crawl away. I drove my boot into his leg and I heard the bone break. A scream of his echoed between the buildings.

"Who sent you?" I inquired my voice ice cold.

"Fuck you."

I applied more pressure. More screaming.

"Nikolai Volkov," he gasped. "He just wanted to scare her. Send a message."

"What message?"

"That you're getting sloppy. Distracted. That he can get to any you—”

I didn't let him finish. My fist connected with his face and he just hung, like dead.

I stood up, my chest heaving, and turned to Celine. She was pinned against the wall, her makeup was loose, that red dress had its hem torn. But she was alive. Whole.

"Get in the car," I whispered. "Now."

\---
She was silent during the ride. Sat in the passenger seat with her arms wrapped around herself, staring out of the window.

I was taking her to one of my properties. Downtown apartment I held on to for situations just like this. Clean. Anonymous. Safe.

I parked in the underground lot and walked her to the door. She went along without a word, still dazed.

The apartment was minimalist. White walls, dark furniture, nothing personal. I did that on purpose.
“Sit,” I told her, pointing to the sofa.

She sat.
I went and poured water from my kitchen, took it to her. She accepted with shaking hands.

I knelt in front of her, feeling for wounds with clinical efficiency. A bruise on her arm where one of them had grabbed her. A scrape on her knee. Nothing serious.

But I rested my hands on her shoulders longer than I needed to. The feel of her skin. Proving that she was actually here, safe.

"Who were they?" she whispered.

"Wrong place, wrong time."

Her eyes met mine, forceful and dark. "Don't. If you lie to me, right now.”

I rose and took a step back from you. "You need to rest—"

"They knew my name. They mentioned you." She stood too, facing me. "Who were they, Professor Reed? OR IS IT PROFESSORA MORANO?"

My blood went cold. She knew. Somehow, she knew.

“We all know who they were,” she added, her voice beginning to rise. And I know why they came after me. This isn't random. This isn't coincidence."

I said nothing. What could I say? That she was right? That because I’d been too weak to stay away, she'd been pulled into a world of violence and death?

She took a step toward him, her fear turning to anger. "Who are you really?"

The question hung between us. I could lie. Should lie. Send her home and erase yourself from her life.

But I was tired of lying.

“Someone to be avoided at all costs,” I replied, withholding my voice.

“Fucking hell, too late for that now, isn’t it?” She pushed my chest, hard. "Answer me!"

I grabbed her wrists and snatched her up. My control was slipping, breaking apart with every second she stared at me like that.

“You don’t want these answers, Celine.”

"Yes, I do."

We were breathing each other, inches away. I could feel the heat of her against me, smell her perfume side by side with fear and adrenaline.

My eyes dropped to her lips. Full. Slightly parted. Trembling.

"Do it," she whispered. "Kiss me. Prove you're not a coward”

Every part of me shouted at me to leave. But I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Was incapacitated, staring at her mouth and picturing what it would taste like.

I moved slowly closer, to give her a chance to back away. She didn't.

Our lips brushed. Barely a touch. Feather light. Electric.
And then reality crashed back.

I pushed her from me, my chest rising and falling. “You should get as far from me as possible, Celine. I'm not who you think I am."

"Then tell me who you are!"

I made my way to the door and unlocked it, stepping out into the hallway. Then I locked it again. From the outside.

“Go to bed,” I said through the door. “Someone will drive you home in the morning.”

"Caelum!" She pounded on the door. "I can't be confined in here like this!"

But I was turned, starting to walk away now, my hands trembling and her name still on my lips that tasted of both salvation and the curse of damnation.
\---

I got to the elevator before I had to stop again and put my forehead against the cold wall. My hands were still shaking. From adrenaline. From rage. From the linger of her lips on mine.
That almost kiss had nearly killed me.

I had kept a steely control over my life for ten years. Over my feelings, my wishes, even my own weaknesses. I’d fashioned an empire in the extravagant days of discipline and cold moves.

And in seconds one college student, wearing a red dress, had smashed it all.

The elevator descended. My car lurked in the shadows, waiting to take me back home, to the warehouse, back into my comfort zone.

But the only thing I could think of was her. Locked in that apartment. Probably terrified. Probably hating me.

Good. Let her hate me. It would keep her alive.
Just as I made it to my car, my phone rang. Kent.

“The men are lost,” he said, not bothering with a preamble. "Cleaned up. No trace."
"Good."

“Boss, we have an even bigger problem.” His voice was tight. "Two hours ago we lost contact with our surveillance team."

I froze, keys in hand. "What?"

"Someone took them out. Professionals. We located their bodies in a storm drain near campus. Execution style."

My blood ran cold. "Nikolai."

"Has to be. He's sending a message. That he can reach anyone."
I struck the roof of the car with my fist, denting it in as I did so. My knuckles screamed in pain but I didn’t even notice it.

This was worse than I thought it was. Nikolai wasn't just watching anymore. He was on the move, dismantling my defenses and leaving Celine open.

“Both lock down,” I commanded, with all the outward calmness I could muster. "I need eyes on Celine 24/7. Three teams, rotating shifts. No one works alone."

"She's asking questions, Caelum." Kent's voice was careful. “She’s also bound to get answers, sooner or later.”

“Then we make sure the answers she discovers keeps her alive.”

I hung up and just stood in the dim garage, looking at nothing.

Celine was smart. Too smart. She'd already deduced my actual name. Googled me by now, probably, found the obituary, looked at Isabelle's picture. And she’d continue connecting dots soon enough.

She would recognize exactly who I was.

What I was.

We drove in silence to the warehouse. Kent stood at the door.

"The runner told before I let him out," he said. "Nikolai's planning something big. A delivery arriving at the ports next week.”

"Let him." I undid my tie, suddenly drained. “The girl is the concern at this point.”

Kent raised an eyebrow. “Is she worth starting a war for?”

I spun around to confront him, and as I did so he took a step back, whatever he saw mirrored in the look on my face.

“I’d burn the whole world down for her,” I said softly. “And if that’s a lesson, Nikolai will learn it soon.”

Kent nodded and left.

I took out my phone and opened up the security feed on the apartment. On the camera, Celine paced in the living room like an animal at a circus. Her hair was disorderly, her dress rumpled, her face a hard mask of rage.
She wasn't crying. Wasn't panicking. She was planning.

Then she came to a standstill and faced the camera. As if she knew I was being forced to watch.

She followed with two words in her mouth: "I know."

My chest tightened.
She'd found something. Some bit of evidence that said what she already knew.

I should have felt panic. He should have been calculating damage control.
Instead, I felt almost relieved.

No more lies. No more pretending. She knew who I was now.
The monster. The Don. Blood on his hands.

And tomorrow I would have to look her in the face after she'd seen the truth.

I shut down the app and went home. My penthouse was quieter than it should have been. I poured a whiskey, stood by the windows observing the city and tried to ascertain at what point this situation left my control.

Most likely, it was when she had stepped into my classroom.

There was one last buzz from my phone. A text from an unfamiliar number.

"Pretty girl you have there. Too bad something happened to her. N"

Nikolai.

I closed my fingers around the tumbler and it shattered in my grasp, whiskey and blood blending on my skin.

He wanted war.

He was going to get it.