Chapter 11 11

Chapter 11 11

Celine's POV

I looked at the picture until my eyes ached.

Professor Reed. Caelum Morano. Whatever his real name was. Even standing next to Nikolai Volkov as if they were pals. Business partners. Equals.

In the image, Reed’s expensive timepiece sparkled as it caught the light. His suit was immaculate, one of those which had to have been worth more than my year's tuition. And his expression. Cold. Calculated. Powerful.

This was not a man who had simply run afoul of a crime lord.

He was a man for that world.

I put the photo down on the desk and my hands shook. Beneath the hand was a gun, black and heavy and real. The passports with different names stared up at me like accusations.
I was going to be sick.

All those romance novels she loved, the ones where the heroine hastily fell in love with some dangerous man who had a dark past, suddenly weren’t very sexy when it was real. When the danger wasn't metaphorical. When the blood he had on his hands wasn’t just a metaphor.

I’d seen him shatter bones the night before. Saw him break another man’s leg, without a second thought. And the worst of it, what had my stomach turning with something I didn’t want to be calling revulsion, was that I wasn’t disgusted.

I'd been fascinated.

What did that say about me?

I placed everything gingerly back into the drawer, my fingers tingling. Then I made my way to the sofa and sat, drawing my knees toward my chest.

The apartment was silent but for the whir of the fridge. The windows opened on a city I had abruptly ceased to recognize. How many other monsters lurked, concealed behind normal faces? How many professors and doctors and businessmen had been something else entirely?

I guess I must have dosed off at one point, because the next thing I knew there was a key rattling in the lock.

My heart leapt into my throat. As the door was thrown open, I jerked up abruptly for I had been sleeping.

Reed walked in with coffee and a paper bag that wafted the scent of fresh pastries. He looked as he always looks. Ironed shirt, dark pants, hair immaculate. As if he hadn’t spent last night bashing a dozen guys unconscious.

“Good morning,” he intoned, evenly. Normal. “I figured you’d be hungry.

I stared at him. He was pretending that this was all well and good. As if being locked in here overnight was a minor inconvenience.

"Coffee?" He held out one of the cups.

I accepted it absently, my fingers curling around her warmth. "Thank you."

He placed the pastries on the coffee table and sat down in the chair opposite me. Not too close. Maintaining distance. He looked over my face; he was looking for something.

"Did you sleep?"

"Eventually." I sipped the coffee. It was just the way I wanted it. Two sugars, splash of cream. How did he know that?

Because he'd been watching me. Studying me. Learning everything about me while I thought it was the other way around, I was doing the seducing.

"Are you alright?" he asked quietly.

The question was almost funny. Was I alright? I'd been assaulted, rescued by a man who I learned was mild-mannered but in the mafia, kept captive overnight inside an apartment and uncovered proof that my teacher had not only lived under false pretenses.

“Great,” I lied, looking this man in the eye. "Can I go now?"

Something flickered across his face. Disappointment, maybe. Or relief.

"Yes. Let my driver drop you to campus." He rose, a phone in his hand. “He’s going to be down here in 10 minutes.

I stood too, grabbing my bag. My dress was bunched and my makeup smudged. I guess I look like somebody who’s been up all night doing exactly what you’d expect me to be doing!
Great. More rumors.

I started toward the door, but his voice stilled me.

"Celine."

I turned. Counterintuitively, he was facing into the sun, which turned him into a silhouette. And for a moment he seemed almost vulnerable. Almost human.

“Do not say a word about last night to anyone. Your friends, and campus security? No one."

It wasn't a request. It was a command in courteous language.

"Why?" I challenged. “Scared someone might see who you really are?

His jaw tightened. I’m scared someone will hurt you to get at me.

The truth in his voice surprised me. I wanted to remain angry, I wanted to cling the fear and confusion. But part of me understood.

He was protecting me. It’s how he shows his twisted sort of control.

"Fine," I said quietly. "I won't say anything."

"Thank you."

I walked away before he said another word. It seemed like the elevator ride down took forever. The driver sat in a black car that was probably worth more than my mother’s house.

He said nothing during the ride. Just a cool transaction running through and over morning traffic. As the city passed, I stewed in my mind.

Everything had changed. The game I’d figured I was playing had just gone and proven itself to be something a shitload bigger, a whole hell of lot more dangerous.

And I had no clue what to do about it.

\---
When I returned, Maddie was waiting in our dorm. She saw me and her eyes grew round.

"Oh my God. What happened? Where were you? I have been trying to reach you all night!

I shut the door and locked it. I just plopped down on my bed and let her have it all. The men following me. The attack. Reed arriving and was bludgeoning the unconscious men. The apartment. The locked door.

omitted the gun, passports, photo of Nikolai Volkov. Some things were just too dangerous to share.

When I was done talking Maddie was on her feet, fuming up and down the room.
"He locked you in?! " Her voice was shrill. "Cee, that's kidnapping! "They’ll be with us at the police now!”

“No.” I took her by the arm and pushed her back down. "We're not."
"Are you insane? He forced you to stay!”

"He was protecting me."

"From what? The men, he must know them for sure, because he’s definitely engaged in kind of shady stuff?” She looked at me like I had two heads and had just sprouted a third. "Listen to yourself! You're defending him!"

"I'm not defending him. I'm just saying it's complicated."

"It's not complicated! He's dangerous, Cee. Like actually dangerous. You saw what he did to those two guys.” She grabbed my shoulders. “You’ve got Stockholm Syndrome and he hasn’t even had you twenty four hours!”

I laughed. It came out bitter and sharp. “I get how this sounds, okay? I know how messed up this is. But Maddie, they knew my name. They were sent to scare me. And Reed, he didn’t have to think about it at all. He just protected me."

"That doesn't make it okay!"

"I know!" I withdrew, running my hands through my hair. "I know it doesn't. But what am I supposed to do? Go to the cops and say what? That my teacher kicked the crap out of these kids who were messing with me? They will ask questions I cannot answer. And then what? Reed gets investigated, I get sucked into whatever his world is, and those guys come back to finish the job?”

Maddie plopped down on her bed. "This is so messed up."

"Yeah."

“You’ve got to stay off him. Drop his class. Transfer if you have to. Just put as much space between you and that area.”

She was right. I knew she was right.

But as the words came out of her mouth, even I knew I would not. Couldn't.

“I’ll be cautious,” I said instead.

"Careful? Cee, you can’t be careful with someone like that. He’s not just some bad boy you can change. He's an actual threat."

"I know."

But the reality was more complicated than that. Yes, Reed was dangerous. Yes, he’d thrown away the key and would lie to me rather than be honest. Yes, he was linked to stuff I didn’t recognize.

But he'd also saved me. Protected me. Given me a book that mattered to him. Stared at me as if I was the only thing in the world that existed.

I was losing it. I had to be. Lol, normal people did not catch the feels for their professor. Regular people weren’t falling in love with professors who might be mafia.

As soon as Maddie had left for class, I grabbed my journal. The one I stashed beneath my mattress, where I wrote things I couldn’t say aloud.

I turned to a fresh page and wrote: "I set out to find a villain I could seduce. I found a monster to fear. So why do I still want him?"

I looked at the words for a long time. Then I slammed the journal shut and stuffed it under the mattress again.

My laptop chimed. New email.

I popped it open absently to find a spam or a reminder from the library about overdue books.
Instead, I read a message from an unfamiliar number. No subject line. Just a video attachment.

I hesitated and hovered my finger over the delete button. This was probably a virus. Or spam. Or something equally stupid.

But curiosity won.

I clicked the attachment.
The video began in grainy black and white. Security footage. Time stamped from last night.

And there he was. Reed. Cornering those men. The first punch. The second. The merciless efficiency with which he snapped bones and pulverized limbs.

I’d watched the whole thing, my hand to my mouth. It was worse seeing it again. Knowing the exact amount of force it had taken to accomplish what he’d done. How much control.
The video ended. A message was below this in the email.

"Now you know what he is. Want to know why? Meet me at the old library. Midnight. Come alone."

My heart pounded. Someone had been watching. Recording. Someone wanted to meet me.

This was stupid. Dangerous. Precisely the type of thing that had gotten girls killed in horror movies.

But I needed answers. Real answers. Not Reed’s prudent non explanations or vague warnings.

I had to see what I got myself into.
I hit reply and typed two words: “I’ll come.

It was then that I texted it off, before I could talk myself out of it.