Chapter 80 Safe in Your Embrace
Chapter 80 Safe in Your Embrace
Elijah forcibly disabled the wireless transmitter on Julian Cross's collar with one brutal snap. The hired man groaned in pain, his body slumping to the marble floor, clutching his now-misshapen wrist. His breath came in ragged gasps as he fought against the waves of pain numbing his nerves.
"Get him out of the SoHo perimeter, Marcus," Elijah ordered coldly without turning around. He reached into his denim jacket pocket, pulling out a black silk handkerchief to wipe imaginary dust from his long fingers with the calm of a high aristocrat who had just finished a trivial matter.
"Make sure he hands over the names of Uncle Silas's logistics network at the port before sunrise."
"Immediately, Young Master," Marcus replied with absolute military respect. With one efficient movement, Julian Cross's muscular body was dragged out through the encrypted back teak door, merging back into the darkness of Manhattan's snowstorm.
Elijah stood still in the middle of the silent Elena Vance Atelier lobby. The LED spotlights cast the shadow of his tall, upright body across the gleaming white marble.
His sapphire blue eyes dimmed completely, shifting to look at the biometric steel vault in the corner of the room, which held the initial draft of his mother Victoria Blackwood's diamond tiara. A very cruel and deadly predator's grin once again faintly etched itself onto his handsome face.
"Two and a half years," Elijah whispered into the night's silence, his low, deep baritone voice flowing so stiffly yet laden with absolute possessive obsession.
"I will let you all dance on your greed, until the day I myself will tear down that entire financial throne at my Ángel's feet."
Meanwhile, the classic wall clock at The Azure apartment had already struck three in the morning.
Elena Vance still stood frozen in the dimly lit kitchen hallway. The glass of water in her right hand felt as cold as ice, but it could not calm her heart, which was still pounding from the remnants of a nightmare about Morgan Valdez's threats and her mother, Eleanor Vance.
Thick anxiety crept further into her nerves as she stared at the empty front hallway of the apartment.
Her simple mind kept circling back to Elijah.
'Is the snowstorm outside hindering his work at that Wall Street IT client's office? Or did the cyber system he's fixing suffer severe damage so he couldn't leave this late?' Elena thought, filled with pity and dependence that increasingly locked her fate.
Elena never suspected that her casual, plaid-flannel-loving boyfriend had just incapacitated an international espionage agent of military caliber just blocks from their apartment.
To Elena, Elijah was simply her faithful protector, fortunate to have above-average technological intelligence.
Click.
The soft sound of the front door's digital locking mechanism opening instantly broke the apartment lobby's silence.
Elena jolted, quickly putting down her glass and walking quickly toward the front hall. The heavy teak door slid open, revealing a tall man in a moss-green plaid flannel shirt and faded denim jacket dusted with thin snowflakes—Elijah.
The icy, cruel monster side from the SoHo studio floor instantly vanished without a trace the moment Elijah's sapphire blue eyes caught Elena's figure standing in the dark hallway in her white silk pajamas.
His most charming, warm thin smile instantly etched beautifully onto his marble-hard handsome face.
"You haven't slept, Ángel?" Elijah said, his baritone voice once again sounding so soft, sexy, and laden with neatly arranged protective vibrations as he stepped closer. In his right hand, he carried a warm brown paper bag from the twenty-four-hour coffee shop on the corner.
"I bought you butter croissants and hot chocolate. I thought you'd need them after working hard all day at the new studio."
Elena did not respond with words. The anxious tears she had been holding back suddenly fell down her smooth cheeks.
She ran and threw herself into the open embrace of Elijah's strong arms.
Elena wrapped both her slender arms around the man's firm waist, resting her head on Elijah's marble-hard broad chest, inhaling the masculine scent of sandalwood that had become an addiction for her over the past six months.
"Elijah... where have you been?" Elena whispered sincerely, her body trembling slightly from overwhelming relief.
"I woke up and our bed was so cold. I dreamed about Morgan in London... and about my mother, Eleanor. I felt as if there were so many big storms out there ready to destroy our studio before we could even begin."
Elijah tightened his embrace around Elena's slender waist, lifting the woman's body slightly until Elena's feet no longer touched the cold floor, possessively uniting all their body heat.
He bent down, landing a warm, long kiss on Elena's forehead with tenderness full of absolute ownership.
"This place is safe, dear. I won't let a single storm from outside cross the perimeter of this apartment," Elijah lied smoothly with a charming, innocent face, while his right hand, stroking Elena's back, discreetly pressed the encryption button on his smartwatch to monitor the Wall Street stock market movements that would open in a few hours.
"My big client just gave an additional bonus because I successfully locked down all data cyber leakage gaps from external parties tonight. Your SoHo studio will remain safe under my protection law."
Elena nodded obediently against Elijah's broad chest, feeling waves of love and dependence increasingly locking her entire soul into the control of the man before her.
She felt so fortunate to have Elijah—an ordinary man with a genius brain who was always there to be her protective shield amid New York's cruelty.
Elijah led Elena back into their warm bedroom, tucking his lover's slender body under a thick velvet blanket, then lying down beside her.
As soon as Elena drifted back into a deep, restful sleep, Elijah slowly rose, walked toward the bedroom's thick glass-enclosed balcony, and stared into the snowstorm-swept darkness of Manhattan.