Chapter 24: Rafael

She hasn't looked at me since the moment she walked out of that room. Not with anything more than the barest flick of her eyes, like I'm a threat she's calculated down to the decimal and no longer considers worth the bullet.

I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me.

I'm used to being hated. Feared. Respected. But Seraphina's silence isn't fear. It's fury. And beneath that fury, something colder. Something that makes me pause in doorways, rewatch surveillance footage, study her like an adversary I never should've let so close.

Because she isn't close anymore.

She's pulling away. Every step she takes is calculated now—not for escape, but for control. That's what she's after.

Power.

And fuck if I don't want to see what she'll do with it.

I watch her now from the edge of the training floor—dressed in all black, hair tied up, eyes like carved obsidian. She moves like a ghost. Swift. Precise. Deadly. The men she's sparring with don't stand a chance. She takes one down with a sweep of her legs, pins another with her knee on his throat before he can blink.

They tap out. She doesn't smile.

She never smiles.

Not anymore.

"You're pushing them too hard," Viktor mutters beside me. "They're starting to get scared."

"Good," I say, watching the way Seraphina wipes blood from her knuckles without flinching. "Let them be scared."

Viktor snorts, but he doesn't argue. He knows better. He's seen what happens to men who let their guards down around her.

I've seen it too.

I've felt it.

The blade of her against my skin. The snap in her hips when she grinds against me to gain the upper hand. The way her mouth bruises when she's angry, and how that anger melts into hunger so fast it leaves us both gasping.

I told myself this was about leverage. About controlling a threat before it turned into something worse. But I know better now. I know what this is.

Obsession.

I want to own every version of her—the killer, the woman, the fucking wildfire she becomes when she's cornered and refuses to burn alone.

And I think… maybe she wants to burn me with her.

She leaves the mat without a word, disappearing down the corridor that leads to the weapons room. I give it a minute. Maybe two. Then follow.

The door's ajar. I step inside.

She's facing the wall, checking the slide on a pistol like she's imagining it pointed at my head.

"I could've left," she says, not turning around. "When you told me the truth. I could've run."

I close the door. "But you didn't."

"No," she murmurs. "I didn't."

She sets the gun down on the table, spine still straight. Her reflection stares back at me from the mirror on the far wall—stormy eyes, parted lips, pulse fluttering in her throat like she's on the verge of either violence or something far more dangerous.

"I stayed," she says, her voice lower now, "because I want to hurt them. Every last one of them. I want them to know what it feels like to be discarded. Used. Forgotten."

I walk up behind her, close enough to feel the tension in her shoulders, the heat rolling off her skin.

"And me?" I ask. "What do you want to do to me, kotenok?"

She exhales like she hates that word on my tongue. "That depends."

"On what?"

Her gaze meets mine in the mirror. "On whether you think I'm still yours."

Silence stretches, thick and electric.

Then I reach forward and brush her hair back from her neck, my fingertips ghosting over the pulse at her throat. She doesn't flinch. Doesn't move.

"I never claimed you," I say softly. "You were given. Sold. That makes you no one's."

I feel her shiver under my touch.

"But if you want to stay," I murmur, "it won't be because of a contract. Or a war. Or what those bastards did to you."

Her jaw tightens.

"It'll be because part of you wants this," I finish, my voice low, almost cruel. "Wants me."

She turns fast, grabbing the knife off the table, pressing it to my throat so quick I barely register the movement.

I don't stop her.

The blade bites, just enough to sting. Just enough to feel.

Her eyes search mine, and for a moment, I think she's going to do it—cut me open, make good on all that rage she's been bottling.

But then her grip loosens. Her hand slides down, and the knife clatters to the floor.

"I hate you," she whispers.

"I know."

She steps forward, chest brushing mine, lips a breath away from my own.

"But I think I hate myself more," she adds, and then she kisses me like it's a punishment—for both of us.

I wrap my arms around her, lift her onto the table, and for a moment, everything else fades—the blood, the betrayal, the war looming outside these walls.

All that's left is her mouth on mine and the fire between us we can't seem to put out.

Not yet.

Not ever.