She remains there for a few seconds, her back bowing and her hand wrapping around her middle, before she raises her head and leaves the pharmacy. The video stops with her holding the door for an elderly woman. Part of Aurora’s face is caught on camera and her lips are…bloodied.

She was hurt, and if my calculations are correct, she’s clutching the same part of her right side where there’s the knife scar and the closed eye tattoo.

The injury was from back then, from when she was fucking sixteen. Aurora was stabbed and she had to self-medicate and probably suture herself. That’s why the scar is a bit messy.

The sense of pride I feel for her strength is doused by the need to ruin the fucker who dared put his hands on her.

So what if she’s Maxim’s daughter? She’s not him. It’s a fact I apparently need to incinerate into people’s minds in the hardest way.

The car slows to a halt, pebbles crunching under the tyres in front of the crime scene. This is the cottage where Maxim used to suffocate women with duct tape, before Aurora reported him.

The night’s air is chilly and seeps underneath my suit when I step out. Moses follows, holding a flashlight. His other hand is at the gun in his waistband.

He’s an ex-intelligence agent and works as both my driver and security, if needed. For all these years, he’s been efficient in warding off unwanted attention, and I’m counting on his skills in case something happens.

There are only two people I trust — Harris and Moses. It didn’t happen arbitrarily, because I’m naturally distrustful. I tested their loyalty with underhanded methods more than once. I made them offers through my business associates and gave them the chance to stab me in the back and leave, but they never took it. That’s why they’ve been with me the longest.

I push at the door of the cottage and a rotten smell hits me in the face. When Moses directs the light inside, we see the corpses of a rat and a rabbit, decayed and almost unrecognisable, their guts spilling out.

Since Aurora isn’t there, I motion at Moses to follow me behind the cottage to where the burial happened.

The first thing I make out is a black shadow leaning over a hole in the ground. Upon seeing the light, he jumps and sprints in the direction of the woods.

“Follow him!” I bark at Moses.

He springs into action, his legs racing after the shadow.

I turn on my phone’s flashlight and quicken my pace to the hole he was perched over. My extra sense kicks into gear, and I know, I just know something is wrong.

Sure enough, the sight I find in the hole makes me pause, my chest constricting.

Aurora is splayed on her back in the grave, her legs and arms lolling in awkward positions.

Her pink dress is bunched at the middle of her thighs, covered with dirt and…blood.

It’s all over her clothes and her translucent skin. Her knees are scraped, her palms are bleeding, and her lip is busted.

Her eyes are closed too tightly, as if she’s enduring the pain.

Fuck!

Fucking fuck!

If I’d known she would pull this, I would’ve had security follow her at all times.

Leaving the phone on the edge, I hop down to the grave and cradle her head in my hands. Dirt and dry blood smudges the soft skin of her face.

Aurora’s body jerks in my hold and she starts scratching, clawing, and pushing me away.

Fuck me. Even unconscious, this woman has the strength of a warrior. She can protect herself, and she can do it so well. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to take all the pain away so no one dares come near her again.

So that she doesn’t need protection anymore.

“I…am…s-sorry…” she mumbles. “S-so s-sorry… Don’t…h-hurt me… Don’t…”

“No one will hurt you anymore, Aurora. Not on my fucking watch.” I run my finger on the cut in her lip. The fact that she’s marked in this brutal way sits wrong with me.

Sits wrong? That’s an understatement. The fury that pulses inside me is like a beast with no restraints.

I want to bring hell on the world that had her apologise for things she didn’t fucking do. I want to eradicate the people who judged her without knowing her story.

She was sixteen. Just fucking sixteen, yet she abandoned the only family she had because she believes in justice above anything else.

No one, and I mean, no fucking one is allowed to treat her as if she’s the perpetrator in this.

Moses returns alone, his brows scrunching. “I lost him, sir. He…seems well aware of the area.”

I pick Aurora up and she whimpers, lips trembling. She must be having another nightmare. That’s when she’s most vulnerable and her walls crumble one after the other. When she’s had them while sleeping in my arms, she’s held on to me, her nails digging in my chest as if searching for an anchor she never had.

The fact that she’s been a loner her entire life is so similar to me. The only difference is that I used it to rise up, while she had to run. She’s had to suffer in silence, including during her sleep.

Soon enough, I’ll make all her nightmares vanish, even if it’s the last thing I do.

“Call Harris,” I tell Moses. “We need to arrange an underground meeting.”

If the fucker who attacked her today — which I assume is the same person who stabbed her eleven years ago — thinks he can escape me, he has no idea who he’s up against.

He can fool fate itself, but he can never fool me.

I’ll find the scum who did this to her, and I’ll enjoy ending his life in the slowest way possible.

Aurora is mine, and I’ll bring chaos to the world to protect what’s fucking mine.

6

Aurora

Meaty fingers wrap around my waist and drag me across the dirt. The black, merciless dirt.

It’s my turn now.

I’m going to die today.

But…why? What have I done?

I try to struggle, to squirm, to scream, but not one muscle in my body moves. I’m trapped in my own skin where no sound comes out.

As the dragging continues, my head bumps against the hard ground.

He’s here.

It doesn’t matter that I can’t see him. I know without a doubt that he’s returned for me, and this time, he won’t let me go. This time, I’m absolutely done for.

“Aurora…”

That voice.

My muscles relax into the dirt as it filters through my ears. It’s not Dad’s. It’s…someone else’s.

Someone I shouldn’t be thinking about, but the remainder of my energy is rushing to the surface so that I can recognise him.

There’s something about that voice. His presence and his entire aura.

Is he an illusion?

My shoulders shake. “Aurora!”

I startle into the clutches of wakefulness. My eyes snap open, and for a moment, I’m frozen in place. I’m in that grave, and now, I’ll be buried alive. I’ll be…

My eyes meet the steel-like gaze that I’ve grown used to in the last couple of months. Its grey is harsher and non-negotiable right now, only it doesn’t seem to be directed at me.

Jonathan runs his fingers through my hair, stroking it back, and I almost want to purr like a kitten.