Chapter 2: The Hunter's Claim

Chapter 2: The Hunter's Claim

I didn't run from the hotel suite. I retreated. It was a tactical withdrawal, the kind a wounded animal makes, driven by pure instinct. My heels clicked a frantic, panicked rhythm against the marble lobby floors, a stark contrast to the confident glide I’d entered with hours earlier. Leo’s text message burned behind my eyes: He knows. Get out. Useless. Too late.

The taxi ride through the rain-slicked streets was a blur. The city lights smeared into watercolor streaks, mirroring the chaos in my mind. How? How could he have known my name? My real name. And the piercing… that was a secret, a private mark of defiance hidden from the world. Only a handful of people had ever seen it. It wasn’t in any file. It wasn’t on any social media. The violation of it, the intimate knowledge he possessed, was a deeper violation than anything that had happened in that bed.

My penthouse apartment was my fortress. My sanctuary. It had cost a fortune, its security system state-of-the-art. Retinal scanner, keypad with a rotating cipher, a concierge vetted to within an inch of his life. As the elevator ascended, climbing thirty floors into the sky, I took a ragged breath. Inside my walls, I was in control. Inside, I could think. I could figure out how to salvage this, how to disappear before Ethan Thompson or Leo Sterling could decide my fate.

The elevator doors opened directly into my private foyer. I stepped inside, the heavy door sliding shut behind me with a reassuring thud. The air was still, quiet. My shoulders, coiled tight with tension, began to relax. I kicked off my heels, the relief immediate.

And then I smelled it.

A subtle, clean scent. Sandalwood and something sharp, like bergamot. An expensive, masculine cologne that was seared into my memory. My blood turned to ice.

Slowly, I moved from the foyer into the main living area. My apartment was a study in minimalist luxury—white leather, chrome, glass—all of it reflecting the panoramic view of the city I had fought so hard to secure. And sitting in my favorite armchair, legs crossed, a glass of my best whiskey in his hand, was Ethan Thompson.

He looked up as I entered, his dark eyes unreadable. He wasn’t the hesitant boy from the party or even the dominant lover from the suite. This was someone else entirely. Colder. More dangerous. He looked at me as if I were a line item on a balance sheet he was about to acquire.

"Your security is impressive, Scarlett," he said, his voice a low, calm rumble that held no trace of warmth. "It took my team a full seven minutes to bypass it. You should ask for a refund."

My mind blanked. All my training, all my carefully honed instincts for survival, evaporated into sheer, unadulterated terror. He was here. He had breached the walls of my fortress as if they were paper. The city lights twinkling behind him suddenly felt less like a beautiful vista and more like the eyes of a thousand witnesses to my impending doom.

“What do you want?” I managed, my voice a broken whisper. The persona of Ariel was gone, shattered. It was just Scarlett now, raw and exposed.

“I believe I made that clear,” he said, taking a slow sip of the whiskey. He gestured to the seat opposite him. An invitation that felt like a command. I didn’t move.

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Leo sent you to do a job. You failed. But in the world Leo and I inhabit, failure has consequences. He sent you, a beautiful, valuable asset, into my territory as a gambit. He lost. And when you lose a piece in a game, you don’t get it back.”

He was talking about me. I wasn’t a person. I was a game piece. A pawn.

“This has nothing to do with me,” I insisted, finding a sliver of my old fire. “This is between you and him. I was just a contractor.”

A cruel smile touched his lips, a chilling sight. “A contractor who now has a broken contract. Do you think Leo will pay you for failure? Or do you think he’ll cut his losses? You know too much, Scarlett. You’ve seen me, you’ve spoken to me. To a man like Leo, you’re not a contractor anymore. You’re a liability.”

He was right. The thought hit me with the force of a physical blow. In our world, loose ends were tied up, permanently. Leo's charming smile was a mask for a man just as ruthless as the one sitting in my chair. He had sent me in, likely hoping for one of two outcomes: either I succeeded and gave him blackmail material, or I failed and was eliminated by Ethan, removing a potential problem for them both.

“So,” Ethan continued, rising from the chair with a fluid grace that belied his size. He moved towards me, and I instinctively took a step back, my bare feet cold on the polished concrete floor. I backed away until my spine hit the cold glass of the window. Trapped.

“You have two options,” he said, stopping just inches from me. He raised a hand, and I flinched, but he only tucked a stray strand of my red hair behind my ear, his touch surprisingly gentle yet overwhelmingly possessive. “Option one: you walk out that door. You try to run. Leo’s people will find you before you make it to the airport. Or maybe mine will. Either way, your story ends. Quietly.”

He leaned in closer, his whiskey-scented breath ghosting across my cheek.

“Option two,” he whispered, his voice dropping into a register of pure, menacing silk. “You stay. With me. Leo wagered you and lost. You now belong to me. Your debt is gone. Your safety is guaranteed. Everything you’ve ever wanted—financial freedom, protection—it’s all yours.”

My breath hitched. It wasn’t an offer. It was a prison sentence wrapped in gold.

“And in return?” I choked out, my gaze locked on the faint, pale scar that cut through his eyebrow. A mark of violence. A warning.

His eyes darkened, the last bit of civility vanishing, replaced by a raw, obsessive hunger that terrified and thrilled me in equal measure.

“In return,” he said, his voice leaving no room for negotiation, “you give me everything. Your body, your obedience… your loyalty. You are mine to use as I see fit. You will live in my house, wear my clothes, and warm my bed. You will be my beautiful, perfect prize, a constant reminder to Leo Sterling of what happens when he challenges me.”

He was claiming me. Not as a lover, but as a spoil of war. An object. A symbol. My independence, the very thing I had been working towards, was being extinguished right before my eyes. My sanctuary had become my cage, and the man holding the key was standing right in front of me, daring me to choose a freedom that would only lead to my death. The illusion of choice was the cruelest cut of all.