Chapter Five

Chapter Five — POV: Alyssa Ambrose

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I sat on the cold black leather sofa, spine straight, legs crossed, my gaze locked on the man across from me like he hadn’t just devoured me with his eyes and peeled away my dignity one silk thread at a time.

Nikolai fucking Meadows.

Stoic. Cold. Untouchable.

He walked like he owned everything—including me.

The bastard barely spared me a glance before placing a folder on the table and sliding it toward me like he was closing a business deal instead of binding my life to his.

“Marriage contract,” he said simply, taking a seat across from me, legs spread wide, elbows resting on his thighs as if he wasn’t planning to ruin me with a signature.

I didn’t touch it. Not yet. “No foreplay? Straight to paperwork? How romantic.”

His jaw twitched, but his face stayed unreadable. “If you want romance, Alyssa, you should’ve fallen in love with a poet. Not a man like me.”

“I didn’t fall in love at all,” I snapped, heat rising in my chest. “This was forced. Arranged. I’m only here because my father thinks marrying a fucking mobster is good for business.”

His brow lifted slightly. “A mobster?” he echoed. “You say it like it offends you.”

“It does offend me,” I hissed, grabbing the contract and flipping it open aggressively. “You don’t get to play husband with me. You don’t get to own me.”

Nikolai didn’t blink. “Alyssa…” he said slowly, his voice like a blade wrapped in velvet. “Everything in this contract benefits you.”

I skimmed the words—assets, protection, power, loyalty clauses. It was legal armor, polished to look like control. But I knew better.

“And what do you get, huh?” I asked, tossing the folder down and leaning forward. “What’s in this for you, Nikolai?”

His stare burned into me. “You.”

One word.

Simple. Dangerous. Fatal.

My breath caught, but I masked it with a scoff. “I’m not a trophy.”

“No,” he murmured. “You’re a weapon. Beautiful. Sharp. Reckless. And once you’re mine, no one touches you. No one breathes near you. Not without losing something vital.”

I hated the way my thighs pressed together at those words.

He leaned forward, mirroring me, close enough that I could smell the expensive cologne he wore—dark, like him. Spicy and smoky, with a hint of danger.

“You think you scare me?” I asked.

“I know I do,” he whispered.

I hated that he was right.

Still, I picked up the pen. “If I sign this, you’ll think I’ve surrendered.”

“I’ll know you’ve submitted to fate.”

“No.” I narrowed my eyes. “I’m choosing this. That’s the difference. I may have been forced into this situation, but no one—no one—will ever control me.”

His smirk was lethal. “That’s what makes breaking you so tempting.”

I signed my name in swift, angry loops. My hand was steady, but my heart? It was racing like I’d just sprinted into hell.

I slammed the pen down. “There. Happy now?”

Nikolai picked up the contract, scanned it, then leaned back, folding his hands behind his head.

“No,” he said.

My heart skipped. “Then what the hell—?”

He stood slowly, towering over me, and bent down to my level until our faces were inches apart.

“But I will be,” he murmured, voice dripping with promised sin. “The day you beg me to stay in your bed, not because of this contract, but because you want me there.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.

His fingers brushed my chin lightly—too lightly—forcing me to look up at him. “You don’t even realize what you’ve done,” he whispered.

“Oh, I know exactly what I’ve done,” I said. “I’ve given myself to a monster in a tailored suit.”

He laughed softly, and it made my skin crawl in the best way. “You haven’t given me anything yet, krasotka. But I’ll take it. Piece by piece.”

And then, just like that, he walked away.

Like the conversation hadn’t scorched the air between us.

Like the temperature hadn’t spiked a thousand degrees.

Like he hadn’t just declared war.

And I—I just sat there. Signed and sealed, no longer a daughter of Ambrose Tech, but a girl sold to the devil in exchange for power.

But I wasn’t broken.

Not yet.

And Nikolai had no idea just how sharp I could be.