We hide in the disused water closet, as the second trickle pass. Saint presses a hand over my mouth to keep me from making a sound. It feels like forever, as I listen to my belongings getting thrashed without being able to do a thing about it.

Even when I no longer hear them, Saint doesn't let me move, pushing me hard against him for another couple of minutes. He steps out first, retrieving a gun I hadn't seen last night when I treated him and covering the space.

When he doesn't return, I get out too, joining him in the middle of my bedroom. My bed has been turned over, and the contents of my wardrobe are all over the floor.

I turn to look at him, just as a knock sounds on my door, followed by a sing-song voice. 

"Stay here!" I instruct with clenched teeth, before walking out of the room, shutting the door behind me. Saint didn't look like one used to taking instructions, but he brought me here in the first place. The least he can do is listen to me. 

"Maya!" My best friend's voice travels through the building. 

"Hey!" I whisper as I pull the door open, my eyes darting all around to ensure no one is watching us. "I wasn't expecting you tonight."

Her mouth falls wide open in mock horror. "Maya Sutton, don't tell me you forgot all about our movie night planned. I even brought the cans of beer you asked for. You were supposed to make the popcorn."

"Shit!" I press my palm against my forehead. "Ava, I'm so sorry, but today isn't a good day for our movie night. We can..."

She leans in closer and narrows her eyes. "Why are you whispering?" And then she looks behind me, a knowing smile stretching through her face. "Is there a man in there, Maya? Is that what this is about?"

"Ava..."

"You don't have to lie to me about it," she chuckles. "God knows how long I have waited to hear you say those words. You live like a hermit, and I was beginning to get worried about you."

"Well, you have no reason to do that anymore," I whisper, already feeling bad for lying to my best friend. "Why don't you..."

"Of course!" She chirps, pulling away from the door, a light spring in her steps. "I'll leave you to finish what you started.

Ava walks away from the door and then calls over her shoulder abruptly as she disappears from view. "Don't forget to use protection! They taught us enough of that in nursing school."

"Did you tell your friend we were having sex, Maya Sutton?"

I jump and turn around. His gun has been safely tucked away, but I still can't wrap my head around the fact that something like that was in my apartment. 

"You need to leave, Saint. I have to tidy up my house and get ready for work tomorrow."

Surprisingly, he doesn't argue as he walks around me to the door. "I left my card on your bed. Call me if anything happens."

"Let's not meet again, Saint Lachlan."

"My men are already around this building, just in case you remain stubborn and choose not to call me."

"Goodnight, Saint."

I pull the door open and watch as he saunters out before closing it again. The silence inside the apartment is deafening, and it feels like so much has happened in the space of twenty-four hours.

Changing out of my uniform, I start cleaning, putting everything back where they are supposed to be. The window in my room is still broken in, but the shards of glass on the floor appear different from the ones that were there last night, almost as if it was fixed before the new attack, only a few minutes ago. 

I have just had my bath, with my towel wrapped around my frame, when the smell hits. 

The smell of burning paper.

Rushing to the window overlooking the bookstore downstairs, I see the flame licking everything inside the building, bits of paper flying into the air, and the windows breaking with a loud groan.

I remain there, frozen with shock and bouncing on my feet. Before my brain finally processes what is happening, my front door suddenly crashes with a deafening sound, broken particles flying through the living area. 

I push back away from the window just as Saint storms inside, his coat billowing behind him and his eyes burning with such intensity that I don't know which to be scared of the most, the burning building or the man in front of me. 

His eyes darken as his gaze meets mine, wet, shaking, and wrapped in nothing but a towel. I see the primal look flash through his eyes, so fast that I might have been mistaken. 

My hands move up to hold the towel tighter, but it's too late. It slips off my body, landing on the ground in a silent whisper. I cannot move, cannot breathe, as Saint takes one slow step forward, and then another. 

My breath hitches as he tosses a hoodie and leggings in my direction. "Put these on," he growls. "Now."

I finally move, my feet coming as I shrug into the clothes, wondering where they came from. Saint disappears into my bedroom and reappears a minute later with a duffel bag. A man in a dark suit accompanies him, and I am glad I am already covered. 

"Saint..." I start, but the sharp look in his eyes makes me press my lips together grimly. 

"They burned the bookstore, Maya. If that doesn't scare you, I don't know what else will."

He hands the duffel back to the man standing next to him, then stalks closer to me, grabbing my wrist. "Let's go."

Saint doesn't give me an option as he pulls me with him towards the door and out into the cool night air. The firefighters are already on the scene, the whoosh of their hoses singing in the air. 

We're almost at the gleaming black car, when I pause, a strange chill crawling up my spine. From the corner of my eyes, right before Saint pushes me into the car, I see it.

A figure, hooded by the darkness, watching us.

She hasn't said a word since we left her apartment, since the towel slipped off her body. Not even in the elevator, when it glitches for a minute, the threat from her apartment looms around. 

I hear her feet behind me, clacking on the cold tiles as we stepinto my penthouse. The door clicks shut behind us, just as Lucio, my right-hand man, disappears around the corner with her bag. 

I should be thinking about the men who set the building on fire, and planning ways to get back at them. Instead, all I can think about is her fucking skin.

The way to towel clung to her frame a second longer before it dropped to the floor. And her lips...the way they parted slightly, her eyes wide open, like she didn't know whether to run away from me or stay rooted to the spot. 

"Fuck!" I mutter to myself, heading towards my bar in one corner of the vast living area. Sliding onto the stool, I retrieve my favorite bottle of brandy, pouring myself a healthy amount before returning the bottle.

I can still feel her behind me, her eyes scanning the place like she has been dropped into another universe. She probably has, because although she doesn't know it, her life has just taken a dramatic turn. 

"Where are we?" She questions, her voice finally piercing through the silence.

"My home." I stir the contents of the glass slowly, bringing the rim to my lips. "You are safe here. No one will touch you."

She scoffs. "I wouldn't have been in danger if you hadn't come into my apartment last night. I would have still been in there by now, eating popcorn with my best friend and seeing some corny romance movie. It would have been better than this. Hell, anything is better than this."

I turn around then, lifting my brow. "My showerhead doesn't fall off when I breathe. My windows don't cave in easily, and I sure as hell do not live in a dingy apartment above a bookstore, desperately holding on to life."

"You can flaunt your money as much as you like, but at least my apartment felt like home. This...I don't even know what it is."

I try to look at the living area through her own eyes. Every surface is devoid of a personal touch, save a few artworks lining the white walls. The black couch blends perfectly, accentuated by the dark drapes, the black rug, and the black coffee table in the centre.

"You see life in colors," I murmur, taking a small sip and letting the heat burn my throat. "But that won't get you the survival you want."

"I am not searching for survival," she shoots back, but I know as much as she does that that is a lie. Her limbs quiver as she moves towards the wall on one side. Maya is scared, but she has grown so used to hiding every bit of emotion that the last thing on her mind is letting me through the walls she has erected.

Walls that I shouldn't even be thinking about breaking down. 

As her hand grazed the painting of a half-naked woman bathing under the sun, I remember her, standing naked by the window, her towel in a pool at her feet. She has the body of a goddess, the setting sun on her petite curves making her look even more ethereal.

I try to bury the image along with the rest of my dark memories, but it just keeps resurfacing. 

Swallowing instinctively, I take another sip of my brandy. 

"Do you do this often?" She asks, still standing by the image. "Snatch women from their homes and lock them in your penthouse?"

"Do you think you are locked in?"

Her hair whips around her as she turns to look at me. "What is this, then? Why did you come into my apartment the night you got shot? How did you know I was a nurse? How did you know my name?"

Those are questions I cannot answer. 

"You came with me, Maya," I remind her, sliding off the stool. "When I grabbed your hands and pulled you with me, you didn't run away. Not once did you attempt to get out of the car."

"Would you have let me?"

"I walked out of your house earlier today when you asked me to leave. It wouldn't have been any different."

"It would have been!" she yells, her voice bouncing off the walls. "Because you waltzed into my life and set everything I knew on fire. Because I know that I have nowhere else to go. I cannot put Ava's life in danger, just as you have done to mine."

I stare at her. "You have me now."

She sighs exasperatedly, shaking her head. I am not offering kindness, and Maya knows it. 

The shrill of my phone on the bar top erupts the atmosphere. I don't need to look to know it's Lucio calling. I instructed him to get back to the scene when he dropped off Maya's bag. 

Looking away from her, I retrieve my phone, scanning the screen. 

An unknown vehicle has been spotted near her apartment minutes after we left. We haven't been able to ID him yet, but one thing we know is that it is a man with a mask on.

My hand fold into a fist. Maya is right. I shouldn't have gone into her apartment last night. Now, I have made her a target as well, after keeping her safe for over five years. 

Tossing the phone back to the bar top, I head down the hallway, my half-finished brandy still in my hand. "I'll show you to your room," I call over my shoulder.

"Saint."

Something about her voice causes me to halt. 

"What happens now?"

I angle my head, turning just enough to look at her. She is standing in front of the ceiling-to-window, the city of Los Angeles lit up behind her. 

"You get absorbed into my world."

When my eyes fall open, it is hard to make out where I am. The silence stretches on endlessly, and for a few seconds, I just lay on the huge, luxurious bed, letting the memories from last night flood me.

Saint Lachlan. 

"Shit! The hospital!" I sit up with a jolt, feeling dizzy as blood rushes into my head. I give myself one more second before scampering out of bed, heading out through the doors.

But I halt the moment I get outside. The hallway is so long and the penthouse so huge that I don't know where to turn to get myself into the living room, or the kitchen.

Looking towards my left and right, I decide to go right, fulfilling a part of me that thinks everything has gone left since the night Saint stumbled into my life. 

My feet take me down the hallway, bathed in the morning light coming in through the tall windows. I see a door slightly open on the left. My curiosity gets the better of me as I take a peek.

It looks like a study, with an imposing desk that looks like mahogany. A thick book lay open on it, with a leather chair on the other side. I can see another folder, tightly bound, as if telling everyone to back off. A huge piano sits in the middle of the space.

It looks out of place.

Saint plays the piano? 

The instrument looks too fragile, too vulnerable for someone as hard and domineering as Saint Lachlan. While my thoughts fester on that, I hear someone stop behind me. 

A woman speaks next, her voice soft and low. "You must be the girl." 

I angle my head at her. She is in a flowing black dress that looks striking on her skin, with black heels and blood-red lips. I feel so odd standing in front of her in my mismatched and old pajamas, while she screams luxury. 

She brings her slender fingers to her chin. "I have to admit, I was wondering what kind of stray Saint would bring home next."

And then, I ask the most foolish question. "Who are you?"

A chuckle escapes her lips, clinging to the air in such cruelty that it makes me recoil. "I should be asking the questions, honey. But you seem to have forgotten who you are exactly after spending one night here. So, I'll oblige you."

"I'm Gianna, his fiancée. Well, ex-fiancee, but we are coming around to that soon. You shouldn't let it bother you. And you must be...."

I feel it in my chest, a sudden pinch. But I shake my head subtly, as if dispelling the thought. There is nothing to feel heartbroken about. 

"You don't look like someone who has moved on with their lives, seeing as you are his ex," I blurt out, hating that demeaning look in her eyes.

Gianna doesn't flinch as she takes a step closer, her perfume wafting towards me. Jasmine. 

"Little technicalities, honey. You see, Saint and I are not your regular engaged couple. Our destiny has been written long before we were born. Two empires that will be joined as one."  And then, she gives me a once-over. "I'm certain someone of your standing cannot understand that."

"But he ended it, didn't he?" I refuse to back down, even though deep down, I know I have no reason to do this.

"Men like Saint don't end things, unless..."  Gianna allows the rest of her words to hang in the air, unsaid, before she continues. "He pauses them until he's done playing. And once he's done with you, which I know will be really soon, seeing how boring you are, he will be right back in my arms, where he belongs."

She walks past me into Saint's study, dropping into the leather seat like it is hers. The expression on my face causes her to laugh.

"Don't tell me you think he rescued you. That was the story he gave you to bring you here, right?" She shakes her head. "It's adorable how naïve you are, darling, but you should know that Saint is dangerous. You're not the first girl he has tried to save, and you won't be the last that he ruins. Mark my words."

My throat goes dry, but I don't give anything away. "If he is so dangerous, why do you want him back?"

I see that my words hit a nerve as her lips twitch. "I am the only one who understands Saint. And he is mine. There is nothing wrong with wanting what's mine. And do you know why I am sure he will always come back to me? It's because Saint doesn't like girls with dark pasts, and I can see that you do from a mile away. You don't know the rules of this game, and it will bore him out."

I open my mouth to speak, but she holds her hand up, cutting me off. 

"You can ask him about Venice. Ask him what happened to the last girl he tried to rescue, just like you. Then, you'll understand."  

Before I can say something, I hear the elevator ding, and Gianna hears it too, as her whole body freezes. Saint appears beside me at the doorway, but his eyes narrow in on her. 

"Gianna," he starts, his voice cold and his shoulders stiff. "Get out." 

"You don't have to be so harsh about it," she drawls, getting out of the seat and edging towards him slowly. "You brought a girl home. How sweet."

And then, she waltzes past him, leaning in closely towards me as her lips brush my ear. "I warned you, honey. And I don't repeat myself. Leave before I make you."

I hear her heels clack on the floor until it is only a faint echo. 

"Saint, what happened in Venice?"

His eyes regard me, the coldness slowly dissipating, but his expression unreadable. 

He looks at me, like the truth might destroy me.