Chapter 2 2

Avery POV

My fingers froze on the cold metal of the belt buckle, not because of the sub-zero temperature, but because the fog in my brain cleared just enough for me to recognize the eyes staring back at me.

They were black, abyssal, and devoid of any human warmth. I had seen those eyes before, plastered on the front pages of newspapers under headlines screaming about gang wars, and once, in the flesh, across a crowded ballroom at a charity gala three years ago.

*Demetrius Maddox.*

The memory hit me like a physical blow. I had been nineteen, foolish and arrogant, and I had publicly slapped one of his Capos for making a lewd comment. The music had stopped. The room had gone silent. And from the shadows of the balcony, Demetrius had watched me, swirling his scotch, his expression one of bored, lethal promise. My father had spent a fortune the next day to smooth over the insult.

I wasn't just assaulting a stranger. I was desecrating the Iron King of Chicago.

"Touch me," he rasped, his voice strained with a mixture of agony and menace, "and I will peel the skin from your bones."

Fear, sharp and primal, spiked in my chest. But then the heat surged again, a tidal wave of liquid fire that made my vision swim. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird, the military-grade aphrodisiac turning my blood into acid. If I didn't cool down now, my organs would fail.

Death by fire, or death by the Devil?

"I'd rather die by your hand later," I whispered, my voice trembling, "than burn alive right now."

I didn't give him time to process the audacity. Driven by a survival instinct that eclipsed all shame, I yanked his belt loose. The sound of the zipper tearing open echoed like a gunshot in the silent freezer.

He tried to move, a guttural roar of fury tearing from his throat, but his body betrayed him. Whatever paralysis held him captive-some old war wound or a neurological reaction to the extreme cold-kept his lethal limbs locked in place. He was a trapped predator, and I was the desperate prey forcing herself into his jaws.

I shoved my panties down and straddled him.

The moment my searing flesh met the unnatural ice of his skin, a shockwave went through us both. I gasped, my head falling back as the cold bit into me, neutralizing the poison in my veins. It was agony. It was salvation.

"You little *puttana* (whore)," he hissed, his hands twitching uselessly at his sides.

I ignored his insults. I ignored the way his body remained rigid with hate even as biology forced a traitorous reaction from him. I ground down, seeking the friction, seeking the cold, using him like a tool to anchor my soul to my body.

For a moment, the world narrowed down to the violent clash of temperatures-his ice extinguishing my fire, my heat thawing his paralysis. The relief was so intense it bordered on religious ecstasy. My vision went black, and the last thing I felt was his heart beating a chaotic, thunderous rhythm against my chest.

*

The sound of heavy boots on metal dragged me back from the void.

I gasped, my eyes flying open. The freezer was still freezing, but the lethal heat in my blood had subsided to a dull throb. I was sprawled on top of Demetrius, my dress torn, my limbs tangled with his.

Before I could scramble away, a hand-large, calloused, and no longer paralyzed-clamped around my throat.

Demetrius was awake. And he was mobile.

He squeezed, cutting off my air, his face inches from mine. The murder in his eyes was absolute.

"Give me one reason," he growled, his thumb pressing into my windpipe, "why I shouldn't snap your neck."

"I..." I clawed at his wrist, my voice a broken croak. "I saved... you."

His grip didn't loosen, but his eyes narrowed. He knew it was true. My heat had jump-started his frozen system just as his cold had saved mine. We were an equation that shouldn't exist.

"There she is! In the back!"

The shrill voice outside the heavy iron door shattered the moment. *Hailey.*

Demetrius's head snapped toward the door. He released my throat, shoving me off him with a force that sent me skidding across the icy floor.

"Cover yourself," he commanded, standing up. He didn't rush. He moved with the terrifying grace of a apex predator, pulling up his trousers and buckling his belt as if he were finishing a business meeting, not a sexual encounter.

I scrambled to pull my dress down, my fingers fumbling with the torn fabric.

The heavy freezer door was wrenched open.

Light from a high-powered gas lantern flooded the small space, blinding me for a second.

"I told you!" Hailey's voice was triumphant, dripping with venom. "She's been sneaking out to meet him for weeks! She's defiling the Bolton name in our own warehouse!"

My vision cleared. Hailey stood in the doorway, flanked by my grandmother Carmelita, my father Christian, and my brother Ken. Her face was flushed with victory, her eyes scanning the scene for the lowly dock worker she had paid to ruin me.

Instead, her gaze landed on the shirtless, scarred giant standing over me.

Carmelita let out a horrified shriek, her hand flying to her mouth. "Avery! Have you no shame? Betraying your fiancé with... with this animal?"

Hailey stepped forward, her lip curling in disgust, too blinded by her own scheme to realize the gravity of the shadow she had just stepped into. She saw the blood on the floor, my disheveled state, and the man's back.

"Look at her," Hailey sneered, gesturing to me. "Whore."

Demetrius turned slowly.

The air in the freezer seemed to drop another ten degrees. He didn't speak. He simply looked at Hailey, then at my father, and finally settled his gaze on me. It wasn't the look of a lover. It was the look of a man who had just been handed the keys to a kingdom he intended to burn.