Chapter 3 My Heartbeat

RYLAN'S POV

Du-dum. Du-dum. Du-dum.

That's what my heart sounded like the moment I saw her two years ago.

I've never felt my heart beat - Not when I got shot in the chest in Baghdad, not when I strangled my first traitor, not even when I found my father's body in the back of a burning nightclub.

No. My heart chose her. It chose the moment she stumbled in on me, seeing me finishing a job to beat very loudly for her.

Anya Cole, my heartbeat.

That night, she was standing in a pool of blood that wasn't hers, her mouth open in shock as she took in the scene.

Gunfire rang like church bells for the damned, and smoke curled through the alley like a dying man's final prayer. A hit gone sideways. Bodies crumpled around me like discarded meat, and there she was. Frozen. A wisp of a girl swallowed by an oversized hoodie, wide doe eyes locked on mine like I was the monster under her bed.

Maybe I am.

She didn't scream. Didn't beg. Just trembled and blinked at me.

Usually, I don't leave witnesses from any job. But that night? I lowered the gun. Not because the man in front of me was begging to spare her life. "Take her, he said, but don't kill her, please." And from that moment, Anya Cole became mine.

Who was that man? The man was her father, one of my most trusted men. But why did I accept his plea at that moment when she stumbled on the bloodshed we'd created? At first, I told myself she might be useful. A possible asset. Someone I could leverage.

But I knew I was lying to myself.

She made my heart beat. And no one has done that in years. So I made her mine.

I watched her for months. No-years.

A shadow at the edge of her life. Always from a distance. I told myself it was strategy, keeping tabs on a potential threat. A useful asset.

Bullshit.

It was obsession. Pure, feral obsession.

I watched her pour coffee at that diner, her smile soft as cannoli cream even when her eyes looked like war zones. I saw her laugh with old ladies, then cry on rooftops when she thought no one was watching. I saw her light a birthday candle alone. I saw her struggle to take care of her foster mom in the hospital, and struggle to take care of herself and everyone around her.

Including that bastard Micah...

When he started screwing that redhead, I saw. Because I see everything. And when he left Anya waiting outside in the snow for two hours while he played pool in some dive bar, I saw that too. It took everything in me not to crush his throat that night.

But I waited. I played the long game.

She was almost twenty-one. The age her father set in stone in his final breath. I'd kept the terms. Although now that she was almost 21, and I was seeing her struggle, including Micah , I had to step in.

A week ago, I met Micah outside a strip club he didn't know I owned. He staggered out, smelling like weed and bad decisions.

"Whoa, I don't want any trouble," he said, hands raised like I was a cop instead of the man who ran this city's underworld.

"I want to talk to you about Anya Cole," was all I'd said to him.

He noticed my Rolex, rose gold, custom made, a One-of-a-kind piece, and his greedy throat swallowed.

"You want the girl? Ten grand," he blurted. "Take her. Hell, take her now. She'll be twenty - one in a few weeks. Consider it an early birthday gift."

"Done."

He laughed like he had won something. What he didn't know is that Anya was never his to give. She was always mine.

But I'll never tell her she was sold.

Only that she was given.

Now, in the quiet of my bedroom, I hear her breathing before I see her. Fast. Sharp. Like she's trying to quiet herself and failing. I just told her she's mine and she bolted from the bed.

Now, she's standing by the window, silhouetted against the morning sun.

Her dark brown, long and wavy hair is a mess, tangled from sleep, and most likely the trip here, and her face is flushed from either fear or fury. Her big, expressive hazel eyes broadcast every feeling she tries to hide. A dusting of freckles over her nose, bitten lips that betray her nervous energy. There's a raw, wild beauty to her which makes it hard to look away.

"I'm not some gift," she snaps, whirling on me. "You can't keep me."

My gaze drops to her bare legs, then back up to the fire in her eyes.

"Yet here you are... In my house. In my bed." I step closer. She doesn't back away. Brave little dove.

"I have a life, a boyfriend-" As she says that, she clamps her mouth shut. I bet she's wondering if she still has a boyfriend after she saw him with another woman.

"Your boyfriend never had you. He was a placeholder."

She falls back onto the mattress, golden hair spiraling like she's some pissed-off cherub.

"You are insane, this is insane." she says into the ceiling.

"And yet you're still in my house."

"Because you kidnapped me."

"Because you belong here."

"Oh my God. You're delusional."

"You keep saying that like it's a bad thing."

She throws a pillow at my face. It lands with a dull puff. I let it hit.

"Why me?" she demands. "You could have any heiress, any model-hell, any living human with lips and a pulse."

"I don't want any of them. I want you. Because you're mine."

I step closer. Her throat bobs as she swallows.

"I know you're scared," I say. "But I will never hurt you."

She scoffs. "Except emotionally. And mentally. Possibly existentially."

"That's your choice. Fight me. Hate me. Spit fire every day-I'll love every second of it. But you won't leave."

"You're seriously out of your goddamn mind."

"Possibly."

"You need to let me go. I can't even process this. I have to be at work, my foster mom is in the hospital.. I – "

"Anya, I know this might be hard to take in. But you have no choice. Plus, you're mine now, so you never have to worry about things like working at a diner, or your foster mother's health bill."

I reach into my jacket. Her eyes narrow, body tensing as I pull out a velvet box.

She freezes as she watches me like an eagle. "What's that?"She eyes the box like it's a human head.

"A ring."

"You're proposing?"

"No. I'm informing you."

Her face is priceless. "You're informing me?"

"We're getting married. Tonight."

She opens the box slowly, eyes wide.

"This thing looks like it could fund a coup."

"It could. It has."

"What if I say no?"

"Then you choose death. That's the alternative. You're either mine or not."

She goes quiet. Too quiet.

Her eyes flick left and right and I know she's up to something. She's scheming. But she doesn't know I'm always one step ahead.

"I need a moment... I... I need to process all this." She whispers.

"Take it."

I turn for one second – my mistake. I don't hear anything for a moment, and when I turn around, nothing is there. No one is there.

"Merda!" Shit!

She's gone!