The Ambassador’s Daughter: His To Protect, His To Claim

A Sour Taste

The Vault wasn't just a club; it was a high-octane sanctuary for the people London society pretended didn't exist until the sun went down. Located in a repurposed basement in Mayfair, the air inside was a thick, humid soup of expensive gin and sweat. The bass thrummed so hard it felt like a second heartbeat—one that was far more frantic, and far more honest, than the cold pulse of the Kensington household.

I’d walked past the velvet ropes without a glance at the queue, the bouncers stepping aside with the kind of practiced deference that usually made me want to scream. They didn't see me; they saw the surname. They saw the "Ambassador’s Daughter" out for a bit of harmless rebellion. They had no idea that tonight, I wasn't looking for a bit of fun. I was looking to set my life on fire.

I leaned against the mahogany bar, my fingers tracing the rim of my glass. I was wearing a dress that was essentially a weapon—a slip of black lace held up by little more than hope and a few thin straps. It was a silent "f-you" to the trunks currently being packed in Belgravia, the modest gowns my mother was picking out for Cairo, and most of all, the man I knew was currently standing somewhere in the shadows, dissecting every breath I took.

"Heavy on the gin, light on the tonic," I’d told the bartender. He hadn't asked for ID. He’d just looked at the way the silk clung to my hips and poured.

I took a sip, the alcohol burning a path down my throat that felt like the only real thing in the room. I felt the urge to laugh—a sharp, hysterical thing. In seventy-two hours, I’d be three thousand miles away, locked in a "controlled environment" with a man who looked like he’d been carved out of the very desert I was being exiled to.

I looked into the mirror behind the bar, and there he was. Malik. He was standing near the emergency exit, a dark pillar in a sea of neon. He didn't have a drink. He didn't have a girl. He just had that terrifying, still focus. Even through the strobes and the smoke, I could feel his gaze—it wasn't protective. It was an interrogation. It felt like a physical touch on my skin, heavier and more intimate than the hand of any man I’d ever danced with.

Look all you want, Malik, I thought, a surge of petty, desperate rebellion making me straighten my spine. You can watch the bird, but you can’t stop her from breaking the cage.

"You look like a girl who’s planning a murder, El. Or a very expensive mistake."

I didn't need to turn to know it was Hugo. He was one of James’ friends. The son of an Earl with the soul of a debt collector. He slid onto the stool beside me, smelling of arrogance and expensive tobacco.

"Maybe both," I said, my voice barely audible over the roar of a remix. I finally turned to him, giving him a slow, artificial smile. "My Father’s dragging me to Cairo. Though you already knew that, didn’t you? I thought I'd give London something to remember me by."

Hugo laughed, the sound slick and cold. "A tragedy. Truly. But I suppose a bird as bright as you was always going to end up in a gilded cage eventually. It’s just a matter of who holds the key." He signaled the bartender, his eyes never leaving the curve of my neck. "One for the lady. Top shelf. She’s mourning her freedom, and she needs something better than that gutter gin you're serving."

I watched the bartender pull a fresh glass. My attention was momentarily caught by Malik again. For once, his eyes weren’t on me. They were on Hugo and I can't say that I blamed him.

"I’m not in the mood for a lecture, Hugo," I snapped, turning my back to the room. I wanted to block Malik out. I wanted to pretend, just for a second, that I was in control of my own night.

"No lectures. Just a parting gift." Hugo slid the fresh drink toward me. "Drink up."

I turned back and took a long, reckless swallow.

The first thing I noticed was the taste. It was sweet, cloying, and then—at the very back of my throat—there was a sharp, metallic bitterness that made my tongue curl. I winced, staring at the liquid. "What is this, Hugo? It tastes... off. Like too much lime."

"It’s a very expensive gin, darling." he murmured, his hand sliding across the bar to cover mine. His skin was clammy, his grip a fraction too tight. "Unfortunately the tonic here is cheap and you can really tell with this particular gin. Don't be a bore, El. You wanted to feel something, didn't you?"

I pushed the suspicion away. I wanted to feel numb. I wanted the room to stop spinning around the thought of Malik’s dark, judging eyes. I took another big gulp.

Ten minutes later, the world began to tilt.

The music didn't just feel loud anymore; it felt like it was vibrating inside my skull, shaking my very thoughts loose. I tried to tell Hugo I was leaving, but when I opened my mouth, the words came out thick and tangled.

"I... I think I need to go h-home," I stammered, my tongue feeling like a lead weight. My vision blurred, the neon lights bleeding into jagged streaks of fire that danced across the ceiling. "Hugo, what... what was in th-that?"

"Just a little something to help you relax, darling," he whispered, his hand sliding firmly around my waist as my knees buckled. He leaned in, his breath hot against my ear, his voice devoid of any pretense of friendship. "You’ve spent far too long being a good girl for your father. It’s time someone showed you how to really lose control."

I tried to push him away, but my arms felt like they belonged to someone else. Through the haze of the drug, I saw Hugo signal to a bouncer at the back stairs. As he began to haul my limp body toward the darkness of the upper floors, I realized with a jolt of pure, cold terror that I couldn't even scream.

My last thought, before the shadows swallowed me whole, was a desperate, silent plea for the one man I had sworn to hate.

***

MALIK

I watched them from the shadows of the exit, my jaw tight. Hugo was a nuisance—the kind of entitled trash that thought a title made up for a lack of spine. I watched him buy her a drink. I watched her turn her back on me, a deliberate act of defiance that made the muscles in my neck ache with suppressed tension.

It looked normal. A drink between "friends."

But then, I saw it.

As Eleanor turned back to face the dance floor, her head tilted away, Hugo’s hand moved with a practiced, predatory quickness. He slipped something—a tiny, clear vial—back into the breast pocket of his blazer. It was a movement that lasted less than a second, the kind of "tell" that only a skilled eye would notice.

I moved immediately, my boots heavy and rhythmic as I cut through the sea of sweating bodies. "Move," I growled, shoving a pair of bankers aside so hard they hit the floor.

I reached the bar in seconds, my hand going into my jacket where my holster hung. But the stools were empty. Eleanor’s drink was still sitting there, half-finished, a shimmering trap.

"Where are they?" I grabbed the bartender by the front of his vest, pulling him over the polished wood until we were nose-to-nose. "The girl in the black lace. The man in the velvet jacket. Where?"

The bartender’s eyes went wide. "I—I don't know, man! They just headed toward the back!"

I spun around, my gaze locking onto a bouncer standing in front of the private stairwell. He was looking everywhere but at me, his radio crackling with static. He was shifty—his feet were too wide, his hand twitching near his side.

I didn't ask permission. I slammed into him like a freight train, pinning him against the velvet-covered wall. I didn't use my gun; I used my forearm, pressing it into his windpipe until his face turned a mottled purple.

"The buck-toothed toad and the girl in the black lace," I rasped, my voice a low, vibrating promise of death. “Are they up there?”

The bouncer gave a frantic, choked nod.

I shoved him aside and took the stairs three at a time. The air in the hallway was stale, the bass from below muffled by the thick, reinforced walls. At the end of the hall, a door was slightly ajar.

I didn't knock. I drove my boot into the center of the door, the wood splintering as it slammed against the interior wall with a sound like a gunshot.

The scene inside made my blood turn to ice.

Hugo was looming over her on a red velvet sofa. He’d already discarded his jacket, his shirt unbuttoned. Eleanor was limp, her eyes rolled back, her breath coming in ragged, drugged gasps.

But it was what I saw on the floor that snapped my last thread of control.

The black lace of her dress had been bunched up to her waist, the expensive fabric wrinkled and ruined. And there, discarded on the dark carpet like a trophy, was a small, delicate scrap of black silk. Her underwear.

Hugo turned, his face pale with shock, his hands still hovering over her exposed skin. "Look, mate, you don't understand—"

"I understand everything," I whispered.

The rage wasn't a fire; it was a frost. Cold, absolute, and lethal. I stepped into the room, my shadow falling over Eleanor’s pale, trembling body, and for the first time in my life, I didn't care about the contract. I didn't care about the Ambassador.

I only cared about the fact that he had touched what was mine.