Until the darkness fades

2. Collateral

Aurelia's Pov

Pain shot through me the second I tried to open my eyes.

My head throbbed like someone had taken a bat to it. For a moment I couldn’t tell where I was — only that the floor under my cheek was cold and hard, and that every part of my body ached.

I forced my eyes open a little more.

Bright light hit me immediately. Morning light. It poured in through tall windows, sharp and clean, making me squint. I was lying on a polished marble floor. Not the street. Not some dirty warehouse.

A living room.

A massive one.

The ceiling stretched high above me. Dark furniture, expensive-looking. A long black sofa that could fit ten people. Glass tables. Art on the walls that probably cost more than I’d make in years. Everything was sleek, cold, and rich in a way that felt dangerous. The kind of place that didn’t belong to ordinary people.

Men stood around me.

I counted at least six without fully turning my head. Some near the windows, some closer, talking in low voices. None of them were looking directly at me right now.

I kept my breathing slow and shallow.

Fuck.

I got caught.

Where the hell am I?

My wrists weren’t tied, but my body felt too heavy to move yet. The taste of blood lingered in my mouth. I stayed still, eyes half-lidded, watching them through my lashes, trying to piece together how bad this was going to get.

I lay there a few more seconds, trying to calculate a way out.

The place had to be heavily guarded. Cameras. Men outside. Probably more than I could see. Still… what if?

*Aurelia, you can do this.*

I stayed completely still for another breath. Then I moved.

I rolled hard to the side, swinging my leg out with everything I had. It connected with the closest man’s knees. He went down with a surprised grunt. Before he could recover I was already on him, yanking the gun from his holster and shoving myself up to my feet.

The second man reached for his weapon.

I fired.

The shot cracked through the room and hit the floor right next to his feet. He cursed and rolled away fast, his gun skidding across the marble. I lunged, grabbed it, and came up with both weapons raised, turning in a tight circle so I could see all of them.

My head was pounding. My arms felt shaky. But I wasn’t going down easy.

“Nobody move.”

A few of them started forward anyway. One tried to rush me from the left. I swung a gun toward him and he froze mid-step. Another shifted behind me — I twisted and nearly put a bullet in his shoulder before he backed off with his hands half-raised.

I grabbed the nearest one by the collar, yanked him in front of me, and jammed the barrel under his jaw.

“Drop your guns,” I said, voice rough. “All of you. Now.”

Some of them hesitated, then slowly started lowering their weapons.

One didn’t.

His face twisted and he raised his gun straight at me. His partner slammed a hand into his arm just as he fired. The shot went high, punching into the ceiling. Plaster dust rained down.

“Are you mad?” the other man hissed. “We need her alive.”

Silence stretched for half a second.

Then a voice cut down from the stairs — calm, cold, and in full control.

“Enough.”

Every man in the room straightened almost automatically, stepping back into place like the word itself had pulled strings. Guns lowered. Shoulders squared.

I still had my hostage. Both guns were still in my hands. My heart was slamming so hard I could feel it in my throat.

But the whole room had just shifted around one voice.

He looked up at the mess first — the cracked plaster, the dust still floating down from the ceiling — then his eyes moved across the room and finally landed on me.

He started walking down the stairs.

No rush. No wasted movement. Just steady, graceful steps, like the chaos on the floor didn’t deserve his urgency. When he reached the bottom he held out a hand without looking. One of the men put a gun in it immediately.

He raised it and fired.

I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the pain.

It never came.

When I opened them, the man I’d been holding was sagging in my grip. Blood spread fast across the front of his shirt. His weight pulled at my arms. I let him go. He hit the marble with a dull, heavy sound.

The man on the stairs barely glanced at the body.

“Incompetent,” he said, voice low and cold. “Having problems getting me one girl. All of you.”

None of them answered. I could see it in their faces though — the tight jaws, the way their eyes stayed down. Fear. Real fear. He turned the gun once in his hand, almost thoughtfully, before letting it hang loosely at his side.

Then he stretched his hand out toward me.

No words. Just the open palm, waiting for the weapons I was still holding.

I finally looked at him properly.

He was taller than most of the men in the room, broad through the shoulders but lean in a way that looked dangerous rather than bulky. Black shirt rolled to his elbows. Ink covered both forearms — dense, dark tattoos that disappeared under the fabric. A thin scar cut across the knuckles of his right hand, pale against the rest of his skin. His face was sharp, almost unfairly structured, with dark eyes that didn’t blink enough. There was nothing soft in them.

He looked like the dark version of a god.

Beautiful enough to keep you staring.

Dangerous enough to make you regret it.

And he wasn't smiling. He just stood there with an expression I couldn't read.

I looked at his hand then back at his face.

“Why am I here?”

His eyes stayed on me for a second. Then he simply said,

“Leave.”

The men moved immediately. No one argued. Two of them grabbed the body by the arms and dragged it out while the others followed. In less than a minute the room was empty except for the two of us. The heavy doors shut with a dull sound.

He walked over to the long black sofa and sat down like nothing had just happened. After a moment he gestured to the seat across from him.

I went. Mostly because my legs were starting to feel unreliable and I didn’t want to collapse in front of him.

He leaned back, resting one arm along the top of the sofa.

“Aurelia Sorelle,” he said. “Daughter of Alaric Sorelle. Your father owed my society seventy-five million dollars. He died before the debt was paid. The arrangement was simple — if the money wasn’t returned by the deadline, his daughters would be collected as collateral.”

I stared at him.

“That’s absurd. There has to be another way. Give me more time. I’ll raise the money.”

“I don’t negotiate.” His voice stayed calm. “An agreement remains an agreement.”

“You can’t just take people because of something my father did.”

“I can. And I have.”

“I’m not property.”

“You became collateral the moment he signed his name and failed to pay.”

My hands tightened around the guns I was still holding. “My sisters—”

“Are currently under my men’s watch,” he finished. “Whether they stay unharmed depends on you.”

The words hit harder than I wanted them to. I forced myself to keep my voice steady.

“You don’t need me. You need the money. Let me work. Let me pay it back.”

“I already have more money than I need.” He tilted his head slightly. “What I don’t have is a replacement for the debt he left unpaid. You are that replacement.”

I stood up so fast the room tilted for a second. Both guns came up, one of them pointed straight at his chest.

“And what if I don’t agree to this agreement?”

For the first time, something shifted in his expression.

He smirked.

The smirk didn’t leave his face.

He reached forward, picked up the laptop sitting on the low table, and opened it. A few clicks later he turned the screen toward me.

It was split in two.

On the left, Arabella. My older sister. She was stepping out of a black car, bag over her shoulder, heading into the airport like it was just another day. No idea anyone was watching.

On the right—

Liora.

My chest tightened so hard it hurt.

She was coming out of a high school building, smiling, backpack hanging off one shoulder. She looked older than the last time I’d seen her. Happier. She ran forward and threw her arms around a guy waiting for her, laughing at something he said.

I hadn’t seen her in years.

My heart started pounding so fast I could feel it in my throat. The guns in my hands suddenly felt heavier. Fear slid cold and sharp under my skin — not the kind I’d felt in the street last night, but something deeper. The kind that came from knowing exactly how much I had to lose.

I looked up at him.

“You are not going to harm them.”

His expression didn’t change.

“Like I said… that depends entirely on you.” He nodded once toward the table. “Now. Guns on the table. And sit down.”