Dangerously Mine

Chapter 11

The darkness inside the wardrobe was thick, smelling of cedarwood and the metallic tang of fresh blood. I sat curled on the floor, my knees pressed against my chest, hidden behind a curtain of silk and wool. Every shallow breath I took felt like it was scraping my throat.

Outside the thin wooden slats of the closet door, the world was ending.

I heard the bedroom door—the one the maid had just locked—shudder under a heavy blow. Then another. The wood didn't splinter; it was too reinforced for that. Instead, there was a sharp, metallic crack as the frame gave way.

The room was no longer silent. Heavy boots thudded onto the rug. I heard the rustle of tactical gear and the low, distorted murmur of a radio.

"Clear," a man’s voice rasped. It was a cold, professional sound—devoid of emotion.

My heart hammered so hard I was sure they could hear it through the wood. I reached back, my fingers frantically clawing at the back of the wardrobe, searching for the recessed handle I had seen in the library. My nails scraped against the wood, my breath hitching as I finally felt the cold metal of the lever.

I pulled. Nothing happened. I pulled again, desperate, my eyes stinging with tears. The mechanism was jammed. The very door the maid had died to get me toward was stuck, leaving me trapped in a wooden cage.

The wardrobe door was ripped open.

Light flooded in, blinding me. I didn't even have time to scream before a gloved hand reached into the darkness. Fingers closed around my hair and my arm, yanking me forward with a strength that made my neck snap back.

"Got her!" the man yelled.

"No! Let me go!" I kicked and thrashed, my heels catching him in the chest, but he didn't even grunt. He was a wall of black nylon and muscle. He dragged me out of the closet and across the floor like I weighed nothing.

As we reached the center of the room, my heart stopped.

The maid was lying near the broken door. Her charcoal uniform was a jagged mess of red. She wasn't moving. Her eyes, those cold, grey eyes that had told me to be silent, were staring blankly at the ceiling. The knife she had held so bravely was inches from her hand, its blade dulled by the blood of the men she had tried to stop.

"Please!" I sobbed, reaching out toward her. "Help her! Please!"

"Shut up," the man hissed, jerking me toward the hallway.

He dragged me through the corridors of the mansion, my bare feet burning as they skidded over the marble. I fought him every inch of the way, biting his hand, scratching at his tactical vest, but he just tightened his grip until I couldn't breathe.

We burst into the grand living room, the space so large it felt so small because of this man’s grip. The glass walls reflected the flickering lights of the city, but inside, the scene was a nightmare.

Two other men in black masks were sprawled across the obsidian floor. One was draped over the velvet sofa, his blood soaking into the expensive fabric. The other lay near the terrace doors, his weapon skittering away across the stone.

The man holding me stopped dead. I felt his body go rigid.

"What the—?" he started, his head whipping around to scan the shadows of the mezzanine. "Alpha? Bravo? Report!"

Silence met him. A heavy, suffocating silence.

Gunshot.

The sound of the gunshot was deafening in the vaulted room. I felt the man's grip suddenly slacken, a warm, wet spray hitting the back of my neck. He didn't even have time to let out a sound before his body slumped forward, the weight of him nearly crushing me to the floor.

I screamed, scrambling away from the falling body, my hands sliding in the slick blood on the floor. I tried to run, my vision blurred by tears and panic, when a hand shot out from the shadows behind a pillar.

It snatched me out of the air, a powerful arm wrapping around my waist and pulling me back into the darkness.

"No! Get off me! Don't touch me!" I shrieked, clawing at the arm, my nails digging into the dark fabric of a sleeve. I was hysterical, my mind convinced that another monster had caught me, that this was the end.

"Silence."

The word was a low, vibrating hum against my ear. It wasn't a shout. It was a command—cold, nonchalant, and utterly unshakable.

I froze. I knew that voice. I knew that specific, jagged stillness.

I turned my head slowly, my breath hitching in my throat. Standing over me, his face illuminated by the cold blue light of the moon, was Jacob Mikaelson.

He wasn't wearing his suit jacket. His white shirt was rolled up at the sleeves, and a smudge of grease and blood darkened his cheekbone. He held a suppressed handgun in his free hand, his expression as calm as if he were checking the time. He didn't look at the dead men on his floor. He didn't look at the chaos. He only looked at me.

"Jacob," I whispered, my voice breaking.

He didn't hug me. He didn't ask if I was okay. He simply tightened his grip on my waist, grounding me against his side as his eyes scanned the perimeter one last time.

He began to lead me toward the private elevator, his steps steady and deliberate, stepping over the bodies of the intruders as if they were nothing more than discarded trash. He was the monster that had killed the monsters, and as the elevator doors slid shut, I realized the silence of the house wasn't a sanctuary. It was his signature.