Makros Crete watched the girl crumple to the floor.
He could have caught her.
Should have, maybe.
He didn’t.
He never did anything he didn’t choose to do.
He crouched, still tall enough to look down on most men, and studied her.
The head of the table was a ruin of blood and shattered bone.
Someone had left the room minutes earlier—someone clever, experienced, dangerous under better circumstances.
The fool had been in too much of a hurry.
Makros had taken the opening without hesitation.
A rare chance.
A useful one.
His gaze dropped to the unconscious girl again.
Leila Crawford.
Like father, like daughter.
When she had come through the doorway with that fire in her eyes, he half expected her to pull a weapon and try to put him down.
He had expected the usual spoiled product of a powerful family, someone soft, ornamental, useless the moment her father’s shadow disappeared.
Instead he got this: red hair, a pink suit that somehow still looked expensive under the blood-spatter, and a mouth that looked like it could start wars.
He straightened.
This one might actually be interesting.
The drive to the temporary place was quiet.
She stirred once or twice but never fully woke.
Night had settled over Florida by the time they arrived—thick, humid, the kind of heat that clung to skin.
Makros disliked the country already.
Two weeks was too long.
The laws felt narrow.
The people louder than they were useful.
Everything about it scraped against him.
He carried her inside and left her on the bed.
When Leila came to, the first thing she noticed was the smell.
Blood.
It was in her hair, on her skin, in the back of her throat.
Thick and metallic.
The sheets under her arms were smooth and foreign—silk, expensive, nothing like home.
The second thing she noticed was him.
Makros stood with his back to her, a towel hanging low on his hips.
The lamp threw his shadow long against the dark wall.
Heavy shoulders.
The deep cut of muscle down his spine.
A long, ugly scar that ran from one shoulder blade almost to his waist, the kind of mark that said he had survived things most men didn’t.
She made a sound before she could stop it.
He turned.
Ice-blue eyes found hers.
A slow curve touched his mouth.
“You Americans,” he said, voice low and accented, stepping into his pants like he had all the time in the world.
“No one ever teach you it’s rude to stare?” Leila looked away hard.
It didn’t help.
The image stayed—scarred skin, the solid weight of him, the easy way he moved like the room already belonged to him.
She had seen men without shirts before.
Usually after a drink and some carefully chosen words.
This time there had been no choice.
The bastard had the kind of body that should have belonged to someone she didn’t want to kill.
She swallowed.
Focus.
This was not her room.
Not her house.
The walls were dark, almost black, no windows she could see.
A single light spilled gold over the wide bed.
The sheets smelled of clean linen and something darker, wood and spice and him.
Her stomach turned.
She was supposed to be dead with the rest of them.
She pushed herself up.
Every muscle protested.
“Stay the fuck away from me.” Makros laughed, quiet and genuine, and walked toward the bed like a man who had never learned the meaning of fear.
He sat on the edge, close enough that she could feel the heat of him.
“You should be thanking me,” he said.
“I could have left you with the others.
Could have put a bullet through your head and walked out.
Yet here you are.
Breathing.” The words landed like fists.
Her family.
All of them.
Because of him.
Rage rose fast and hot.
She didn’t think.
Her leg snapped out and caught him hard between the legs.
He sucked in a sharp breath, body folding for half a second.
Not enough.
She came at him with both fists—throat, face, anything she could reach.
Pure fury, no technique.
She wanted him to feel even a fraction of what she felt.
She didn’t get far.
His hand closed around her throat and drove her back into the mattress.
The weight of him pinned her.
Fingers tight enough to remind her how easy it would be to finish it.
“Still fighting,” he murmured.
Something almost like approval sat in his eyes.
“Admirable.
Stupid.
But admirable.” She dug her nails into his wrist.
Black spots started at the edges of her vision.
Her lungs burned.
Then he let go.
She rolled onto her side, coughing, dragging air like it might disappear again.
He sat back, elbows on his knees, watching her the way someone watches a thing that might still be useful.
“See?” he said.
“You learn fast.” Her hand shook when she wiped her mouth.
She couldn’t tell if it was fear or rage or both.
He reached for the nightstand and held out a glass of water.
She stared at it like it might explode.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” He shrugged.
“You look ready to pass out.” “I’d rather die of thirst than take anything from you.” His smile widened.
“Dramatic.” She spat at him.
The humor left his face.
What replaced it was colder.
Quieter.
“Marry me.” Leila went still.
For a second she thought she had misheard.
Then the words settled and something ugly moved through her chest.
“What?” Her voice came out thin.
“Have you lost your mind?” “No.” “You killed my family.” The words tore out of her.
“And now you—” “I think,” he cut in, fingers brushing her jaw with almost clinical precision, “you don’t have options left.” She jerked away from the touch.
Her breath came hard and uneven.
“You’re insane.” Makros laughed, low.
“I am.” He leaned closer.
His mouth nearly brushed hers.
Something cold and hard pressed against her temple.
“You either marry me,” he said, voice soft and final, “or I put a bullet through that head of yours.” Silence filled the room.
The gun stayed where it was.
The look in his eyes said he meant every word.
Leila stared into that ice-blue stare and finally understood.
This was not a proposal.
It was a sentence, and she was the one being sentenced.
There was no escape.