Page 16 of Marked to Be Mine (Erased #1)

Maeve

The storm intensified as we navigated the labyrinthine passages of Heliópolis favela.

Rain cascaded down makeshift gutters and corrugated metal roofs, transforming narrow walkways into miniature rivers.

The puddles below my shoes soaked my feet.

I felt eyes tracking us from darkened doorways—not just curious glances but calculating stares measuring what we might be worth to whoever was hunting us.

A gunshot cracked in the distance. I flinched, my heart jumping into my throat, but Reaper didn’t even turn his head. His hand remained steady at the small of my back, his body positioned between me and any potential threats.

“Police or our pursuers won’t come here,” he explained, voice lower than usual. “Too dangerous for them. That makes it safe for us, but...”

“But we’re surrounded by people who might sell information about strangers,” I finished, scanning the shadows that seemed to move with a life of their own .

He nodded. “My contact owed me a debt. He’s a dead man if he doesn’t give us at least forty-eight hours, not that we will stay until then.”

A teenage lookout with hollow eyes and a knife handle peeking from his waistband acknowledged Reaper with wary respect as we approached a cluster of buildings stacked like precarious building blocks.

Reaper guided me down another back alley and knocked on a metal door.

The man who emerged stood armed and squinting, his gaze shifting between us before settling on Reaper.

They exchanged words in Portuguese, too low for me to understand.

The man gestured sharply to his left before closing the door with a decisive click.

Reaper led me a few doors down. Inside, the apartment was tiny but secure—a single room with a partitioned bathroom.

Religious icons watched from peeling walls, saints with faded faces and tired eyes that had witnessed too much suffering to offer salvation.

A family photo lay face-down on a shelf, as if someone couldn’t bear to look at it but couldn’t discard it, either.

While Reaper checked entry points, securing windows, and reinserting what looked like hair-trigger alarms, I reached for my backpack.

My hands trembled as I pulled out my laptop.

I was lucky to have brought my backpack with me, even through all the commotion we had gone through, though a part of me was terrified that the rain would have gotten to it.

Or perhaps one of many times I had found myself in an uncomfortable position .

“The USB...”

“Will still be there after you warm up,” Reaper interrupted, his voice gentler than I’d heard before. “You’re shivering, Maeve.”

Our eyes locked in a silent battle of wills. The use of my name—spoken without tactical calculation—caught me off guard. Then I noticed him wince slightly, right hand moving to his left shoulder where the injection device had struck him hours earlier. Suddenly, the USB was no longer a priority.

“Let me see it first,” I said firmly.

“It’s fine.” His jaw tightened in that now-familiar expression of stubbornness.

“That wasn’t a request.” I held his gaze until, surprisingly, he relented.

When he removed his jacket and shirt, my breath caught in my throat.

The harsh light exposed a battlefield etched across his skin—scars layered upon scars, some surgical, others jagged and desperate.

Burn marks. Puncture wounds. A tapestry of survival written in damaged flesh.

His body was a contradiction: brutally marked yet beautifully formed, all lean muscle and controlled strength.

I hadn’t expected that sudden surge of heat low in my belly, that inappropriate flicker of attraction that felt like betrayal of my purpose here.

This man had been sent to kill me. This man might be connected to my brother’s disappearance, too.

There was no way of knowing yet. This man was damaged in ways I couldn’t begin to understand—and yet I couldn’t look away.

The clinical part of my mind—the journalist who’d documented and researched—tried to catalog what I saw objectively: evidence of systematic torture disguised as a medical procedure. But objectivity crumbled against the reality of him standing before me, vulnerable and lethal all at once.

Not so long ago, I’d been certain this man would kill me.

Then reluctantly, I’d begun to trust him with my safety, if not with my secrets.

And now this… this unwelcome pull toward him defied every rational thought.

My brother would say I was losing perspective, confusing proximity with connection.

And perhaps he was right. But the way Reaper’s eyes followed my movement told me I wasn’t alone in this impossible tension between us.

But when he turned, all those distracting thoughts vanished.

The injection site on his shoulder demanded my full attention.

The skin had taken on an unnatural bluish tinge, with thin red lines spreading outward like a sinister web, branching beneath his skin like toxic roots seeking purchase.

Whatever they’d injected him with was designed to infiltrate, to spread, to claim.

“Does it hurt?” I asked, fingers hovering just above his skin.

“No.” His eyes locked with mine. “That’s what concerns me.”

My fingers brushed the area, and he inhaled sharply.

“I thought you said it didn’t hurt,” I challenged.

“It doesn’t.” Something flickered in his eyes—confusion, vulnerability quickly masked by practiced control. “Your touch… ”

I pulled back slightly, recalibrating the professional distance I needed to maintain. He didn’t need to finish his words; I could feel it too.

I dug through my bag, finding antiseptic wipes and gauze. The skin around the injection site felt unnaturally cool compared to the rest of him. I cleaned it carefully, watching his face for reactions he tried to hide.

“Whatever they injected you with, it’s spreading,” I murmured, tracing the red lines that extended from the blue center. “Can you feel anything unusual? Numbness? Tingling?”

“Temperature changes. The area feels cold. Like it belongs to someone else.”

After cleaning the site and applying what little first aid I could, I reluctantly accepted that there was nothing more to do. “We should monitor it. If those lines spread…”

The unfinished thought hung between us. Whatever was in that injection remained an unknown threat, ticking inside him.

“You need to shower,” he said abruptly, stepping away. “Your body temperature dropped in the rain. Hot water will help.”

I glanced down at my mud-splattered clothes, suddenly aware of how I must look—and smell. “Is that your professional assessment?”

“It’s survival thinking.” His tone was clinical, but something in his eyes suggested concern that went beyond tactical considerations. “Bathroom’s through there. I’ll find you something dry to wear. ”

I wanted to debate him some more, but perhaps spending a little time away from each other wouldn’t be such an awful idea.

It was getting increasingly more difficult to think with him by my side, and I needed a moment to just…

regain my composure. I gave him a slight nod, then headed into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me.

The tiny bathroom was barely large enough to turn around in.

A rusty showerhead protruded from the wall above a cracked tile floor with a simple drain.

No curtain, just a clouded glass door that offered minimal privacy.

I hesitated, the vulnerability of the situation suddenly overwhelming.

Not just the physical exposure, but the trust required to stand naked and defenseless with a killer mere steps away.

My rational mind screamed warnings as I peeled off my sodden clothes. This man had been sent to murder me. His programming could reassert itself at any moment. Yet here I was, willingly stripping down with nothing but a flimsy glass door between us.

The hot water felt like salvation, washing away grime and fear in equal measure.

Steam filled the small space, clouding the already-foggy mirror until my reflection became a ghostly suggestion.

I closed my eyes and let the water pound against my shoulders, trying to forget about the red lines spreading beneath Reaper’s skin, about Xavier, about everything except this momentary relief.

A shadow fell across the frosted glass.

My heart lurched into my throat. I froze, hands instinctively covering myself as the shadow paused outside the door. In that moment, all my fears crystallized—how easily he could slide that door open, how defenseless I’d be, how my brother might never know what happened to me.

The shadow lingered, then moved away, followed by the door opening and closing.

He’d left.

I stood motionless under the spray, processing this simple act of respect.

He’d brought clothes, then given me privacy—not just by stepping away, but by removing himself entirely from the apartment.

The trust forming between us felt as fragile and dangerous as nitroglycerin, unstable enough to detonate with the slightest pressure.

Twenty-four hours ago, this man had tracked me through República Square with lethal intent. Now I was naked in his safehouse, and he was…protecting me? The shift felt impossible, yet undeniable.

I dried quickly and found the clothes he’d left—a faded t-shirt and drawstring pants that smelled clean but obviously belonged to a much larger frame.

I rolled the waistband several times and cinched it tight, grateful for once that my hips weren’t narrow enough to require cinching.

The shirt hung to mid-thigh, sleeves falling past my elbows.

When I emerged from the bathroom, I was surprised that Reaper had returned. He stood at a small hotplate, heating something in a dented pot. The domestic tableau—an assassin preparing food—struck me as surreal, like finding a tiger folding laundry.