Page 43 of Ruthless Touch

Her dark eyes are wide, and she’s speechless.

I’m unapologetic, cracking my neck on either shoulder. Then I step toward her to undo the chains.

“What? You’re acting like I’m the one who started it,” I say as I crouch beside her, casually yanking the chain. “I just… finished it.”

“What are you doing?” she finally manages as the chains clang and I remove the first shackle from her wrist.

“I’m taking you with me,” I answer. “You didn’t think you were going free, did you, Goyangi-ne?”

I make it to the front door of my apartment in Mullae-dong with Elise passed out in my arms. Her unconscious body has started to take its toll after the four flights I had to carry her up due to the elevator being out.

But I refuse to drop her as I stretch a hand out and flick on the lights to the small, modest apartment. It’s a place I visit only sparingly—a second apartment called a “love nest”.

I keep it for the sole purpose of bringing women here. It keeps a separation between where I live, where I work, and where I fuck.

Tonight it’ll be used for an entirely different purpose—harboring my assassin captive who Idowant to fuck, but who currently needs to be looked after.

Elise put up a fight even after I unchained her. She threw a weak punch at me, stumbling half off balance before I caught her in my arms.

And then she passed out.

I called us a taxi.

The driver had given me exactly the kind of look I’d expected—suspicious, calculating, the sort of expression that comes with too many years navigating Seoul’s underbelly.

Seven times the normal fare bought his silence and his willful blindness. He looked the other way, and me and the unconscious woman I was with rode in silence.

My knee collides with the corner of an end table, sending a sharp jolt of pain up my leg. I curse under my breath as I finally locate the switch and flood the small space with harsh overhead lighting.

The apartment looks exactly as I left it weeks ago.

Sparse. Functional. Clean in the way that only places devoid of real life can be.

I employ a gajeongbu—ormaidas Americans call them—to come by and scrub the place down. Make sure the kitchen and bathroom are sparkling and a new set of sheets replaces the old ones.

As I carry Elise down the narrow hallway, the entire apartment smells like lemon cleaner.

I dump her onto the bed with less ceremony than I probably should, stepping back to survey the damage that bastard inflicted on her.

She’s filthy, her clothes torn and bloodstained, bruises already darkening along her cheekbones and throat and what I can see of her ribs.

She needs medical attention.

I thumb away the locked screen on my phone and send a quick message to Dr. Song, the Cheongryong’s private physician.

I’ll have to make it clear he’s to tell no one. If word got out that Elise is Black Silk, then they’ll be as hungry as Gi-tae to make her suffer.

This must stay between the three of us.

I crouch beside the bed and ease her boots off her feet. Her breathing is shallow but steady, the rest of her body limp and almost lifeless.

But when I reach for the hem of her torn shirt, her eyes snap open like she’s been struck by lightning.

The scream that tears from her throat is raw and desperate.

Suddenly she’s all fists and feet, striking out with the kind of panicked violence that comes from waking up in an unknown place with unknown hands on her body.

I catch her wrists and pin them firmly against the mattress, using my weight to still her thrashing.