Chapter 210 - 0210: I’ll Send Someone To Bring You

Chapter 210: Chapter 0210: I’ll Send Someone To Bring You

Elena’s Point Of View

My fingers trembled around the phone, my knuckles white, my breath coming in sharp, uneven gasps. The bass from the floor below reverberated through the soles of my heels, but I couldn’t focus on anything except the steady, heavy breathing on the other end of the line.

What the hell was wrong with him?

One minute, he was gone... vanished like a ghost for three straight weeks, leaving me to sit in the quiet of my apartment, wondering if I’d imagined the weight of his hands, the terrifying absolute control in his voice, the way he made me feel completely consumed.

I’d replayed every detail so many times that I’d started to doubt my own memory, wondering if I’d built him into something larger than life simply because the silence afterward had been so unbearable. The next, he was right here, his words a cold blade pressed straight to my neck, his presence an invisible shadow I couldn’t see, yet could feel scorching my skin like a brand.

"Jaxx," I hissed, leaning my shoulder against the edge of the bar to block out the noise of the crowd. My voice shook with a toxic mix of fury and something far darker... something I refused to name, something that curled low in my stomach despite every ounce of anger I tried to summon. "Why are you doing this? Where the hell are you?"

His chuckle came through the earpiece, low, slow, and dark, vibrating against my eardrum and sending an involuntary shiver straight down my spine.

"You’re not in a position to ask questions, baby." His tone was a smooth, velvet growl, completely devoid of rush. "I just gave you a very simple choice. What’s it going to be?"

I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth ached, my eyes sweeping frantically across the upper levels of the club. The VIP section was a blur of tinted glass, dark leather booths, and harsh neon silhouettes. I couldn’t spot his face, but the back of my neck prickled with the heavy, suffocating sensation of his eyes tracking my every breath. He was up there, somewhere in that shadowed blur, patient and certain, the way a predator waits without needing to move. Watching me standing next to a man who wasn’t him.

"You can’t just call me out of nowhere and start..."

"One," Jaxx interrupted. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. The single syllable carried the weight of an absolute command, final and unshakable.

My stomach twisted into a tight knot. "Jaxx, stop this right now. I mean it."

"Two."

I could hear the absolute confidence in his silence, the quiet amusement of a man who knew he held every single card in his hand. He was enjoying the panic in my chest, savoring it the way other men savored wine, and that single realization infuriated me more than anything else he’d said.

"You absolute asshole!" I snapped, dropping my voice as low as it would go while still letting the venom bleed through. "You drop off the face of the earth, you ignore every message, and now you show up out of thin air to threaten a complete stranger? Who the hell do you think you are?"

He didn’t answer immediately. Across the line, I heard the faint, distinct sound of heavy glass moving against wood, followed by the wet, deliberate pour of liquid into a tumbler. The corking of gin. The sound was so intimate, so ridiculously familiar, that it instantly pulled me back to his office... to late nights, dark leather, his heavy rings catching the light, my skirt bunched around my waist, his mouth on mine while he dictated terms I had no choice but to accept.

Even now, weeks later, my body remembered the shape of his hands better than it remembered how to breathe normally around him.

"I’m the man who told you that you belong to me," Jaxx said smoothly, his voice dropping into a dark, languid purr that made my pulse spike. "And yet I leave you alone for less than a month, and I find you standing at a public bar, letting another man lean into your space, looking at you like you’re something he can take home."

"He bought a drink, Jaxx! That is literally all he did!"

"He touched your hand, Elena," Jaxx corrected, his tone dropping several degrees, all warmth vanishing instantly. "He put his fingers where they don’t belong. I saw it. And I’m currently deciding how many bones in his wrist I need to break to make sure he never uses that hand again."

My throat went bone dry. "I didn’t ask him to..."

He cut me off, but not with a number. Instead, he let out a slow, thoughtful breath, and I heard him take a measured sip of his drink, letting the silence stretch until it was unbearable, as though he wanted me to sit inside my own fear and marinate in it. "Do you know what I was doing three weeks ago, before I left?"

His voice dropped lower, rougher, intimate in a way that made heat crawl up my neck. "I had you bent over my desk, Bambina. Do you remember? Your hands flat on my paperwork, your ass in the air, my belt around your wrists. You begged me to let you come. You said... what was it you said, ’please, Jaxx, I’ll be good.’"

My face burned hot. I pressed my palm flat against the bar, grounding myself, willing my knees not to buckle under the weight of the memory. "That’s not..."

"And then I left. Without finishing what we started. Without giving you what you asked for." His voice was a slow, deliberate purr, each word dragging across my skin. "And I’ve been thinking about it ever since. How I promised to take that pretty ass of yours. How I had you open for me, dripping on my fingers, waiting for my cock, and then the phone rang and I had to go. I promised to take you by the ass, didn’t I, Elena? And I haven’t fulfilled that promise yet."

The heat in his voice was indecent. My thighs pressed together before I could stop them, and I hated myself for it, hated that in the middle of a crowded club, with a kind man standing two feet away, my body was responding to the memory of his hands and the threat in his voice, betraying every rational thought I tried to hold onto.

"You’re disgusting," I whispered, but there was no strength behind it, and he heard it.

"Mm. Say what you want with that mouth, baby. But I remember exactly how wet you were for me. How you soaked my hand. How you cried when I didn’t let you finish." A soft, dark chuckle. "And you’ve spent three weeks thinking about it too. I’d bet the gin in my glass on it. In fact... " the glass clinked again, unhurried, " ...I’m going to make good on that promise tonight. Might make it come to pass, since you seem so impatient about wanting it in the ass. That is what you’ll get for standing in front of another man, letting him touch what’s mine."

"I didn’t mean..." I faltered, my voice cracking.

"Three," he said, his voice a dark caress.

I swallowed hard, my chest heaving against the tight fabric of my dress, my knuckles burning from how hard I was gripping the phone. "You’re completely insane," I whispered.

"Four."

"Jaxx! Listen to me!"

"Joke’s over, Bambina." His tone turned utterly flat, devoid of any playfulness. "Once I count down to five, I’m putting a bullet through your little friend’s chest, right where he stands. He won’t even hear the shot over the music."

A sharp, metallic click echoed distinctly over the receiver - the dry, unmistakable sound of a heavy hammer being pulled back on a frame.

A wave of ice crashed through my veins. My breath hitched in my throat. He wasn’t bluffing. He never bluffed. I’d learned that the hard way, months ago, in a different room, under different circumstances, and the memory alone was enough to strip the air from my lungs.

"Fine!" I snapped, the word ripping out of me in a desperate, furious surge. "Fine! I’ll leave! Where are you?"

"Good girl." Jaxx’s chuckle returned... a slow, dark, satisfied purr that slid under my skin and set every nerve on fire. "You don’t need to look for me. I’ll send someone down to bring you up. And Elena..." his voice dropped, quiet, absolute, " ...fix your face before you walk up here. I want him to see you leave politely. And I want you thinking, the whole elevator ride, about exactly what I’m going to do to you when that door opens. Because I’ve had three weeks to plan it, baby, and I have a very long memory."

"Jaxx, wait..."

The line went completely dead.

I stood frozen beside the polished mahogany counter, my chest rising and falling violently, the phone still pressed to my ear as the dial tone droned uselessly. My mind was spinning out of control. He was pulling strings like a master puppeteer, treating me like a piece on a board, and the worst part was the sickening realization that I was stepping right into his trap because he held all the power, and that some traitorous part of my body was already bracing itself for what waited at the top of that elevator, hating how much it wasn’t dreading it.

I wanted to be furious, only furious, with nothing underneath it, but the truth was messier than that, and it terrified me more than any gun ever could.

"Elena?"

Daniel’s voice broke through the haze in my head. A warm hand brushed gently against my forearm.

I flinched, pulling back slightly before I could catch myself, turning to look at him. Daniel’s brow was furrowed with genuine concern, his dark eyes searching my face as he took in my pale skin and shaking hands.

"Are you okay?" he asked, stepping a fraction closer, his posture protective. "You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Was that bad news?"

I forced my muscles to relax, forcing a hollow smile onto my lips as I fumbled with my purse, jamming the phone inside just to get it out of my sight. "I... I have to leave," I said, my voice sounding distant, softer than I meant it to be. "I’m so sorry, Daniel. Something came up. Something urgent."

His expression fell, his hand dropping back to his side. "Is everything alright? Did something happen to your friend?"

No. Nothing was alright. A monster was sitting upstairs with a gun pointing at the back of his head, waiting to see if I’d obey, and planning what he’d do to me when I did. But I couldn’t tell him that. I couldn’t drag a completely innocent man into the chaotic, violent orbit that Jaxx created wherever he went. Daniel didn’t deserve to become collateral damage in a war he didn’t even know existed.

"Yeah," I lied, keeping my eyes fixed on Daniel’s collar to avoid looking him in the eye. "Just... work stuff. Emergency. I really shouldn’t have come out tonight."

Daniel hesitated, his gaze scanning my face, clearly not buying the excuse for a second. "You sure? You look completely shaken up, Elena. If someone is bothering you, or if you need a ride - "

"No!" I said, a bit too quickly, before softening my tone. "No, really. I’m fine." I exhaled a quiet, shaky breath, letting my shoulders drop. "You’re a really great guy, Daniel. Seriously. But I... I can’t do this. I shouldn’t have let you buy me that drink."

His eyes flickered with a mix of disappointment and quiet understanding, a bittersweet smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I get it," he said softly, though the strain in his voice was obvious. "I could tell your mind was somewhere else the second you sat down. But if you ever change your mind... or if things clear up..."

I shook my head, my chest tightening with a mix of guilt and exhaustion. "I won’t," I said, my voice quiet, firm, and final. "I’m sorry, Daniel."

He studied me for a long, silent moment, the noise of the club continuing to surge all around us while we stood in our own quiet pocket of space, two people briefly suspended outside the chaos neither of us had chosen.

"He’s a lucky man," Daniel said quietly.

I didn’t answer.

I didn’t answer because I didn’t know if Jaxx was lucky, or if he was just a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. I didn’t know what I was to him... an obsession, a possession, or just something he refused to let anyone else touch. All I knew was that my head was an absolute mess, my chest felt like a war zone, and I couldn’t bring myself to drag Daniel into the fire with me. He was kind, uncomplicated, and safe, three things I hadn’t realized I missed until he stood in front of me offering them freely.

I exhaled, the tightness in my throat almost choking me. "I’m in no relationship," I admitted, the truth slipping out in a voice barely louder than a whisper. "It’s just... complicated."

Daniel’s eyes softened. He reached out, his thumb lightly brushing the back of my hand one last time in a gesture that was entirely kind, entirely gentle.

"You’re an absolutely wonderful woman, Elena," he said, his tone completely sincere. "Smart, beautiful, funny... any man would be an absolute fool not to see that." He shook his head, a faint, self-deprecating smile touching his lips. "It sucks that fate didn’t let me meet you earlier."

My throat tightened, guilt twisting like a knot in my stomach as I looked at this decent, normal man who had done nothing wrong. "I mean it," I said, my voice thick with emotion. "You deserve better than this."

He studied me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. "So do you, Elena," he said, his voice gentle.

I didn’t argue, because we both knew it was a lie.