Bound to the Billionaire

Chapter Fifteen: If There's a Beauty, there's a Beast

 It was beautiful, the bed and room, but I guess that was to be expected from Nico. Everything he had and everything he was could be described simply as that: beautiful. All black, but that was already to be expected by the rest of his penthouse. The walls were pasted with thin paper, black and gray in swooping vertical stripes. A sharply square four poster bed stood in the middle of the room, the satin comforter pulled back to reveal the shockingly red silken underside. The bed itself opened to a desk with a percolator and vase heaped with the reddest roses I'd ever seen.

It was all sharp, all cold. I shivered in bed, my eyes drawn to the one work of art: a small, metal statuette of a wolf beside the vase. He was all shimmering sharp lines connected together, an outline more than a full sculpture, but his eyes were full and painted a shimmering gold. He seemed to be looking right at me. He seemed to know. 

I laid there, in the silky soft sheets. I was stripped down to boxers, my clothes taken to be washed by the hotel staff. My hands trembled, the day's aches setting in. My neck, my chest, every muscle in my legs. From the mystery wolf in Nico's little apartment to the attack from my own packmates. Reader, I should've closed my eyes and drifted into a blissful sleep. I'd been sleeping on cots and floors for most of my life, the bed itself was probably more expensive than what I could make in months of work. But I couldn't.

I could tell the room hadn't been touched by Nico in a long time, the placement of every minimalist decoration was so unliek the books scattered around the floor of his personal apartment. And I could tell why he wouldn't stay there, just lying in his cold bed made me want to claw my way back into my bakery, but instead I shut my eyes and listened to the gentle burble of Micah and Nico's voices from the other room, just low enough that I couldn't make out the shape of their words.  My wolf turned, turned, turned, whimpering for Nico to come back and lay his cheek against mine. 

They were talking about me, at least that had to be one of the things they were talking about, but I couldn't bring myself to press an ear against the door and listen in. I had heard far too much said about me before in overheard conversations. Monster, I'd heard. Slut. w***e. Bastard. Half-breed. I'd had my fill. 

Stay still, my wolf instructed, but I couldn't. I could feel his antsy energy just as easily as I could feel my own, this cold, clawing thing. He knew his mate had secrets, he knew it as well as I did. He just didn't want to break the illusion of the perfect mate, but I did. I had to. I crept up slowly, pushed the sheets off as softly as I could so they couldn't hear the faintest rub of fabric. 

Up on tiptoes, I reached toward the desk. Could it be so easy? Could I learn more about the mysterious man and the hell he, by proxy, put me in? I pressed my hands against the desk and eyed the dark laquer and my reflection in it. To put it simply, I looked like s**t. Pale greasy hair, eyes that looked feral. Red-rimmed, angry. 

I grabbed for the drawer, tried to jimmy it open, but it was locked. Obviously. A chill ran down my spine, becuase some primal thing told me I was there, I was close. And locks had never stopped me before. In the sometimes unsavory line of work I'd done here and there to pay bills, it never hurt to know how to break out of a pair of handcuffs. 

I hadn't hidden any pins in my hair, an ocurence that was a lot more common than I'd have liked to admit. I eyed the wolf statuette, with all it's silver flowing connected lines. I took a deep breath, steadied myself for what I was about to do. My wolf whimpered, growled. What are you doing? 

In one flury of muscle and motion, I lifted the wolf and slammed him down hard on the desk. The sound shot out around me like a thunder clap, this sudden, angry noise. Where the lines connected to simulate joints, he shattered, sending little metal pieces flying.  

"Dimitri!" Nico's voice rang out from the other room, and my wolf, all droolly and dopey, whimpered desperate. He was tugging at my head making me feel soft, making me want to collapse in a flutter of "sorry!"s and "I didn't mean to!" But he was the wolf and I was the man. Goddamn it, if there was only one thing I could do, it would be this. I would stay in control. 

With one sudden motion, the last burst of strength I had, I shoved the desk itself against the door. "I'm fine!" I shouted, "I just fell!" But I çould already hear the jiggle of the door knob on the other side. My breath rattled in my chest, this cold and panicked feeling. 

"Dimitri, what's wrong?"

I'd already grabbed two of the metal pieces and shoved them into the thin keyhole, and let my hands work. I wasn't the best lockpicker, but there was something I enjoyed about it. The thrill. The sensation of my fingers finding feeling without my eyes or my brain, everything engaged in this one task. 

The lock gave. The drawer slid open smoothly on it's tracks, exposing crumpled receipts and yellowed papers with flowing cursive, faded into the stationary. My heart slammed in my chest. This is what I needed to see, one look and I knew, in that chill-inducing way when you just know that something isn't right. 

"Dimitri, open the door!" Louder, insistant. I hadn't heard him like this before, not at me. "DIMITRI!"

l steeled myself and picked up the first page.