I should've walked away. I should've listened to that voice inside my head that screamed at me to turn around and never look back. But when it came to him, I never listened. I couldn't.

He wasn't just any man. He was something darker, something that I should have feared. But I was too caught up in his magnetism, in the dangerous pull that twisted around my heart, drawing me closer despite every instinct telling me to run.

Zoran Kalashnikov.

The first time I saw him, I felt it-the connection, the dangerous spark between us. It wasn't love, not yet. But it was something else, something primal. It was the way his eyes held mine with a quiet intensity, like he was seeing straight through me.

I hated him. I wanted to. Everything about him screamed danger, and I told myself I would never fall into that trap. But that was before I realized how deep the trap really was.

He didn't just want me-he needed me. His gaze, the way his lips twisted into that knowing smirk, the way he moved through the world as if he owned it-it was all a game. A game I never stood a chance of winning.

But that's the thing about fate-it's a cruel joke. And no matter how much I told myself I'd walk away, I couldn't. I couldn't pull myself from his grasp, no matter how tightly he wrapped his chains around me.

I thought I knew what it was like to be hunted. Because of the beast in the shape of my father.

But he-he was a different breed of predator. His every move was calculated. His every word, a weapon. I was nothing more than prey, and I walked right into it.

I told myself I wouldn't fall for him. But what I didn't know was that I was already lost the moment I laid eyes on him.

Now, there's no escaping. Not from him. Not from the monster inside him that has a hold of me, pulling me deeper into his world.

And maybe, just maybe... I don't want to escape.