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@AuntNorma@poa.st
Post #2141951
2026-05-06 23:24 UTC
50 Tints of ICE
Chapter 5
Diana's breath caught as the agent pushed himself up from the chair. His boots thudded against the hardwood floor—three deliberate steps that brought him to the edge of the bed. She pressed back into the headboard, metal digging into her spine, handcuffs clinking with the movement.
He loomed there. Tall. Broad shoulders blocking the lamplight behind him, casting his face into shadow.
Her pulse hammered in her throat.
His hands rose to his face. Fingertips found the bottom edge of the black mask. He paused—one heartbeat, two—then peeled it upward in a slow, steady motion.
The fabric came away.
Diana's eyes widened.
Hard jaw. Sharp cheekbones. Thin scar cutting through his left eyebrow. His face held the same controlled intensity she'd seen in his movements—nothing soft about it, nothing kind. He had the kind of features her stepfather would've called "trouble," though coming from a man who'd built an empire on cocaine, that assessment meant little. He was younger than she'd imagined. late twenties, maybe. And handsome in a brutal sort of way that made her stomach flip.
Blue eyes locked onto hers. Cool. Measuring. With depths she couldn't read—could be cruelty, could be something else entirely
She couldn't look away. Couldn't breathe properly. Every instinct screamed danger, but something else stirred beneath the fear—something she didn't want to name.
She hated that her body reacted to him at all.
"Better?" His voice carried a hint of mockery as he tossed the mask onto a dresser.
Diana lifted her chin, chains rattling as she shifted against the headboard.
"Not really." Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "Still chained to a bed by a government thug."
His jaw tightened. A muscle ticked beneath that scar.
Good. Let him be angry. Anger she understood—had grown up swimming in it, learned to navigate its currents before she could write her own name. Anger was predictable. Safe, in its own twisted way.
"Well, at least government thugs beat Venezuelan criminals." He folded his arms, making his shirt tighten across that broad chest. "We don't traffic the women we restrain for money."
The words hit like a slap.
Diana's mouth went dry. She blinked, processed, felt ice flood her veins.
"What?"
"You heard me."
"I don't—" Her voice cracked. She swallowed hard, forced steadiness back into her tone. "What are you talking about?"
He studied her face with those cop eyes. Reading every micro-expression, cataloging her confusion like evidence.
"Your stepbrother Luis." He tilted his head. "You really don't know?"
"Know what?" The handcuffs bit into her wrists as she leaned forward. "Luis runs the bar. He—" She stopped. Thought about the men who came and went at odd hours. The basement he'd had closed off.
"He's expanding the family business." The agent's voice held no mercy. "Just not with product you snort. With product that bleeds."
Diana's stomach turned over.
No.
No, that couldn't—
But the pieces clicked together with sickening clarity.
She licked her lips. "Herman's not involved in any of that," she said, forcing steel into her voice. "He's just a kid who got scared when you people stormed in with guns."
"He's twenty-one. Old enough to make choices." He pulled his chair around backward, straddled it. The casual posture should've made him seem less threatening. Somehow it didn't. "Old enough to run with his brother's crew."
"Running with them doesn't mean—"
"Where would he go?" he cut through her protest. "If he's so innocent, where's he hiding?"
Diana pressed her lips together, looked away. The bedroom window showed nothing but desert darkness. No city lights, no neighboring houses. Just emptiness stretching toward mountains she couldn't see but knew were there, watching like sleeping giants.
"Family sticks together," she said finally. "You wouldn't understand."
"Try me."
She met his eyes again. Searched for signs of the cruelty she'd seen in other men who'd held power over her—the way Luis's friends had looked at her during their business meetings, the hungry calculation that made her skin crawl. But his gaze held something different. Intent, yes. Determination, absolutely. But not that specific hunger that preceded violence.
Still. Men could hide what they wanted until they had you exactly where they needed you.
"No." The word came out smaller than she'd intended. She strengthened it. "No. I'm not telling you anything about Herman."
"Even if it keeps you chained to my bed indefinitely?"
Her heart kicked against her ribs. "You'd do that?"
RT: https://poa.st/objects/8656b488-4e7a-474a-a061-46049fbfcfbb
Replies (1)
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Chapter 5 cont.
He stood. His shadow stretched across the hardwood floor, swallowed her. "I've got nowhere else to be tonight. You hungry? Thirsty?"
The shift in subject threw her. "I'm not—"
"When's the last time you ate?"
Diana couldn't remember. Coffee and toast at dawn, maybe? The day had shattered into fragments the moment those black vans had appeared.
"I'll bring you something." he paused at the threshold. "Think about what you're protecting, Diana. Think about whether Herman would do the same for you."
He left before she could answer.
***
Zane slapped together a ham and cheese sandwich with more force than necessary, the knife scraping against the plate. His mind kept circling back to the woman chained in his bedroom—the way her blue eyes had gone wide when he'd mentioned trafficking, genuine shock written across her face.
Either she was the best actress he'd ever met, or Luis had kept her in the dark.
He wanted to believe the latter. Wanted it more than was professional.
The bread tore under his knife. He cursed, started over with a fresh slice.
This was procedure. Standard leverage play—grab someone close to the target, apply pressure until they cracked. He'd done it a dozen times before without losing sleep. But those other times, the people in his custody had been hardened, complicit. Their eyes had held knowledge of their crimes.
Diana's eyes held fear. And something else that made his chest tight.
He grabbed the plate and a bottle of water from the fridge. Walked back down the hallway toward his bedroom, each step feeling heavier than the last.
She'd shifted position on the bed, curled on her side with her cuffed wrists pulled toward her chest, clutching at the tatters of her shirt. The defensive posture of someone who'd learned to make herself small. Strands of brown hair had escaped from behind her ear, falling across her face in soft waves that caught the afternoon light filtering through his bedroom blinds. Even restrained like this, even with terror flickering in those impossible blue eyes, she was beautiful in a way that hit him like a physical blow to the solar plexus. The kind of beauty that made smart men do stupid things. The kind that had probably been both her protection and her curse growing up in Luis Guerrero's world.
He found himself cataloging details he had no business noticing—the delicate arch of her eyebrows, the way her full lips pressed together when she was thinking, the pulse visible at the base of her throat where her skin looked soft as silk. She was twenty-one, he reminded himself. Young enough to be genuinely innocent, old enough to destroy his career if he kept thinking about her like this.
Christ. He was in trouble.
"Here, eat," he said roughly. He set the plate on the nightstand, within her reach.
Diana pushed herself upright, chains clinking. Her hair tumbled over one shoulder, exposing the curve of her neck. His eyes tracked the movement before he could stop them.
"Drug-free?" Her voice carried an edge of defiance that shouldn't have been attractive.
"Disappointingly so."
The corner of her mouth twitched. Almost a smile. Then she caught herself, face shuttering closed again.
Zane dragged his chair closer, watched her pick up the sandwich, the cuffs forcing her movements into an awkward coordination. She seemed too eager, like she hadn't seen food in days, and he filed that detail away with all the others accumulating in his head.
Protected stepdaughter. Sheltered. Kept separate from the family business.
Or bait. The perfect lure to draw in someone exactly like him—someone who'd see innocence that needed saving.
He didn't know which option scared him more.
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