Love Me Like Sin.

The rain hadn’t stopped for three days.

It hammered against the stained windows of The Hollow like it was trying to claw its way inside, streaking the neon signs into bleeding rivers of crimson and electric blue. The bar was tucked away in the grittiest corner of the warehouse district—the kind of place where the floor was permanently tacky with spilled liquor and the bartender kept his eyes down because curiosity got people hurt.

Zoya pushed through the heavy oak door, and the sheer noise hit her like a physical blow.

Bass vibrated through the floorboards. Cigarette smoke coiled like specters through the amber light. Laughter, clinking glasses, and muffled shouts blurred into a single, suffocating roar. She clutched the strap of her bag tighter against her ribs, her breath catching in her throat as she stepped into the crowd.

She wasn’t supposed to be here.

Two weeks ago, Jonathan had ended their two-year relationship. His choice.His cold, clinical words that had replayed in her head until her skull ached:“I need space, Zoya. You’re holding back. You’re too rigid, and I can’t keep waiting around for you to grow up.”

She had cried until her chest felt hollowed out. She had blamed herself. She had wondered if her boundaries were the problem—if keeping her virginity and refusing to be rushed into his bed before she felt truly ready and cherished had driven him away. She had wanted it to mean something. She had wanted them to mean something.

And then, tonight, her phone had lit up with an Instagram story screenshot from a mutual friend.

Jonathan. At The Hollow. His hands wrapped around the waist of a girl Zoya had never seen before, his lips pressed hard and hungrily against her neck.

Two weeks. Two weeks of pretending he needed “space” when all he really wanted was someone who gave in without asking for his heart in return.

The humiliation burned behind her eyes, hot and sharp. She blinked the tears away furiously, digging her nails into her palms. She hadn’t come here to play the crying victim. She had come because a fragile, naive part of her had refused to believe he could be that cruel until she saw it with her own eyes.

She spotted them in a curved leather booth near the shadowed back wall.

Jonathan’s dark curls fell across his forehead in that messy, effortless way that used to make her heart skip. But right now, his leather jacket was half-unzipped, and a platinum-blonde girl in a microscopic dress was practically straddling his lap, giggling into his mouth as he ran his hands down the curve of her exposed thighs.

The sound of Zoya’s heart fracturing was louder than the music.

Her feet moved before her brain could stop them. She cut through the sweaty crowd, her pulse drumming a frantic rhythm in her ears. When she reached the booth, she slammed her flat palm onto the sticky mahogany table.

“Jonathan.”

The word came out raw, laced with venom and heartbreak.

Jonathan jerked back. For a split second, pure panic flashed across his face. His hands froze on the blonde girl’s hips.

Then, the guilt vanished, replaced by an ugly, defensive sneer.

“Zoya?” He didn’t push the girl off him. He just leaned back into the booth, looking at her like she was an irritating smudge on his windshield. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Who is this, babe?” the blonde asked, blowing a pink bubble of gum that popped between glossed lips.

Babe. The word felt like a slap across Zoya’s face.

“You lied to me,” Zoya said, her voice shaking despite every ounce of willpower she possessed. “You told me you needed time to figure yourself out. You told me you weren’t ready for a relationship.”

Jonathan scoffed, finally sliding out from under the blonde and standing up. He towered over Zoya, using his height to intimidate her just like he always did when he was losing an argument.

“I wasn’t ready for a relationship with you,” he said, lowering his voice into a sharp, dismissive hiss. “You kept me on a leash for two years, Zoya. Holding onto your precious virginity like it’s made of gold, making me beg for scraps while you played the innocent saint. I’m a grown man. I found someone who actually knows how to give me what I want.”

The cruelty knocked the wind right out of her lungs.

Two years of devotion. Two years of loyalty and patience. Reduced to an inconvenience because she wanted her first time to be based on love, not pressure.

“You’re disgusting,” Zoya whispered, tears finally spilling over her lashes.

“And you’re making a scene,” Jonathan snapped, glancing nervously around at the nearby patrons who were beginning to stare. “Get over yourself and get out of here. We’re done.”

Before Zoya could reply—before she could find the breath to tear into him—a heavy, calloused hand clamped down hard on her bare shoulder.

She gasped, flinching at the sudden contact.

“Hey, sweetheart,” a slurred, raspy voice drawled behind her. “Sounds like the boy doesn’t want you. But we’re more than happy to keep you company.”

Zoya spun around, her heart jumping into her throat.

Standing directly behind her were three men. The one holding her shoulder was massive—thick-necked, bald, with a black viper tattoo curling up his throat. Behind him stood a wiry man with a split eyebrow and a cruel, hungry smirk, alongside a barrel-chested brute cracking his knuckles. They smelled heavily of cheap bourbon, stale sweat, and bad intentions.

“Let go of me,” Zoya said, trying to wrench herself free. But the bald man’s grip tightened, his fingers digging painfully into her collarbone.

“Don’t be rude, pretty thing,” the scarred one purred, stepping into her personal space. His eyes dragged down the length of her emerald green slip dress with unvarnished filth. “We saw how he treated you. Come have a few drinks with us in the back. We’ll show you what a real man feels like.”

Panic surged through her veins, icy and sharp. She looked back at Jonathan, her eyes pleading for a shred of basic human decency. “Jonathan, please—”

Jonathan looked at the three massive men. He looked at the violence in their postures.

He didn’t step in. He didn’t say a word.

Instead, he grabbed his leather jacket from the seat, took the blonde girl by the wrist, and slipped past the booth toward the rear exit, completely abandoning her.

He left her.

The air vanished from Zoya’s chest. The realization hit her with sickening force: I am completely alone.

“Looks like your ride left,” the barrel-chested man chuckled, stepping forward to block her only path toward the front door. “Now be a good girl and stop fighting.”

“I said get off me!" Zoya cried out.

Gathering all her strength, she slammed her heel down onto the bald man’s boot and drove her elbow backward into his gut. The man grunted in surprise, his grip slipping just enough for Zoya to wrench herself free.

She turned to run, but the floor was slick. Her heel caught on an uneven plank, and she stumbled hard, crying out as her hip collided painfully against an empty table. She hit the floor, scraping her palms, her purse spilling open across the grime.

“Little bitch,” the bald man snarled, clutching his side. His face twisted into pure malice as he lunged toward her. “Grab her!”

Zoya scrambled backward on her hands and knees, her chest heaving, terror choking off her screams. The three men closed the circle around her like a pack of wolves cornering injured prey. The rest of the bar patrons looked away, deliberately minding their own business.

No one is going to help me.

The scarred man reached out to grab her hair—

And then the heavy oak door of the bar clicked open.

It wasn’t a violent kick. There was no theatrical crash. It was simply opened with a steady, commanding, deliberate force. Yet, the moment the man stepped across the threshold, a dead silence rippled across the room, killing the laughter and subduing the music like an invisible blade slicing through the air.

Zoya looked up through her tangled hair.

He stood framed by the rain-streaked neon behind him. Tall, devastatingly broad-shouldered, and draped in a tailored charcoal overcoat dark with rainwater. Beneath it, an immaculate bespoke black suit fit his powerful, athletic frame like a second skin, Killian.

He possessed the kind of striking, timeless beauty that defied easy classification—smooth, razor-sharp cheekbones, a strong jaw shadowed by dark stubble, and thick black hair brushed back with effortless perfection. He moved with the fluid, coiled energy of a predator in his absolute prime, yet carried an aura of immense, chilling authority. His eyes were the color of a frozen winter sky. Glacial slate-gray.

He didn’t carry a visible weapon. He didn’t shout. But the air around him crackled with pure, lethal power.

The stranger’s gaze swept over the room with clinical detachment until it locked directly onto the floor.

Onto Zoya.

His eyes took in the tears glistening on her cheeks, the bruised red mark on her bare shoulder, and the three men standing over her.

In a fraction of a second, the cold indifference in those gray eyes vanished, replaced by something pitch-black and dangerously possessive.

He moved.

He didn’t rush; he advanced with smooth, deliberate strides, parting the crowd without uttering a single syllable. People instinctively scrambled backward out of his path, sensing the apex predator in their midst.

Before the scarred man’s fingers could even brush Zoya’s hair, an iron grip clamped around his wrist.

A sickening crack echoed over the bass.

The scarred man screamed, his knees instantly buckling as the stranger twisted his arm at an unnatural, agonizing angle. The newcomer didn’t even flinch. His expression remained terrifyingly calm, carved from cold marble.

“You’re touching something that doesn’t belong to you,” the stranger said. His voice was a low, velvet baritone laced with a faint, dark European accent that sent a shiver straight down Zoya’s spine.

The bald man stepped forward, trying to puff out his chest to mask his sudden hesitation. “Who the fuck are you? Back off, pretty boy in a suit, before we—”

The stranger released the scarred man, who collapsed to the floor clutching his broken wrist. In one blindingly fast motion, the stranger closed the distance, his hand clamping around the bald man’s thick throat like a steel vise. With terrifying, effortless strength, he hoisted the two-hundred-pound man onto his tiptoes.

The entire bar went dead silent.

The stranger leaned in close, his gray eyes burning with lethal intent. “If you breathe in her direction again, I won’t just break your bones. I will end you where you stand. Do you understand me?”

The threat wasn’t loud. It was spoken with the chilling certainty of a man who dealt in life and death as casually as breathing.

The bald man choked out a terrified nod, his face flushing dark purple.

The stranger shoved him back with contemptuous ease, sending him crashing into a row of barstools. The third man, completely paralyzed by fear, didn’t even wait—he grabbed his injured friends and hauled them toward the back exit in a frantic scramble, leaving a trail of hurried curses and broken glass in their wake.

Silence blanketed the room.

Zoya remained on the dirty floor, her back pressed against the table leg, trembling uncontrollably. Her heart was hammering violently against her ribs, her breath hitching in her throat as she stared up at the man standing between her and the darkness.

The stranger turned toward her.

The fury in his face vanished, settling back into an unreadable, aristocratic mask. He crouched down in front of her, his expensive trousers grazing the floor without a care.

Up close, the scent of him hit her—rich amber, expensive tobacco, cedarwood, and the crisp ozone of rain. It was intoxicating. Overwhelming.

“Are you hurt?” he asked softly.

The voice was dark silk, resonating in the hollow of her chest.

“N-no,” Zoya whispered, though a small shiver betrayed her.

His glacial gray eyes lowered to her shoulder, tracing the red imprint of fingers left behind on her pale skin. A muscle ticked in his clenched jaw. For a fleeting second, an intensely dark, protective flicker crossed his gaze before he masked it completely.

He extended a broad, elegant hand toward her. His knuckles were faintly scarred, contrasting sharply with the bespoke French cuffs and platinum watch at his wrist.

“Come,” he murmured gently, yet with an unmistakable undertone of command. “Get up from the floor.”

Zoya hesitated for a heartbeat, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Then, slowly, she placed her small, trembling hand into his.

The moment their skin met, a shock of pure heat rushed up her arm.

His hand was warm, calloused, and large enough to swallow hers whole. With effortless strength, he pulled her up to her feet. When her ankle wobbled from the fall, his other arm came around her waist to steady her, pulling her flush against the hard, unyielding wall of his chest.

Zoya gasped, her hands instinctively bracing against his broad shoulders. Through the fine wool of his coat, she could feel the taut, coiled muscle beneath. He was massive, making her feel delicate, protected, and completely overwhelmed all at once.

They stood frozen in that breathless proximity.

Zoya tilted her head back, her dark, tear-rimmed eyes locking with his piercing gray ones. The intensity in his gaze made her stomach flip in a way she had never experienced in her life. It wasn’t the clumsy, demanding look Jonathan used to give her when he tried to pressure her into giving him what she wasn’t ready to lose.

This was the look of a man who possessed things entirely. A man who took what he wanted and guarded it ruthlessly.

“You shouldn’t wander into places like this alone,” he murmured, his gaze dropping briefly to her lips before rising back to her eyes. His thumb pressed lightly against her waist, sending a jolt of liquid heat straight to her core.

“I wasn’t supposed to be alone,” Zoya admitted, her voice trembling with the raw sting of Jonathan’s betrayal. “I thought... I thought someone cared about me.”

The stranger’s eyes darkened, a shadowy intensity pooling in their depths.

“Then whoever left you here was a fool,” he said softly, each word heavy with absolute conviction. “And a coward.”

The certainty in his tone cracked something wide open inside her heart, washing away the lingering humiliation Jonathan had left behind.

Slowly, reluctantly, he released her waist, taking a measured step back. The sudden loss of his heat made the cold bar air feel unbearable.

He reached into his inner suit pocket, pulled out a pristine black card, and placed it on the table beside her.

“Take a cab straight home, little bird,” he said quietly, his voice returning to a smooth, enigmatic calm. “This city eats soft things alive.”

Before Zoya could ask for his name—before she could even whisper another word of thanks—the man turned and walked out into the pouring rain, disappearing into the dark night just as mysteriously as he had arrived.

Zoya stood frozen in the dim light, her hand trembling as she picked up the sleek card from the table.

She didn’t know who he was. She didn’t know what world he belonged to, or how dangerously intertwined their lives were about to become.

All she knew was that for the first time in her life, a single touch from a stranger had set her entire soul on fire.