Mia Sinclair shoved open the door to the presidential suite, practically buzzing with excitement.

Tonight, she’d made plans to meet a gigolo here. She was about to do something huge.

The room was pitch-dark. She had just started feeling her way forward when a strong hand suddenly clamped around her wrist and yanked her inside.

"What are you doing?!" Mia cried out.

She stumbled and fell hard onto the soft bed. Before she could react, her lips were sealed, and a pair of hands locked around her slim waist.

"No...!" Mia struggled with everything she had.

But a young girl like her was no match for a grown man’s strength. Her clothes were torn apart in moments.

"Be good. Listen to me." The man’s voice was low and rough, hot breath brushing against her ear, sending a violent shiver through her body.

"Mm... it hurts!" The sharp, tearing pain nearly made Mia black out. Tears spilled uncontrollably down her face.

"Good girl. I’ll be gentler." The man was hanging on to the last scraps of reason...

The night sank deeper and deeper, and in that room, all that came and went were Mia’s sobs and broken pleas for mercy.

The next morning.

Nathan Mercer slowly came back to his senses and instinctively looked to his side.

The girl was curled into a tiny ball. Her eyes were swollen red from crying, and her small hands were gripping the blanket so tightly her knuckles had gone pale. She looked like a kitten that had just been bullied, pitiful and fragile in a way that poked straight at the softest place in a person’s heart.

Nathan rubbed between his brows. He was just about to call his assistant to deal with this when a message popped up on the girl’s phone.

"Mia, I grabbed the wrong keycard. That room is my uncle Nathan Mercer’s. Don’t go in no matter what. Everyone calls him the living king of hell. He’s scary as hell."

The sender was Elliot Mercer.

His own nephew.

He’d slept with his nephew’s friend.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Right then, Mia suddenly jolted awake.

The first thing she saw was Nathan Mercer’s bare upper body and that face of his that was way too striking. Fragments of last night came rushing back into her mind.

Nathan’s brows drew together slightly. Under normal circumstances, any woman who dared climb into his bed would’ve been dealt with long ago. But the girl in front of him was deathly pale, and it was obvious she was on the verge of crying again. Even a cold and ruthless man like him couldn’t help feeling a trace of mercy.

His low voice sounded out, still carrying the hoarse rasp of just waking up.

"No crying."

Mia clenched her fists so hard her fingers trembled. She fought with everything she had to keep the tears from falling, refusing to look even more pathetic than she already did.

"You bastard!"

She flung up her small hand and slapped the man hard across the face.

Smack!

Nathan Mercer clearly hadn’t seen that coming. He froze on the spot. A man born with everything, praised and protected since childhood, had just been slapped for the first time in his life. The temperature in his eyes dropped in an instant, cold and sharp. A violent chill burst out of him, and for one terrifying second, he really looked ready to crush the girl’s throat.

"I paid you to take pictures. Who said you could—could you..." Mia Sinclair’s eyes were red, but that redness wasn’t rage alone. It was fragile, stubborn, like a little beast cornered with nowhere to run. She was obviously already too weak to fight back, yet she still forced herself to hold on. The pain and helplessness on her face hit so hard it made even the heart soften.

In the end, her tears gave out first. Big drops rolled down one after another, as if her whole world had gone pitch-black.

"I’m Elliot Mercer’s uncle. What happened last night was an accident." Nathan spoke in a low, tight voice, which was basically the closest thing to an explanation he would ever give. The murderous edge around him slowly faded. He had never bothered laying a hand on something too weak to resist.

"Uncle..." Mia lifted her eyes in shock. Tear marks still clung to her face. That one word came out choked, mixed with panic and disbelief. This mess was way more complicated than she had imagined.

Right then, Nathan’s phone rang. He glanced at the message, got up, pulled on his clothes, and tossed out one short line: "Wait here." Then he turned and left.

The room went silent again.

Mia sat on the bed like a rag doll with its stuffing ripped out, hollow and still, her mind completely blank.

Only after a long while did her thoughts slowly crawl back.

She had actually slept with her best friend’s uncle... a one-night stand?!

The shrill ringtone of her phone finally yanked her back to reality.