On screen, Leo curled tighter into himself, small frame shaking with suppressed sobs that echoed in the empty cottage. No one to comfort him. No one to hold him. No one but the three alphas who'd been systematically conditioning him to crave their touch, their approval, their discipline for the past year.
"Isolation was protection," Matteo said, moving to pour three fingers of bourbon from the crystal decanter. "Kenji had enemies who would have used Leo against him."
"And now those enemies are ours," Marco added, turning back from the window, expression hardened into the cold mask that had earned him the nickname 'Smiling Death' among their rivals. "Along with every other fucking thing Kenji owned."
Including Leo. Especially Leo. Their perfect, sharp-tongued little prince who still thought he could escape them even after they'd broken him with pleasure in that tent. Even after they'd blackmailed him with the video of his surrender, forcing him to meet them in the forest at night. Even after they'd spanked him until he begged to come, until he'd sobbed "Daddy" while Marco took his cock down his throat and Matteo devoured his desperate kisses.
"The extraction is planned for Friday," Stefano said, forcing control into his voice as he watched Leo disappear from the living room camera's view. "I want all business cleared by then. Nothing—absolutely nothing—will interfere with bringing him home."
"The Corsini delegation is scheduled for Friday morning," Matteo reminded him, ever the practical one. "Can't be postponed again without creating tension."
Stefano's jaw ticked with irritation, the reminder of obligations that stood between him and claiming what belonged to him grating like sandpaper against raw nerves. "Move it to early morning. We extract Leo at noon. I want him in our bed by nightfall."
"Three more days," Marco repeated, the words carrying all the strain of prolonged denial. "Feels like a fucking eternity."
On the tablet, Stefano switched to the bedroom camera, watching as Leo entered the spartan room that had been his prison for eight years. The night had deepened, shadows fillingthe corners of the cottage as their little prince moved around his bedroom, unaware of the predatory gazes tracking his every motion.
Business reports lay abandoned on Stefano's desk, the Nakamura shipment temporarily forgotten as Leo began his evening routine. The same ritual they'd observed every night for months—an unconscious pattern Leo had developed without realizing it was just another form of conditioning. Another way his body acknowledged the alphas who'd claimed it, even when his mind continued its futile resistance.
"He's getting ready to shower," Marco said. "Just like last night. And the night before."
Stefano remembered the deliberate "accident" they'd engineered at the pond—Leo's first full exposure to them, the moment they'd established physical dominance over his body. How beautifully he'd responded to Stefano's spanking afterward, to Marco's praise, to Matteo's quiet observation that cataloged every unconscious response for future exploitation.
Leo moved to the attached bathroom, the 4K camera capturing his reflection as he stripped off his sweater with slow, absent motions. The lean lines of his torso came into view—the subtle definition of his chest, the narrow waist, the smooth skin that would soon bear their claiming bites. Every inch of that perfect body had been mapped during their cottage visits—each touch reclaiming territory, reminding Leo's body who owned it even as his mind continued its pointless rebellion.
"Perfection," Stefano murmured, watching as Leo unbuttoned his jeans, pushing them down slender hips.
Leo stepped into the shower, turning his face up to meet the spray with closed eyes. Water cascaded over his ash-blond hair, plastering it to his skull before streaming down the graceful curve of his neck, across the delicate jut of collarbones, following the subtle contours of his chest. The cameras captured everydetail in merciless clarity—droplets clinging to long eyelashes, the pink flush spreading across pale skin as steam rose around him, the way his throat worked as he swallowed back what might have been another sob.
"Fuck," Marco breathed, shifting closer to the screen as Leo's hands finally lifted, fingers threading through wet hair in a motion that raised his arms, elongating his torso and highlighting the subtle curves that marked him as omega prime.
Stefano's cock throbbed painfully as Leo's palms flattened against his own chest, trailing downward with absent sensuality. Those slender fingers traced patterns through the soap on his skin, circling a nipple without seeming to realize it—the same nipple Matteo had bitten during their discipline, the one that had made Leo arch and cry out when they'd pushed him into subspace with overwhelming sensation.
"He has no idea what he does to us," Stefano growled, the words scraping his throat as Leo's hands moved lower, sliding over narrow hips, down the outside of slender thighs, before traveling back up the inside with a casual intimacy that sent another surge of heat through Stefano's blood.
When Leo turned, presenting his back to the camera, Stefano's control slipped another dangerous notch. Water traced the elegant line of Leo's spine, gathering in the dimples at the small of his back before cascading over the perfect curve of his ass—the same ass Stefano had spanked until it glowed crimson, the same ass whose perfect globes he'd spread to taste Leo's slick, the same ass that would soon take his cock and his knot.
"Born to be watched," Marco murmured, his own breathing audibly accelerated as Leo's hands moved to soap his ass, fingers dipping momentarily between cheeks in a motion that made all three alphas tense with visceral need. "Look how he touches himself without even thinking about it. Fucking beautiful."
Even Matteo's usual stoicism cracked as Leo bent to wash his legs, the position offering a brief glimpse of his hole and balls from behind, pink and perfect and completely exposed to their hungry gaze. The same hole Stefano had penetrated with his tongue and fingers during their discipline.
The physical evidence of Leo's omega body acknowledging its rightful owners.
Leo finished his shower with a final rinse, tilting his face up to the spray one last time as water sluiced down his body in rivulets that Stefano longed to trace with his tongue. When Leo stepped out, he made only a cursory effort to dry himself, running the towel half-heartedly over his hair and chest before abandoning it entirely to pad naked back into the bedroom, water still beading on his skin.
For several long moments, Leo stood beside the bed, staring at nothing, water droplets tracking down his body to dampen the carpet beneath his bare feet. His expression was distant, lost in thoughts they couldn't hear but could easily imagine—grief, loneliness, the crushing weight of isolation that had been his constant companion for eight years.
The very isolation they'd exploited during their cottage visits—positioning themselves as his only connection to the outside world, making him dependent on their presence even as he fought against it. Every laugh they'd coaxed from him during dinner, every flush that had spread across his cheeks when Marco stood too close, every unconscious leaning into Matteo's touch in the garden—all of it carefully documented, meticulously utilized in their campaign to own every part of him.
"He's going to do it," Marco said, shifting forward on the leather sofa as Leo finally moved, climbing onto the bed without bothering to dress. "Just like every night since the forest incident."
Leo settled against the pillows, legs stretched out before him, one hand resting on his stomach while the other reached for a book from the nightstand. He opened it to a random page, but his eyes didn't track across the words, staring instead at some middle distance as his fingers absently traced patterns across his own skin.
"Not reading," Matteo said, his amber eyes fixed on the tablet with predatory intensity. "Just waiting."
"Waiting for what?" Marco asked, though his hungry expression suggested he already knew the answer.
"For us," Stefano replied, voice rough with possession as Leo finally set the book aside, head falling back against the headboard with a sigh that was almost audible even through the soundless feed. "Even if he doesn't know it yet."
