Not Loyal.
Not Wolfe.
Especially not me.
I stayed kneeling. Head bowed. Breathing shallow. Royal laughed under his breath. “You look good down there, sweetheart,” he murmured.
The words slid against my skin like smoke. Like silk soaked in blood.
“Bet you could teach the whole ballroom a thing or two about loyalty.”
My throat locked. Not from anger. Not from shame. From knowing he wasn’t wrong.
Because loyalty here didn’t mean standing. It meant staying on your knees. It meant surviving the way Wolfe demanded. It meant existing the way they allowed.
Loyal shifted. A sharp breath cutting through the heavy air. I risked a glance. His hands were fists against his thighs. Knuckles white. Veins raised. He was breaking. And it had nothing to do with Camille. Nothing to do with Selene.
It was me.
Wolfe shifted above me. One boot nudging my thigh. Not cruel. Not hard. Just—claiming. A reminder:
You stay here.
You breathe here.
You exist here.
I exhaled slowly. Trembling. The leash pulling tighter under my skin.
And I knew?—
If Wolfe had ordered me to crawl across broken glass in front of the men who used to see me as a girl worth loving?—
I would’ve done it.
Because belonging to the silence was better than standing alone in the wreckage. Because being his ruin was safer than trying to survive my own.
Royal chuckled again. Soft. Almost affectionate. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said lazily. “If you ever get tired of worshipping him—I’ll teach you how to beg properly.”
The car hummed through the night. Wolfe said nothing. Did nothing. Because Royal wasn’t a threat. Because Royal wasn’t wrong. Because Wolfe didn’t need me to stay clean. He needed me to stay owned.
And I was.
The car pulled into the underground garage. Soft light bathed the concrete in sterile gold. The doors unlocked. Royal got out first. Whistling under his breath. As if nothing had happened. As if none of this mattered.
Loyal followed. Slower. Tighter. He didn’t look back. Didn’t glance at me. Because if he did—he might not be able to walk away. And he knew Wolfe wouldn’t forgive that. Would never forgive that.
I slid out after him. Barefoot on concrete. The cold bit into my skin. The silk of the dress clung damp and heavy against my body. The collar rubbed raw under the hidden chain. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t stumble. Because kneeling was easier now than walking. Obedience was easier than breathing.
He led the way. Through private elevators. Through silent hallways. Into the penthouse that gleamed like a mausoleum waiting for the bodies to catch up. He didn’t tell me where to go. He didn’t need to. The leash was stitched into my spine now. We crossed the marble floor.
The city stretched wide and glittering beyond the glass walls. A million lights flickering. A million lives moving on. Unaware. Uncaring. The only world that mattered was inside the pull of Wolfe’s gravity.
Inside the collar cutting into my throat. He stopped near the floor-to-ceiling windows. Didn’t turn. Didn’t speak. Just waited. Breath slow. Steady. Final.
I stood behind him. Waiting for permission. Waiting for air. Waiting for anything. He finally spoke. Quiet. Precise.
“You have a choice.”
