Wolfe crouched in front of me, boots creaking against the marble, hand wrapping the leash tighter. His free hand touched my chin. Lifted—not cruel, not rough. Just inevitable. He mouthed the words silently—not shouting, not forcing. Just offering survival.
I remembered his hands once. The ex. The way he kissed me like rescue. The way he promised that running would save me. And now? I would kneel to end him.
Not because I hated him. But because I had learned to love harder. And Wolfe never needed to promise me freedom?—
He taught me to stop needing it.
“Set it up.”
I breathed in once. Shuddering. Offered the breath to him silently.
Then spoke.
“Tomorrow.”
My voice was barely a whisper. But it was enough.
“Alone.”
Another breath. Another prayer.
“The old hotel.”
A shiver ran through me—not from fear, but claim. Even setting my own trap for the boy who used to mean hope, I stayed kneeling, stayed breathing, stayed Wolfe's. The ex exhaled sharply. Relief flooding his voice.
"Tomorrow," he said. "We'll fix this, Cloe. You'll see."
I ended the call, let the phone fall to the marble with a soft clatter, lowered my forehead back to the stone. Breathing through the leash Wolfe pulled tighter against my throat—breathing because it was the only worship left to offer.
Wolfe stood. Silent. Towering. Immovable. Royal laughed somewhere behind him.
“Poor bastard.”
“He still thinks she breathes for him.”
Wolfe didn’t answer. Didn’t laugh. Didn’t even smile. He just watched me. Kneeling. Silent. Breathing. Choosing him.
And I smiled—small, silent, holy.
Survival didn't live in freedom anymore. It lived here, at the end of his leash, at the altar of my own beautiful, ruinous devotion.
20
CLOE
The old hotelhunched against the skyline like a broken tooth—dark, abandoned, windows shattered, marble cracked. The air leaking from the crumbling walls was cold enough to make me shiver.
It smelled like mildew and old velvet. A ghost place. A place built for breathing wreckage into bone.
I crossed the threshold. Boots scuffing against broken tile. The hallway stretched out before me. Flickering overhead lights buzzed low. Distant water dripped steadily. Somewhere, a door creaked on rusted hinges.
The city hummed beyond the walls. But inside? Silence. Thick. Waiting. Breathing.
I made it three steps in before I felt it—the shift, the weight, the world rearranging itself. He was here.
Wolfe stood at the end of the hall. Royal lounged against a cracked pillar nearby. Loyal leaned stiff against a broken radiator farther back. All three of them dressed like shadows. All three of them kings built for the ruins.
Royal wore dark jeans and a gray fitted sweater. Black boots scuffed and ready. A smirk bleeding lazy across his mouth. Casual. Cruel. Waiting for blood.
