His eyes areanguished. They meet mine with an intensity that steals my breath—there’s genuine pain there, genuine conflict. He’s not looking away. He’s staring directly at me, and in those eyes, I see the war he’s waging with himself. The man who whispered tenderly about protecting me is in there, still present, stillsufferingat what he’s being forced to do.
But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t release me. Doesn’t break formation with Dominic and Liam.
Because my father is still here, watching. Because backing down now would mean admitting they planned this cruelty, and in this room full of power and predators, weakness is death.
So, Ryder stays. Stays and holds me open while his eyes scream silent apologies. Stays and participates in my humiliation while his soul apparently tears itself apart. It’s somehow worse than if he’d simply looked away—this evidence that heknowswhat he’s doing is wrong, that hefeelsmy pain, but continues anyway.
My father’s breathing grows increasingly labored. I can feel his anguish radiating across the glass table like heat from a furnace. For all the ways he’s hurt me, he’s still my father, and I never would have wanted him to see me like this. And watching him realize that his political power means nothing here—breaks something inside me.
“I can’t—” His voice cracks.
He shoves back from the table so violently that his chair scrapes loudly against the stone floor. For a moment, I think he might come for me, might try to fight them. But he just stares at me—at what I’ve become, at what they’ve made me—and then he turns and walks away.
The heavy doors slam shut behind him with a resounding echo that cuts through the dining hall like a blade.
And that’s when my composure shatters.
The moment the doors close, I break. My shoulders begin to shake, small tremors that quickly escalate into full-body sobs that wrack my frame. Tears stream down my cheeks in rivers, and I can’t stop them, can’t control them, can’t do anything but sit here and fall apart while still impaled on Dominic’s cock.
The realization of what’s happened hits me in waves:
Theyknewhe’d be here. Theyplannedthis. Everything they did before lowered my defenses so that when they destroyed me in front of my father, it would hurt more.
I thought I was safe with them. Thought that what we shared transcended the Hunt, transcended revenge. I was such a fool.
“Please,” I beg, my voice barely audible beneath my sobs. “Please, let me go. Please, I can’t?—”
For a moment, nothing changes. Then Dominic’s arms loosen slightly. Not a release, but a shift. A softening.
“Shhh,” he murmurs against my ear, and there’s genuine tenderness in his voice now that the performance is over. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
I look back, and his eyes hold mine with an intensity that makes my chest clench. There’s real regret there now—no mask between us except the literal one on his face. I can see the conflict, the pain, the struggle with what he’s just done.
But it doesn’t matter. Because hediddo it. Because he held me down and displayed me like a trophy while my father watched, and no amount of softening now can undo that.
Ryder leans forward, his masked face hovering near mine. “Cora,” he whispers, and his voice is breaking. “Look at me. Please look at me.”
I meet his gaze, and what I see destroys me all over again. He’s crying. Actually crying, tears streaming down his face and into his mask.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. This wasn’t—we didn’t think?—”
“Didn’t think what?” My voice is hollow. “That it would hurt? That I’d feel betrayed? That everything you said in the Red Room was a lie?”
“It wasn’t a lie,” Liam says softly. “Cora, what happened with your father—that was the plan, yes. But what happened between us, that was real. Thatisreal.”
I want to believe him. God, I want to believe him so badly that it physically hurts. But the betrayal cuts too deep, the wound is too fresh.
“You used me,” I whisper. “You made me trust you, made me think I was safe, and then you used me as a weapon against him.”
“We did,” Dominic says. “We planned this. We executed it. And we’ll carry the guilt of it for the rest of our lives.”
The words are meant to comfort, but they only make it worse. Because now I know they understood the magnitude of the betrayal and did it anyway.
Ryder’s hand reaches for my face, but I flinch away.
“Don’t,” I say, my voice small and broken. “Please don’t touch me.”
The three men in their skull masks watch me with what might be remorse, what might be regret. But I can’t accept it. Can’t let the tiny glimmer of hope they’re offering penetrate the walls I’m rapidly constructing around my heart.
