But I was her Dom. Her Daddy. The man she called when she trusted to tell her when lines got crossed.
Seeing those lines crossed in HD, after the fact, lit something dark under my ribs.
I’d grown up with possessiveness drilled into my veins. Crows protect what’s theirs. We lock our people down with vows and blood and very clear rules. With Madeline, it wasn’t an impulse. It was a diagnosis. I didn’t just want her safe; I wanted control over everything.
Cold anger I could work with. This was hotter. Stripped. Stupid. Personal. For a man built on control, this kind of helplessness felt like acid.
“Scroll down,” Luca said quietly. “Analytics.”
I swiped. Engagement graphs. Heatmap. Rings of activity in Villain and Malice, bleeding out to St Cross and beyond.
“Her core traffic is Villain, Harlan and Malice. Good. It means we see most things first. St Cross spikes when she’s there. The rest is background noise.”
“It means half the heirs in my city have alerts on for my girl. When some faceless asshole puts his arm around her for a photo. They don’t deserve that level of access.”
“They were tracking her before Veil. This just gives them a digital shrine.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“It’s supposed to make you realistic,” Luca said. “You don’t get to put her back in a box just because you’re in love and all crow about it.”
I didn’t want her in a box. I wanted her in my bed. My shirt, sending me the first-photo-of-the-day in the underwear I chose, knowing only Daddy saw those angles.
I flicked to notifications without thinking. Mentions. Tags. Reposts. People slicing her face and body into their own little altars and scrawling worship or jokes underneath.
One had frozen her mid-laugh, mouth open.
Caption: if i ever shut up about madeline thorne assume i died.
“She is not a meme.”
“Actually, she kind of is,” Rome said. “There’s a whole hashtag. #madelinethorne, #MaddieMyReligion?—”
I looked at him once. He shut up.
Nikolai dragged his hand over his face. “This is exactly why I said we should sedate him before doing this.”
“Because I have eyes?”
“Because you have no chill. Which, for once, is a liability.”
“They’re talking about my girl!”
I could not wait for one of them to get a girlfriend.When that day came, I would make each of them suffer as I was right now.
Rome grinned. “My girl. You all heard that, right?”
Bastion’s smirked. “He’s gone.”
I was ready to deflect and mention Emilia just to get the heat off me, and back onto the twins. But the parent side of me, that saw them as sons, not annoying brothers, controlled my tongue. I wouldn’t hurt the twins like that.
Gone didn’t begin to cover it. Crow love wasn’t soft. It was absolute. Once decided, that was it. Veil didn’t fit those rules. So I was going to bend it until it did.
“Remove them.”
Luca’s brows pinched. “Who.”
“The accounts.” I kept my voice level. Barely. “Anyone who talks about her like that. Ban them.”
