Chapter
Twenty-Five
BEN
December 15, 10:30 PM
The passage smelledlike cold stone and old secrets — my secrets — every time I used it. Tonight it felt like a vein, pulsing me straight to her heart.
I stopped outside the hidden panel to her room and pressed my scarred palm to the wood. On the other side, she was waiting. Blindfolded, probably. Hands knotted in her lap the way they always were when fear and anticipation fought for space inside her.
She thought she’d betrayed Mr. Stonewood.
She thought Jacob had ruined her.
She had no idea the man who’d held her last night — the one who’d whispered her name like a prayer while buried deep inside her — was the same monster about to walk through that door and punish her for it.
My chest burned with something too jagged to be jealousy. It was worse. It was the knowledge that I’d done this to myself.One unguarded night. One moment where I’d let Jacob take the wheel and forgotten the mask entirely.
And now I had to discover what kind of woman she really was when the blade was at her throat.
Would she sacrifice the groundskeeper to save herself and her grandmother? Or would she try to shield the man she thought she’d fallen for, even if it cost her everything?
Either answer would destroy something. The only question was what I could live with afterward.
And now I had to make her pay for it.
I flexed my hand, feeling the pull of scar tissue across my knuckles. The same hand that had traced her spine with reverence hours ago would bruise her tonight. Not because I wanted to hurt her — God, no — but because the game demanded blood when rules were broken. Because if I didn’t sell the rage, Henry’s careful machinery would grind to a halt. Because the only way to keep her here, keep her mine, was to make her believe the monster was real.
And he was.
Iwas.
I pushed the panel open.
The hinges didn’t creak. Nothing in this house made a sound it wasn’t supposed to.
Chrissy sat on the edge of the bed, blindfold already in place — black silk against pale skin. Her breathing hitched the second the air shifted. She knew it was me. Not Jacob. Never Jacob again, not if I could help it.
Once this game was over, we’d both have to face the truth about who I was, and the fact that Jacob had never really existed. There was only Ben, and I wasn’t sure how she might take that.
“On your knees,” I said, voice low, stripped of anything soft.
She slid to the floor without hesitation, knees hitting the rug with a muffled thud that went straight to my cock and straight to my gut in equal measure. So damn obedient. So damn trusting. Every instinct in my body snarled.
Good girl… my ruined girl.
She was the angel I was about to break a little more, and the one I’d piece back together afterward, whether she hated me for it or not.
“Mr. Stonewood,” she breathed, voice soft. “I — I’m ready to accept whatever consequences you see fit.”
She bowed her head like a sinner in church, praying a prayer of confession.
My throat tightened. I stepped inside, shutting the door behind me with a click that made her flinch.
Excellent. Fear meant she cared.
“Do you know,” I said, walking slow circles around her, “why you’re being punished today, Miss Jones?”
