My heart stuttered. I picked up the card with careful fingers and flipped it over.
One command stared back at me in precise handwriting.
Tonight at 10:00 PM you will put on the blindfold, sit on the edge of the bed, and wait for me.
The ring on my finger seemed to pulse in time with my racing heart.
For a second, I just stood there, caught between the weight of the rule in my skull and the echo of Jacob’s voice in my chest.
If last night had been a test… whatever came next was going to be so much worse.
I set the card down, the edges of it trembling between my fingers, and reached for the silk.
And for the first time since I arrived at the lodge, I realized something with bone-deep certainty.
I wasn’t sure if I was more afraid of failing the Game… or of what would happen to me if I passed.
Chapter
Eighteen
BEN
How didshe know to pick my mother’s ring? Of all the rings on that table, what drew her to the only one that actually meant something to me?
I was furious, and in awe, and completely fucked.
I shook my head as I strode down the hall toward Chrissy’s room, already itching to get into tonight’s ‘interview’ session with her.
As I paused in front of Chrissy’s door, a flood of memories nearly swamped me. My mother wore that ring so often, and it drove my father nuts that she preferred it over every real jewel or gemstone he’d ever bought for her. She always said it was the only piece of jewelry she had that really captured her personality.
I shook off the thoughts of my mother and rapped on the door, not wanting to have anyone in my family in my head for what I was about to do with Chrissy.
I should have been triumphant. She’d walked past every glittering trap I laid and chosen the one thing that actuallymattered to me. It was proof, undeniable fucking proof, that she was the kind of woman I’d spent the last four years convincing myself she was.
Instead, all I felt was this jealous, gnawing rage at my own goddamn reflection because she let me put that ring on her finger while saying yes to Jacob, to the lie, to the safe, gentle version of me she thought she wanted.
I hated myself for it. It was absurd and weak.
I hated that the sight of my mother’s ring on her ring finger made me want to fall to my knees and thank her, while the rest of me wanted to drag her into the dark and remind her, in the roughest way possible, who she already belonged to by the terms of our contract.
“Did you follow my orders, little doll? Are you wearing the blindfold as instructed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good girl. Are you prepared for tonight’s... interview?”
“I think I am, sir.”
I smirked.
“We shall see, little doll. We shall see.”
I sucked in a deep breath, adjusted my mask, and opened the door, stepping inside her room and finding her exactly as I expected: blindfolded, sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for me.
I closed it behind me just as carefully, turned the lock, and let silence settle in the room like a held breath.
She was so fucking perfect it hurt, sitting there, spine straight, hands folded in her lap. Her posture was perfect, like she was trying to prove that she could be good even when no one was watching her. Except someone was. I was.
