I’m just not sure that this version of Starling is the one I fell in love with all those years ago. She’s changed, and I know that’s mainly because of me. I’ve never regretted claiming her or altering her life to fit into my world, and I’ll never let her go, no matter how much she might want me to. She told me she’s not a broken little bird anymore, and that’s true. She’s different now, but she’s still mine, and now I need to figure out how to bind her to me so tightly that I never have to fear her ever trying to leave me again.
All of my brothers have used different methods to bind their wives to them. Clay fell so deeply in love with January that he was willing to give her anything she wanted, even if that meant letting her go.
Hunter tried to blackmail and manipulate Bunny. I admire his efforts, and perhaps if Starling hadn’t interjected, it might have worked, but in the end, Bunny chose him despite all of his sins, and their marriage is stronger because of it.
Evan went a different route. He drugged Sammy and had a doctor remove her birth control and then he got her pregnant, ensuring that she’d always be his. It worked, she’s chained to him for the rest of his life, but I’m not sure his sins would have been so easily forgiven, if Sammy and Starling hadn’t been the puppet masters orchestrating his and Sammy’s relationship in the first place. You can’t hate the player when you’re both deviously playing the game.
Since it started to feel like Starling was slipping away, I’ve contemplated baby trapping my beautiful wife. But I fear that if I were to do that to Starling, she’d end up resenting ourchild. Until recently, I honestly didn’t believe there was a line I wouldn’t cross to keep her, but apparently that’s mine. I refuse to make any child we create together be a weapon, and if I drugged her and took away that choice, I’m not sure she’d ever forgive me.
That’s not to say that I don’t plan on getting her pregnant. I absolutely do. But I want her to know I’m doing it. I want to watch her face as I fill her with my cum. I want to see the exact moment she realizes that I’m putting our baby in her.
Despite all of her messed-up history, Starling has always been right there with me when it comes to sex. She may pretend to hate me. She might pretend she doesn’t want me to fuck her, but she knows that if she asked me to stop, I would.
Look at that. There are two lines I won’t cross.
From the moment I saw Starling, on her first day of freshman year, I knew she was mine. I knew that I was going to marry her and that I’d do whatever I needed to do to make that happen. I planned everything, right up to the moment that I walked into the shitty diner she was working in and told her I was taking her home.
Back then I assumed she’d want me just as much as I wanted her, and when she didn’t, I just took her anyway. After she ran from me, I burned her world to the ground and then brought her back to me and built her a new life out of the ashes.
Despite everything that’s happened, I have always been sure that she belongs to me and that she understands that.
Discovering that she had a foolproof escape plan set up to leave me shocked me to my core. My wife, my little bird, had not just considered how she’d get free of me, but she’d orchestrated an entire plot to disappear like a ghost.
Since that day, I don’t remember the last time I slept a full night, because every time I close my eyes, I imagine waking up alone and realizing that she’s gone. I don’t know how or if I’llever get past the fear that one day she might walk out of my life and never come back, and I don’t know how to stop that from happening, or even if I can.
After Bunny came home, Starling confessed to all of us that she’s not okay. She told us that she thought she was over everything that happened in high school, but that she’s not. I know that I’m the reason her life imploded. I know I’m the reason that she can barely stand to be in the same room as her mom. I know that I’m the reason that she’s fucked up. But the dirty, ugly truth is that I like that she’s a mess. I like knowing that I’m a part of all of her. The good, the bad, and the ugly mean messy parts. I want to own every inch of her. I want to be in every thought she has, every breath she takes, every choice she makes.
A decent person would regret damaging her the way I have, but I don’t. I’d make every choice over again if it ended with her tied to me, mine in all of the ways. But knowing that she could leave me makes me want to destroy her all over again. Only this time I’d make sure that when she clawed her way out of the debris, every part of her was melted into every part of me until she couldn’t breathe without me and the thought of leaving became impossible to consider.
Pulling my cell from my pocket, I open the tracking app and watch as the dot on the screen that indicates her location moves steadily along the beach. She might be running, but she’s not free. Sending a live tracking link to her security team, I exhale and step onto the sand. Taking off my shoes and socks, I bend down to pick them up and spot hers abandoned haphazardly a few feet away.
Collecting hers too, I line them up neatly side by side, then stroll down to the waterline, feeling the wet sand moving beneath my toes. Turning around, I look up at the house I builtfor Starling and me. It’s a beautiful modern box, full of windows that flood each room with light.
We only officially moved in a couple of weeks ago, and instead of fucking in every room of the house and making the most of not having roommates, I’m watching her like she’s ready to bolt and spending hours on end staring at my wife sleeping beside me just in case that night is the night she tries to leave me.
After we moved in, I searched all of Starling’s things for any hint that she’s planning to leave me. I had a private investigator check for bank accounts I don’t know about, large cash withdrawals, or anything that could look like her stockpiling money.
Right now, I’m supposed to be focused on learning the ins and outs of my family’s businesses so I can step in and allow my dad to retire. But instead, all I can think about is where she is, what she’s doing, and if this is the day that she’s going to leave me.
All four girls are due to return to school today for their junior year. But as Sammy’s nearly eight months pregnant, she’s decided to defer until after the baby is born, leaving Starling, January, and Bunny commuting to campus every day instead of living on site.
After Sammy and Evan found out they were pregnant, they basically moved off campus and into their house, which prompted the rest of us to push up the timetables on our construction. So for the first time in years, instead of living together, the eight of us all have our own homes within the private estate we’ve created on the beach.
I don’t really know how my brothers feel about their wives heading off to school alone, but I’ve been haunted by the idea of Starling spending all day without me, all summer. Since I officially graduated and Starling finished her sophomore year,we’ve spent glorious weeks together, traveling, sleeping late, and hanging out with our friends.
We went to Maine to see Starling’s dad. He still hates me, but now he only mean-mugs me when he thinks Starling can’t see, which is a vast improvement on his usual open hostility. We visited with my parents, and Starling even agreed to go and meet her and Evan’s half brother Lysander.
I think that Starling’s mom, Cassidy, hoped that the baby might be the key to fixing their broken relationship, but even though Starling told Cassidy and Harry she was happy for them, it’s clear that she has zero interest in having any relationship with her mom.
Strangely, despite Starling and Evan’s tempestuous relationship in the past, since he and Sammy got married, Starling and Evan have developed a true sibling bond. They text all the time, have inside jokes, and she calls him “big bro,” sometimes not even ironically.
I don’t understand how she went from hating him to helping Sammy trick him to considering him a brother, but I’m glad that she has. Especially since her and Hunter’s friendship is still firmly in slightly hostile civility status.
Both Bunny and Sammy have told Hunter in no uncertain terms that Bunny leaving him is not Starling’s fault, but he still blames her because she was the one to plot and plan Bunny’s escape. He’s angry with her, and if it was Starling who had fled and Bunny who had helped her, I’d probably feel the same way. But the underlying discontent in our group is just one more thing that keeps me awake at night.
Sighing, I stare at our home and wonder if I should abandon this place and take my wife to the island I bought for us shortly after Bunny went missing. It’s tiny, just big enough for a house and some space to roam, but isolated enough that if I took my wife there, she’d never be able to leave.
I have to admit, the thought is more tempting than it should be. It wouldn’t take much to slip a sedative into her coffee. I could have her on a plane and caged on our own paradise island in less than twenty-four hours.
