It’s the first major thing I’ve bought that I haven’t told my family about. If I resort to taking Starling there, I don’t want anyone to know where we are and try to come after us. If I take her there, it’s because she’s given me no other choice.
After a few years with only each other for company, I’m pretty sure I could make her understand that leaving me simply isn’t an option and that I truly am willing to go to any lengths to keep her.
On one particularly wild, sleep-deprived night, I considered chaining Starling, physically detaining her with cuffs on her wrists and ankles, and despite how insane it sounds—even to me—I’m keeping the idea in my back pocket for if I need it.
Truthfully, the idea of taking away all of my wife’s clothes and shackling her with an ankle cuff and a metal chain appeals more to me than it should. I’ve spent years threatening to cage her, and calling her my little bird. But locking her in a literal gilded cage has crossed my mind too, not all the time, obviously, just whenever she seems most likely to run.
A wide yawn splits my lips, reminding me that I didn’t sleep at all last night. After we’d gotten into bed, I’d told her to ride my cock, slamming up into her as she bounced up and down on my hardness. Once she’d screamed my name and I’d filled her with my cum, she’d rolled to the mattress, curled into my side, and fallen asleep as my cum had dripped down her thighs. I’d spent the night counting down the moments until I had to watch her leave for school, knowing that my control of the campus has dwindled since I’ve graduated.
It was around three a.m. that I texted her security team and advised them they were no longer covert and would be avisible presence from now on. This morning in our driveway was the first time Starling had ever seen the team of four security personnel that have been following her on a daily basis for four years.
I knew that she’d refuse to take four huge security guards to campus with her. I knew that she’d spit feathers and tell me I was crazy when I offered her the option of taking security or finishing her degree online. But I also knew she’d be too angry to see what I was doing or recognize that I was planning to take away her need to be on campus so that I could force her to stay home and under my watch.
Our home is rigged with more cameras than we will ever need. Even Clay, who oversaw the design of our security system, said it was overkill, but I need to know everything my wife is doing. I need to see everything she’s planning, and I need to know the moment she decides to leave so I can stop her.
Glancing back down at the tracking app on my cell, I refresh the screen and watch her flashing dot moving at a steady pace. Running. Always running.
A part of me wants to go after her, but chasing her has never worked that well for me. This time I need to outmatch her, and I’m not entirely sure how to do that. The first time I spoke to her in that disgusting diner, she was full of fire and snark, but below the surface she was young, innocent, and scared.
After I brought her back to me under the guise of a scholarship to Kingsacre University, she was angry, guarded, and broken. Now, she’s shrewd, intelligent, and my equal in every way. For years I’ve made the stupid assumption that she was so wrapped up in me and our relationship, that she was oblivious to all the things Clay, Hunter, Evan, and I have done to fully claim our women.
I was wrong.
Starling wasn’t just aware, she was learning. She was watching, cataloging, and absorbing all of the fucked-up things we’ve done, and now, she’s every bit as much of a psycho as we all are. She proved that when she took a scalpel and cut the tracker from Bunny’s neck. She proved it when she artfully manipulated Evan into doing exactly what she wanted. She’s proved it over and over again, I just didn’t want to admit what that meant.
That she’s changed.
I don’t think any of us ever considered that her desperate pleas to Evan to help bring her friend home were all an act. The tears in her eyes looked genuinely desperate. Her heartfelt admittance of the double standard she was asking for felt real. She played us all, and honestly, I’m almost as impressed by her manipulation as I am terrified that I had no clue.
I’ve racked my brain searching for a hint that I saw my wife’s subterfuge. But I can’t think of a single moment when I considered anything about Sammy’s rekindled romance with her ex, her transfer to Harvard, or any of the other things they both said and did to lay the groundwork for Sammy to claim her man as suspicious or anything other than real.
It’s been months since Sammy moved back to California, and every time Starling and I spend time with Sammy and Evan, Starling gets a look in her eyes. She’s proud of the way she played us all. She’s always been mine, but she’s truly one of us now, capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with my brothers and me, equally as determined, ruthless, and calculating.
If I wasn’t so terrified that she’s going to leave me, I’d be proud of the magnificent adversary that she’s become. But my biggest fear now is that she’ll take everything she’s learned from me and the others and turn it against me. She could destroy me, and I don’t think I’d see it coming.
I wait on the beach for an hour, then reluctantly return to the house with the tracking app still open on my cell. After another twenty minutes, her dot stops moving, and I text her security team to ask if they have eyes on her.
They reply two minutes later with a photo of her curled into a ball in the sand. She’s too far away for me to see her face, but her body language is closed off and anguished. I know this is my fault, but control is all I know. I lost her once, and I won’t lose her again, and if she has to suffer for a while to understand that, then so be it.
Palming my cell, I head for the garage and get into my car, pulling out onto the street a few minutes later. It doesn’t take me long to drive along the coast to her location, and I park on the street, then walk between the houses onto the beach, not caring if they’re privately owned or not.
The head of her security team, James, nods to me as I pass, his expression silently angry as he retreats toward the street, now that I’m here. Despite having never spoken to my wife in person, I know that James feels more than just a professional obligation to her. He’s been watching her for years, a silent observer when she lived in Maine, and her constant shadow ever since. To an outsider, I’d guess this would just seem like his job, but his daily reports when Starling and I were apart told me more than I think he realizes. He cares for her, and even though I pay him an insane amount of money to ensure her safety, he’s devoted enough to her to be pissed at me for upsetting her today.
Kicking off my shoes again, I make my way down the sand, then sit down beside her.
“Leave me alone, Sebastian,” she says weakly, not turning to look at me.
Sighing, I hold the bottle of water I bought with me out to her. Exhaling exhaustedly, she takes the bottle from me and sits up. Unscrewing the top, she drinks thirstily. Unable to lookaway, I take in her appearance. Her eyes are red, but her skin is pale, her lips are downturned, and her hand is shaking when she lowers the water to her lap.
“I don’t want to finish my degree online,” she says weakly.
“It’s already done,” I say coldly, not willing to give her any hope that I’ll change my mind.
Scoffing, she shakes her head. “I’ll go and speak to the dean.”
Laughing lightly, I don’t bother to tell her what she already knows. My reputation and that of my family carry more weight than hers, even if her name is Lockwood now.
“Why?” she asks, still not looking at me.
