For a long moment, he just stared at me.I watched the war play out behind his eyes, the part of him that wanted to throw me out battling with the part that wanted me to stay.
Then his grip gentled.Just slightly.Just enough that it was no longer punishment.
His thumb traced my jaw, almost tender, and I saw the exact moment he realized what he was doing.His hand dropped like I’d burned him.
“Get out.”His voice was hoarse.“Go to your room.And when I come for you tonight, and I will come for you, I’m going to make you forget every word of this conversation.Every tender thought.Every foolish hope.”His eyes burned into mine.“I’m going to remind you what I am.What you are.What this is.”
“Raphael—”
“Now.Before I remind you right here.”
I should have argued.Should have pushed harder, pressed the advantage while his walls were cracking.
But I’d seen it.That one moment of gentleness he couldn’t quite suppress.The way he’d touched my face with unexpected tenderness before he remembered he wasn’t supposed to care.
I turned and walked toward the door.Paused at the threshold.
“This morning,” I said without looking back.“You wanted to remind me who was in charge.But I think you were really reminding yourself.”
I didn’t wait for his response.
The hallway was silent as I made my way back to my room, but I could feel his gaze on my back until I turned the corner.Inside my chest, something had shifted.Not forgiveness.Not yet.Maybe not ever.
But understanding.
He wasn’t just a monster.He was a man who’d been broken so thoroughly as a child that he’d rebuilt himself as something that couldn’t be hurt.Every cruel word, every possessive touch, every reminder of who owned whom was just a wall.A fortress built by a three-year-old who’d learned that love ended in blood.
It didn’t excuse what he’d done to me this morning.Didn’t make the humiliation burn any less.
But it made him human.
And that was more dangerous than any of his cruelty had ever been.
I closed my bedroom door behind me and leaned against it, pressing my palms flat against the wood like I could hold back everything I’d just learned.Everything I’d just felt.
Clara’s voice echoed in my head, sharp and certain:Guard your heart.Use him the way he’s planning to use you.Whatever tenderness he shows you, it’s all part of the hunt.
She was right.She had to be right.Understanding why he was broken didn’t make him less dangerous.If anything, it made him more so, because now I wanted to reach for him.Now I saw the wounded child behind the monster, and some foolish, reckless part of me wanted to prove that love didn’t have to end in blood.
But I’d learned my lesson on that hallway floor this morning.He could make my body betray me.He could wring pleasure from me like water from a stone and leave me shattered and crying while he walked away satisfied.My body wasn’t mine anymore.
My heart still was.
I had to keep it that way.Had to remember that empathy wasn’t trust, that understanding wasn’t forgiveness, that seeing his wounds didn’t mean I should offer him mine.
He was still the man who’d orchestrated my ruin.Still the predator who’d bought my body like a commodity.Still the wolf, no matter how much he bled underneath.
I wouldn’t forget that.I wouldn’t let myself forget.
Even if some treacherous part of me already had.
17
RAPHAEL
The whiskey burned a path down my throat, but it couldn’t touch the words lodged in my chest.
You’re not your father.
