"Good," I continue, keeping my voice low and controlled. "Fear keeps you alive." My tone is menacing. "And right now, you need to remember exactly who you're standing in front of."
For a moment, everything is balanced on the edge of a blade: her defiance, my restraint, the history burning between us. Then I step back. Because if I don't, I'll either break something I can't fix or prove her fear right in a way I never intended.
"Change your clothes," I say flatly. "Max will take care of you."
I turn away before my anger finds another outlet. Some lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. And despite everything, I won't become that man. I straighten, letting the full weight of me settle back into place. Don. King. Executioner when necessary.
The penthouse feelscavernous once he's gone. Too much space. Too much quiet. My footsteps echo as I pace, back and forth, the silence pressing in until I can't stand it anymore. Massimo's presence lingers everywhere, in the air, in the furniture, in the way the walls seem to expect him to fill them.
My thoughts won't slow.
Massimo.
Amauri.
Carter.
I push through the glass doors and step onto the terrace. The night air hits me, sharp and still warm. A pool stretches out before me, black and glassy under the lights, a hot tub steams quietly in the corner like it's waiting for someone who isn't coming. The city sprawls beyond the railing, all neon and illusion, pretending nothing is wrong.
My hands grip the stone edge as my mind races ahead of itself. Amauri is somewhere far away. Massimo is walking into hell. And Carter?—
The memory comes uninvited. I hadn't seen him in months when my father arranged the meeting. He was already in a wheelchair by then. Pale. Bitter. Reduced. Daddy had smoothed everything over the way he always does, press statements, medical silence, a neat narrative about an accident no one was allowed to question.
Carter looks up at me when I walk into the room, eyes sharp with spite.
"Well," his voice is tight and venomous. "Looks like you're going to marry me after all."
I broke up with him the day after he pawned me off to his coach for playtime on the field. A few weeks later, he had the accident on the football field. Naively, I'd thought: Karma.
"And I'm supposed to raise Coach's bastard," he continues, lips curling. "Funny how things work out."
I don't correct him. I let him believe it. It's his punishment, just in case there's any conscience or decency left in him.
Him.
The man who tried to break me. For everyone who thought my body was something they could use and discard. Carter didn't deserve the truth. In his bitterness, in his humiliation, he clung to that lie like it was the only power he had left. I turn away from the pool, heart pounding, chest tight. God, I was so young then. So tired. So determined to survive that I didn't care who I hurt as long as my baby was safe. I stand by the railing and stare out at the thousands of lights that rule Las Vegas every night. How many times have I seen this view? From how many different angles? How many versions of myself have stood exactly like this, pretending the city wasn't swallowing me whole?
But only one memory matters now. My wedding night. Or what passed for one. Carter was still recovering from surgeries, his body broken in ways no one was allowed to talk about, so there was no honeymoon. No travel. Thank God. Just a suite high above the Strip and the expectation that we would play our parts convincingly.
Which, perversely, was a relief.
I didn't need romance.
I didn't need touch.
I didn't need lies dressed up as love.
Most definitely not from him.
That weekend, I learned how to take care of him. Not as a wife or a partner, more like a nurse, as a penance. I learned how to help him dress and undress. How to lift him just enough to change the sheets. How to empty his urine bag. How to place a catheter without flinching, without crying, without letting my hands shake. He told me he was impotent. I was relieved. Not that I would have slept with him either way, still, it was a relief.
I did all of it without complaint.
Because that was the deal.
He married me because he needed a wife. Because he needed legitimacy. Because it was the only way he could claim a child as his and keep his political future intact. A man like him needed a family. And how convenient was it anyway that America's Golden Boy did get his happily ever after? Especially after the horrendous accident on the field that broke his spine.
I married him because it was the only way I was allowed to keep my baby. I never doubted my father would have made good on his threat. I could see it in his eyes when he said it, how easily he would have dragged me, kicking and screaming, into a clinic if I forced his hand. How small my pain was compared to his ambition.
