Not because she'd disobeyed.
Because she'd seen.
That small boy with careful eyes and bruises he'd learned to hide. The woman who'd stopped fighting back years before the camera caught her stillness. The man whose shadow I'd spent my entire life trying to outgrow—and failing, because monsters didn't die when you walked away from them.
They followed.
They lived in your bones.
Belle swallowed. I watched her throat work, watched her try to find words that wouldn't land wrong.
She wouldn't find them.
There were no right words for this.
I let the silence stretch. Let her feel the weight of what she'd done—not just snooping, though that mattered. But understanding me in a way I hadn't given her permission for.
Understanding was intimacy I didn't offer freely.
She'd stolen it, anyway.
My voice came out quieter than I intended. Controlled, because losing control now would prove every fear that photo represented.
"What did I tell you?"
Her eyes widened. Confusion flickered before realization hit.
"Eat," I continued, each word deliberate. "Then come to bed."
Not complicated instructions.
Not unreasonable demands.
And yet here she stood, in my study, touching my past like she had any right to it.
"You chose to explore instead." I tilted my head, studied her the way I studied opponents on the ice—looking for weaknesses, openings, the exact place to press that would make them crack. "Why?"
She opened her mouth. Closed it.
I took one step forward. Just one.
She flinched. Not much. Just enough to tell me she remembered exactly what happened the last time she'd tested me.
“There are rules in my house, Belle. And when you break them… you’re punished.”
My voice stayed low, steady, the way it did right before a fight on the ice. Not rage. Precision. The kind that made grown men hesitate.
She backed into the edge of the desk, breath catching like she’d tripped over fear she didn’t want to name.
“Your father did an inadequate job teaching you consequences.”
The hit landed. Clean. Sharp. I watched it ripple across her face—hurt first, then fury rushing in to cover it.
“And yours did so much better?”
The words came out of her like a blade she hadn’t meant to draw. A reflex. Pure nerve. I felt them slice under my ribs, quick and surgical, targeted in a way she didn’t even understand.
My jaw locked. Heat flared behind my eyes. A muscle jumped beneath my cheekbone, the traitorous twitch I hadn’t felt since I was fifteen.
