Then a shaky exhale on his end of the line.
My heart hammers against my ribs. Every muscle in my body coils tight, wound so taut that one wrong word will snap me in half.
The question forms before I can stop it, desperate and raw in a way I don't recognize. "Is Emmaleen okay?"
Lorcan hesitates.
That single beat of silence—maybe half a second, maybe less—detonates inside my chest like a grenade. My brain supplies images immediately. Scenarios. Each one worse than the last.
Emmaleen cuffed to Lorcan's bed, spiraling into that desperate place Jino described. Begging for structure, for commands, for someone to fill the void I created when I trained her to need me. Lorcan touching her. Lorcan's hands on her skin. Lorcan's cock inside her while she cries and calls him Master because her broken brain doesn't know the difference anymore between the man who conditioned her and the man who kidnapped her.
Or worse.
Emmaleen hurt. Lorcan losing control the way he did thirteen years ago in that St. Augustine's bathroom, hand around a girl's throat, eyes glazed with something darker than lust. Emmaleen unconscious on his floor. Emmaleen not breathing. Emmaleengonebecause I trained her to submit to anyone who commanded her and then gave someone the chance.
"Giovanni—" Lorcan starts.
I can't breathe.
The monster inside me claws at my ribcage, roaring for blood, demanding I burn Boston to the ground until I find her. But underneath that rage is something worse—something small and broken that sounds like the eight-year-old boy tied to a postin a warehouse, waiting for someone to save him when his father had no intention of ever doing so.
Jino moves.
I didn't hear him approach, but suddenly his hand is there, palm open, silently demanding the phone. His eyes lock onto mine—steady, clinical, completely devoid of the fury that was eating him alive two hours ago.
I hand him the phone without a word.
"Lorcan," Jino says, his voice dropping into that calm, detached register he uses when he's explaining submission protocols. "It's Jino. I need you to tell me exactly what's happening with Emmaleen right now. Don't summarize. Don't interpret. Just describe what you're seeing."
I can't hear Lorcan's response, but I watch Jino's face as he listens. His expression doesn't change—still that same clinical assessment, like he's cataloging symptoms for a diagnosis.
"How long has she been in that state?" Jino asks.
Pause.
"And before that? When you first restrained her?"
Another pause. Longer this time.
Jino's jaw tightens fractionally—the only sign he's processing something he doesn't like. "Did you touch her sexually? At any point?"
I stop breathing.
"No," Jino says after a moment, responding to whatever Lorcan answered. "That's actually good. That's—listen to me, Lorcan. What you're seeing right now is power-exchange withdrawal. It's a documented psychological phenomenon that occurs when a heavily conditioned submissive is removed from their dominant without proper transitional support."
He's talking to Lorcan, but he's looking at me.
Making me watch what I did to her.
What I did toall of them.
"Emmaleen has been in an intensive training environment for weeks," Jino continues, his tone never wavering from that steady, professorial cadence. "Her nervous system adapted to a very specific feedback loop—commands, compliance, consequences, rewards. Her brain chemistry literally restructured around those patterns. Dopamine, oxytocin, endorphins—all of it tied to Giovanni's presence and the rituals we established. When you removed her from that environment, you didn't just take her away from Giovanni. You severed her from her entire regulatory system."
Lorcan must ask something, because Jino's expression shifts slightly.
"She'll attach to any authority figure who demonstrates dominance," Jino explains. "It's not a conscious choice—it's just neurological survival. Her brain is desperately searching for someone to restore the structure it was trained to depend on. And because her conditioning is sexual in nature, her body will respond sexually to anyone who triggers those cues. Commands. Physical control. Restraints. Anything that mimics what we taught her to associate with safety and release."
My stomach turns.
