I wrapped my legs around his waist and held on.
"You're mine," he said. "You're mine now. You just don't know it yet."
He shifted his angle, and I saw stars. The headboard cracked—a loud, splintering sound—and I felt it give beneath the force of his thrusts.
He didn't stop. Neither did I.
I came again—without warning, without permission, my body convulsing around his. He followed a moment later, his face buried in my neck, his hips stuttering against mine.
When it was over, he pulled out and disposed of the condom. I lay on the bed, shaking, my body aching in places I didn't know I had.
He climbed back into bed and pulled me against his chest. Not gentle—his arms were too tight, his grip almost painful. But present. Solid. Real.
"You're mine now," he said again.
I was too tired to argue.
I fell asleep in his arms.
When I woke, he was gone.
The candles had burned down to nothing, leaving only the faint smell of wax and smoke. The headboard was cracked—a jagged split down the center, the wood splintered and raw. My body ached. My thighs were sore, my wrists bruised, my lips swollen.
I touched the place where he'd bitten my stomach. The skin was tender, marked.
I didn't know if I was his.
But I knew, with a certainty that sat in my bones like a fever, that I would never be the same.
17
The Cracks Show
Monika
Aleksander returned at dawn.
I heard the car in the driveway—the soft crunch of gravel, the purr of the engine dying, the slam of a door. I lay in my bed, the sheets tangled around my legs, my body still aching from the night before. My room was dark, the fire cold, the candles burned down to pools of wax that had hardened on the nightstand.
I should have gotten up. I should have showered, dressed, made myself presentable. But my body wouldn't move. My limbs were heavy, weighted down by exhaustion and shame and the hollow ache of having been taken apart by two men in two nights.
The footsteps in the hallway were familiar. Measured. Deliberate. Aleksander's footsteps. He paused outside my door—just for a moment—and I held my breath, waiting for him to knock.
He didn't knock.
He walked away.
Breakfast was a performance.
I sat at the long table in the dining room, the same table where I'd had my first dinner with this family. The candles were lit, the silver polished, the flowers fresh in their crystal vases. But the air was different. Charged. The way it feels before a storm.
Aleksander sat at the head of the table, as always. He looked tired—there were shadows under his eyes, new lines around his mouth. But his eyes were sharp, watching everything, missing nothing.
Nathan sat to his right. He was smiling—that sharp, predatory smile that made my stomach twist. He didn't look tired. He looked satisfied. Like a cat that had eaten the canary and was waiting for someone to notice.
Gabriel sat across from me. He looked nervous, his eyes darting between his father and his brother, his hands fidgeting with his napkin. He'd noticed something was wrong. He just didn't know what.
And I sat in my usual place, at Aleksander's left hand, picking at my eggs and trying not to meet anyone's eyes.
