"Tell me you want me."
"I want you."
He entered me in one smooth stroke. I gasped, arching against him, my nails digging into his shoulders. He didn't pause. Didn't slow down. He fucked me hard, fast, punishing.
"Look at me," he said. "Look at me, Monika."
I looked at him. His eyes were dark, wild, full of something I'd never seen before. Pain, maybe. Or desperation.
"I want to be the only one," he said. "The only one who touches you. The only one who sees you. The only one who has you."
"Aleksander—"
"I can't share you. I can't." He thrust deeper, harder, and I saw stars. "You're mine, Monika. You're mine."
I didn't argue. I couldn't. I was too far gone, too caught up in the rhythm of his body against mine, the overwhelming sensation of being claimed.
He didn't stop until I came. Then he came, his face buried in my neck, his body shuddering against mine.
When it was over, he pulled out and lay beside me. The room was silent, the lamp still on, the shadows still dancing on the walls.
"You're mine," he said again. This time, it wasn't a demand. It was a plea.
"I know," I said.
I didn't know if it was true.
I didn't know anything anymore.
The next morning, the house was quiet.
Nathan was absent from breakfast. Gabriel was silent, his eyes fixed on his plate, his hands shaking slightly. Aleksander sat at the head of the table, his face a mask of stone, his eyes never leaving me.
I ate my eggs and pretended everything was normal.
But nothing was normal.
The cracks were showing. And I knew, with a certainty that sat in my bones like a cold weight, that they would only grow wider.
18
Gabriel's Confession
Gabriel
Ifound out the way I find out everything in this house—through whispers and shadows and the things people don't say.
It was the servants. They were talking in the kitchen, their voices low, their words careful. But I heard them. I heard her name. I heard my brother's name. I heard the wordsheadboardandbrokenandall night long, and I felt the world tilt beneath my feet.
I walked out of the kitchen without saying anything. My legs were numb. My hands were shaking. I climbed the stairs to the second floor, my footsteps echoing in the empty hallway, and I stopped outside her door.
I should have knocked. I should have given her the chance to explain. But I didn't. I opened the door and walked in.
She was sitting on the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest, her face buried in her hands. She looked up when I entered, and I saw the tears on her cheeks, the redness around her eyes.
She'd been crying.
Good.
