Page 34
“You are a monster,” Ari rasps. His voice sounds like torn sandpaper. “You get off on breaking people.”
“I do.” I accept the title without hesitation. “I am dismantling the man you pretend to be. But I am also building a foundation in his place.”
Ari glares at me. “You are turning me into a dog.”
“I am stripping away the masks.” I drop my arms and take a single step forward. “You spend your entire life performing, Ari. You smile at galas. You have spent years hiding what matters to you. You keep everyone at arm’s length because genuine connection terrifies you. You think if anyone sees the rot inside your head, they will leave.”
He flinches. The words strike bone.
“I read your psychological profile. I watched you operate for months. You seek out dominance in the shadows. You hire professionals to tie you down because you are too cowardly to ask for real submission in the light of day.”
Ari’s face drains of all color. His chest heaves. The exposure rips the air straight from his lungs.
“I am going to show you exactly who you are underneath all that exhausting charm,” I continue, my tone unrelenting. “It will not be gentle. It will hurt. But it will be more honest than anything you have ever allowed yourself.”
Ari shakes his head. He backs up until his calves hit the edge of the cot. “You are insane.”
“Yes.” I hold his gaze, pinning him in place. “But I am also the only person on this earth who is going to see every dark, twisted desire you hide. I will see every hidden need. I will watch you completely unravel.” I pause, letting the silence stretch between us, letting the weight of my promise settle over his shoulders. “And I will want you anyway. Not despite the darkness. Because of it.”
The air in the cell turns thick. Heavy.
Ari stares at me. The defiance in his green eyes fractures, revealing the starving, desperate man buried underneath. I offer him the one outcome he craves more than freedom. I offer him a place to exist without pretense. I offer him permission to stop carrying the crushing weight of his own armor.
He wants to deny it. He wants to curse at me and throw a punch. But the recognition flashes in his pupils. The buried, submissive part of his soul hears the promise and reaches for it blindly.
“I will never be like her,” Ari whispers. The statement sounds entirely like a plea.
“You will be exactly what I make you.” I offer a small, knowing smile. “And you will thank me for the relief.”
I turn my back on him. I walk out of the cell and secure the door. I leave him alone with the echoes of a truth he cannot fight. The seed is planted. His own mind will water it.
I walk the length of the hall and return to my study.
I drop into the leather chair and look at the blank monitors. The purpose hardens in my chest, turning to steel. I am not just breaking them. I am forging a bond that no outside force can sever.
I am a psychopath. I am a monster who uses trauma and manipulation to extract devotion. But I am their monster now. I will protect them with lethal, unflinching violence. I will give them structure, care, and absolute belonging in a world that left them entirely hollow.
No one will take them from me. Hunter Reed can throw the entire Viper organization at these walls. Aurora Harrison can burn the city to the ground. It will not matter. By the time they figure out how to breach this compound, the people they want to rescue will no longer exist.
I reach out and turn the monitors back on. The screens flicker to life, illuminating the two rooms that house my entire future.
I am creating the one destination I never had. A place where I belong, too.
12
ARI
Isit on the edge of the narrow cot. I stare at my hands. They shake. They have been shaking for hours, a relentless tremor vibrating through my bones ever since the guards hauled me back from Liv’s suite. My skin crawls with the memory of the plush cream rug against my knees. I knelt at Jax’s feet. I opened my mouth like a trained animal and accepted the pieces of pastry he fed me. I let a monster dehumanize me, and the sickest part is the absolute clarity of my own motives. I did not kneel out of fear for my own life. I knelt because Liv would have starved.
Jax found the perfect weapon. He bypassed my Viper training completely. He ignored physical pain. He ignored isolation. He weaponized my basic decency. He built a psychological prison where every act of resistance translates directly into cruelty toward an innocent woman. The trap works flawlessly because it uses my own protective instincts to dig the grave.
The silence of the cell suffocates me, but the echoes from last night refuse to fade. I hear Liv’s desperate pleasure vibrating through the thin drywall. I hear her begging, her voice a high, broken note of complete submission. I listened to her come apart for the man holding us hostage. I heard the ecstasy tearing through her throat, and I could not stop my own body from reacting. I lay on this exact mattress, hard and aching and thoroughly disgusted with the undeniable truth. A sick, buried piece of my soul fed on that display of absolute dominance.
Then Jax unlocked my door. He stood over me in the dark. He did things to me I have only ever allowed myself to imagine in the pitch-black corners of my mind. He stripped me naked and bent me over this cot. He broke past every defense, invading my body and demanding my total surrender. He made me come harder than I ever have in my entire thirty-three years of existence.
He made me beg.
The shame coats my throat like wet ash. I close my eyes, squeezing them tight, but the memory burns bright behind my eyelids. The physical violation should enrage me. It should ignite a furious, blinding need for vengeance. It does not. The devastating reality anchors me to the floor. My body responded with heat. My pleasure was authentic. A deeply fractured part of my psyche craved the exact degradation Jax forced upon me.
