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NATHANIEL

The realization lands with such force that, for a second, I can’t move.

Can’t do anything but stare at the fucking thing tucked into the corner of the bedroom ceiling and feel rage consuming me.

A camera.

Of course there’s a camera.

This is Vexley House. There are cameras in corridors, service stairwells, garages, wine cellars, offices, libraries, exterior gates, and rooms no one has entered in years. I know this because I approved half of them. I signed the security revisions that allowed interior monitoring in “unused or high-risk rooms.”

Unused rooms.

Like this one.

A spare bedroom in the old guest wing.

My stomach turns. What the fuck was I thinking?

I know there are cameras in bedrooms.

Vexley House has always had rooms under observation.

Hell, my father has been monitoring Hazel’s room for years. I was just watching her recently, looking for Ella.

Ella, who is still lying naked, her body flushed, her pussy glistening, her lips swollen and pink.

Now the camera watches me.

Watches Ella.

Watches the bed where I just once again fucked her without her consent.

Somewhere, on a secure drive or a cloud archive or in a live monitoring room tucked behind one of my father’s locked doors, there is footage of Ella and me.

Kissing her like I mean it.

Holding her afterward.

Anyone who sees that footage will know.

Not that I wanted her.

This was more than want. I have to finally admit it.

This was something intense and wonderful. And the video will betray my true feelings.

Ella sits up, clutching the sheet to her chest, her hair falling loose from its knot, her eyes huge in her pale face. “Nathaniel?”

I hear the fear in her voice.

I put it there.

I brought her into this room.

I closed the door.