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“I promised to open the gate.”
“You also promised to let me choose.”
“You chose us.”
“Inside the chapel.”
“That counts.”
“So does this.”
I stop. Sloane doesn’t struggle. She doesn’t demand that I release her. She waits for me to do it because I said I would. Because obsession without choice is only a cage. The thought saved me from becoming the one thing she should genuinely fear. It doesn’t make releasing her easier. I lower her to the ground. Sloane’s bare feet touch the cold earth. She keeps one hand against my chest until she finds her balance. The gold ribbon remains around my wrist. Her ribbon. My promise.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
I hate those words. They sound like goodbye. Rhys walks past us and unlocks the outer gate. Metal groans across the silence. Beyond it waits the gravel parking lot. Sloane’s car sits beneath a dying security light. Freedom is thirty feet away. I built the maze to catch her. Now I have to watch her leave it. Dante offers her dress.
Sloane allows the blanket to fall. Morning light reveals the marks covering her skin—faint rope impressions, pink handprints, bites, and the bruises that will remind her of us after she drives away. My body responds despite the fear hollowing my chest. Sloane catches me staring.
“You like your work?”
“Yes.”
“Which mark is yours?”
“All of them.”
Dante scoffs.
“Greedy bastard.”
Sloane pulls the dress over her head. The fabric settles around her thighs. She isn’t wearing underwear. Rhys still has them. The thought nearly destroys what remains of my restraint. I step toward her. Rhys catches my shoulder.
“Callum.”
A warning. I look at his hand. He removes it. Sloane puts on her boots and turns toward the open gate. No one touches her. No one tries to stop her. That was the agreement. She steps out of the maze. Once. Twice. Three times. With each step, the distance becomes unbearable. Sloane reaches the parking lot.
She doesn’t look back. Something inside me tears open. Dante stands unnaturally still beside me. Rhys’s face becomes a mask without the skull. We allow her to leave because anything else would make every choice she offered meaningless. She reaches her car. Opens the trunk. And disappears behind it. I stop breathing.
SLOANE
I knew they would let me go. That was why I stayed. Three monsters chased me through the dark, tied me to an altar, and used every wicked fantasy I had ever hidden against me. But the men beneath the masks opened the gate. No manipulation. No threats. No demand that I soothe their feelings before tending to my own.
They gave me the hardest kind of freedom. A real one. I open the trunk and retrieve the overnight bag I packed yesterday. The lie I told myself feels ridiculous now. It’s only practical. A change of clothes.
A toothbrush. A phone charger. A black lace set I bought three weeks ago and pretended wasn’t intended for three men. I close the trunk. Callum still stands exactly where I left him. Rhys and Dante flank him, all three framed by the open gate. They look as if they’re attending a funeral. Dante sees the bag first. His mouth falls open. Rhys closes his eyes. Callum doesn’t move. I walk toward them. Dante steps forward. Rhys grabs his arm.
“Let her cross on her own.”
I pass through the gate. Callum stares at the overnight bag.
“What is that?”
“An overnight bag.”
“Why?”
“I’m kidnapping you.”
