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Exploiting her trust. Using her desire. Taking what I wanted and calling it a bargain when it was just another betrayal dressed up in different words.

The recognition didn’t stop me.

I kept moving, kept fucking her, kept watching her face as she came apart beneath me, because stopping would mean admitting what I’d done, and I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. Not when the House was watching, and the ritual was almost complete, and I still had a chance to use this bond for leverage.

But something had shifted.

Because I’d felt her body remember mine, even if her mind didn’t, and the connection between us wasn’t just supernatural anymore. It was real. It was the same thing I’d felt a hundred years ago when I’d held her in that narrow cot and realized I wanted to stay more than I wanted to leave.

And that terrified me more than anything the House could do.

Because if I loved her again, I’d have to choose.

And I’d already proven what I chose when the stakes were high enough.

The same fucking woman I’d destroyed a hundred years ago.

And I was doing it again.

The second item from the trunk was a ring.

Silver, tarnished, with a small black stone set in the center. The kind of ring a man gave a woman to promise her something he had no intention of keeping.

As I turned it over in my hand, the memory hit before I could stop it.

Then . . .

The theater was smaller back then. Just a converted warehouse on the edge of the city, with a stage barely big enough for three performers and an audience that paid in cash because nobody wanted their names written down.

Evangeline Vale ran the place with her father’s money and her mother’s cruelty, staging private shows for people who wanted to see things they couldn’t admit to wanting. Punishment. Humiliation. Confession. The kind of performances that made the audience feel like they were watching something real, not scripted.

They were real.

That was the problem.

Six months into working backstage, I met her.

Zinnia.

A name I’d stopped saying out loud years ago because the House didn’t like it when I remembered too much.

Evangeline’s niece, brought in to help with costumes and props, hated every second. The way she moved through the backstage area told me everything—jaw tight, hands clenched, eyes scanning the exits like she was planning her escape.

“You don’t have to be here,” I told her one night after a show.

She looked at me, startled. “What?”

“You hate this place. You don’t have to stay.”

“My aunt needs help.”

“Your aunt needs a lot of things. That doesn’t mean you have to give them to her.”

Studying me for a long moment, she smiled. Not a happy smile. The kind someone gives when they realize you’ve just said something true and terrible.

“You’re new,” she said.

“Six months.”