Chapter 57
Chapter Fifty-Seven
BASTION
The main glass table in the war room wasn’t projecting trade routes or Villain.
Instead it projected the island’s layout in three dimensions — the Atrium of Bone, the Lock-In House, the carved stretch of private beach that would be hers, whether she wanted it or not.
Off shore our yacht would wait.
When Luca came back in, he didn’t take his usual seat at the far end. He dropped into the chair opposite me, forearms braced on the glass like he’d already made peace with what we were about to do.
The Codex lay between us, open to the Claiming Rite section. A fountain pen rested on the page, black ink still wet from where I’d circled a line.
“You want to walk it?” he asked.
I nodded once. We weren’t deciding if . Only who .
“Atrium of Bone,” I said first, reading the header, “The bed goes in the center. She keeps her eyes on us, not them.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Luca answered, already marking my name beside the law that demanded it .
“The Unmaking.”
“You cut it,” he said without hesitation.
I could already feel the wedding dress in my hands, the sound of it tearing away until nothing was left between her and the dynasty.
“Blade of Binding.”
“You give it to her,” I told him. “Keep your hand over hers when she takes the first cut.”
“Circle of Blood.”
“You,” I said.
He signed his name beside it without pause.
“Heartcut.”
“We do it together,” he said.
I marked both our names.
“Palm and Heart Link.”
“Your cut in her palm,” I said. “Hers in yours. My palm over her chest. Hers over mine. Meet in the middle.”
He wrote it out in the margin next to — four cuts, two hearts, one vow .
“Claiming act,” I said.
“You take her first in the Atrium,” he replied.
“You finish it when the room goes dark,” I told him.
“Private completion.”
“Law says we finish in her. Ours says she feels both.”
No argument.
“Lock-In,” I said. “She won’t leave for a week.”
“She won’t want to,” Luca replied, but his eyes were already on Training His Pet .
We both knew the law by memory. I leaned forward. “We taking a line each, or both of us on every one?”
He considered it. “If we split them, she’ll learn the difference between us faster. Know whose hand’s on her and what it means. ”
“And if we do them together,” I countered, “she learns there’s no daylight between us. That whatever one says, the other enforces.”
His mouth curved slightly. “Both on every line, then. Double weight. Double reinforcement.”
“Fine,” I said, marking it in the margin. “First day, obedience and expectation. Second, public formality versus private possession. Third, emotional loyalty. Fourth, surrender. Last three, dynasty customs — we layer it until she’s living them without thought.”
“She’ll fight,” Luca said, not as warning but as promise.
“She’ll submit,” I answered, not as hope but as fact.
“Collar,” I said, turning the page.
Most Dynasty’s kept collars traditional, as wedding rings. Crows preferred necklaces. Rings were an option, and we weren’t limited to one choice.
“We need it redesigned, the first one doesn’t suit her now.”
Luca nodded once. “Jeweler comes here. She gets measured in our house.”
“Good,” I said. “Crow crest within the design. Lock hidden at the back. Only we take it off.”
He leaned back. “I want the click when it locks.”
“So she knows,”
We both sat with that for a second. The sound of it. The weight of it. It made my blood rush, just thinking about it.
“She’ll have two,” I said finally. “One for the world. Formal. Heavy. They see it and know who she belongs to. Then one for us. Everyday. Lighter. Something that rests against her skin when no one else is looking.”
“If she hates it?” Luca asked.
“Then it comes off. We don’t force her to wear something she can’t stand. ”
He nodded. “But we’ll prove it to her. That it’s not a chain. It’s love. It’s us.”
I rubbed a hand over my jaw. “Every time it clicks shut, she’ll know we’re with her. Even when we’re not in the room.”
Luca’s mouth curved, sharp. “And when she feels the weight—she’ll remember who put it there.”
Our hands around her throat, holding her when we couldn’t. We’d prove it to her that it was love.
“Engagement ring,” I said.
“Statement piece,” he tapped the margin. “She belongs to billionaires, everyone should know it before they know her name.”
I nodded.
“Thigh Seal and Vow,” he went on. “She’s collared. Seated. Hands behind her back.” He repeated the wording from the Codex.
“I’ll kneel first,” I told him. “Hands on her thighs. We both say the vow.”
“And you ink it,” he finished.
“You’ve got the steadier hand. You tattoo it, I’ll hold her.”
Lucas nodded, his gaze flicking back to the Codex page marked Training His Pet .
We both knew every line by heart. But tonight, it wasn’t just about memorizing the law — it was about her.
“We need to hit boundaries early,” Luca said. “She’s still keeping score.”
I knew exactly what he meant. “She thinks if she gets something from you, she owes me the exact same thing — right then, same night, same way.”
“Exactly. Like last month, you had her on the balcony, just touching her. And the second we walked back in, she pulled me into the kitchen like she needed to even the score. ”
“She’s measuring it. Like it’s some balance she has to keep so she doesn’t fuck up.”
“And if she gets from one, she’s expecting herself to give double,” Luca added. “She thinks she’s going to have to match everything. If you go down on her, she’ll try to blow me before she’s even caught her breath.”
“That’s what we break during the Lock-In. She has to know it’s not a transaction.”
I leaned forward over the Codex, tapping the margin beside Define sexual obedience . “We make it part of the training. One night — maybe night three — you take her upstairs alone. I don’t walk in. I don’t even touch her until the next day.”
“She’ll be looking for you,” Luca said. “Trying to figure out if you’re angry she’s was with me. She won’t find it.”
“That’s the point. You put her to bed knowing there’s no punishment coming from me.”
“And the reverse,” Luca said, voice low. “Night five — You keep her in a suite. She wakes up with you. I don’t go near her. She needs to see my face in the morning and not see resentment there”
“She’ll try to offer herself to make up for it,”
“That’s when we stop her. Make it clear there’s no punishment if she gives to one without the other present. We’re not competing. We’re the same. But the rules don’t change.”
“Exactly. Same obedience expectations. Same submission. Doesn’t matter which one of us she’s with, the standards stay identical.”
“Last thing we need is confusing her,”
“She learns the same words get the same reaction, no matter who’s speaking them.”
“Those other suites need to be ready before she walks into the house,” Luca said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Stocked like the main one — her clothes, her products, her food. If she’s with you in the east wing or me in the south, it can’t feel like exile. It has to feel like hers — just not ours together.”
I marked it in the Codex under Training His Pet :
Main suite = shared bed. Other suites = solo nights with no punishment. Break the ledger. Rules identical no matter who she’s with. Prove we’re one, not two to be balanced.
“Before we even get to night one,” Luca said, voice lower now, “we cover limits. Clear. No room for her head to get twisted.”
“We keep the colour system.”
“She already knows the colours,” Luca said. “But in the Lock-In, we make her say them out loud. No exceptions. Even if she thinks she doesn’t need to.”
“Reminding her she can use it without consequence. We’d rather have her call yellow than hold her breath and push through something she doesn’t like.”
Luca leaned back in his chair, tapping the Codex entry. “We should tell her up front — she can use the colours with one of us without worrying the other will hear about it and punish her. That’s part of killing the ledger.”
I added the note to the Codex:
Lock-In Colour Protocol: Red = stop immediately, Yellow = slow/check, Green = continue. Daily verbal reaffirmation.
He met my eyes across the table. “So night one — we go through every command, every position, every rule. We also make her say the colours while she’s in them.”
“She needs to hear them in her own voice. That way when she’s somewhere between wanting to stop and wanting more, the word’s already there.”
“We can extend the lock in, if it takes more time.” Luca said.
To others Crow Dynasty Codex could read as possession. They’re wrong. It’s devotion. A wife isn’t swallowed by the dynasty—she is the dynasty.
Every vow, every law, every mark bends to her first.
The Crow Dynasty was built on blood and war, but it lives because of the women inside it.
They’re the future. The reason the line keeps breathing.
We don’t bind her to us because she’s weak—we bind her because she’s the only one strong enough to carry us forward.
A Crow wife isn’t owned. She’s worshipped.
An honor not a right, the Codex reflects that.
Luca turned the page to Crow Husband Code of Conduct .
“ Manage her wellness ,” he read aloud. “Eat, sleep, hydrate, keep her safe. If she won’t ask for it, design the world to care for her.” He glanced at me. “We’ve already been doing that for years.”
“Not enough. No more hoping she remembers to eat or rest. If she misses a meal, we sit her down and feed her. If she doesn’t sleep, she’s in bed between us until she does. If she won’t drink water, we put it in her hand and make her.”
“And we watch her,” Luca added. “Every day. I mean really watch her—for signs of pain she won’t say out loud. The way she sits, how she holds her arms, if her breathing changes. She’s not going to tell us unless it’s bad, so we see it before it’s bad.”
He flicked to the next vow. Keep her clothed in safety.