29.
Few days later. He decided to make her feel that she truly belongs to him.
The penthouse wasn’t a room. It was a gilded illusion of freedom.
Floor-to-ceiling glass walls overlooked a skyline of private helipads and penthouse spires.
The room stretched wider than the café she once worked in, trimmed in imported black marble veined with silver.
Gold sculptures lined the corners naked, broken forms with silk ribbons strangling their throats.
Everything was perfectly symmetrical. Flawless.
Like it had been built not to live in—but to contain someone too fragile to touch the real world.
And that someone was her.
Isolde sat on the edge of the obsidian chaise lounge, eyes unfocused, bare legs tucked beneath her.
Her thin white nightgown shimmered like milk over blood beneath the dim lighting. The burn mark on her shoulder throbbed with memory.
He’d brought her here the night before.
Carried her into the room like she was made of thread.
Set her down on the enormous bed.
And said nothing. Not I love you.
Not you’re mine.
Only “Behave.”
Then he left. That was sixteen hours ago.
The silence roared.
The penthouse had everything. A grand piano she couldn’t play. A library with hand-bound books older than countries.
A private spa. Champagne chilled on gold trays.
And yet, the air was too clean. The glass too clear. The world outside too quiet.
She missed his chaos. His control.
His voice dark and biting, cruel and addictive.
She hated herself for it. She found herself pacing and sitting by hour seventeen.
Back and forth across the marble, barefoot.
Her hair clung to her spine with sweat.
Her wrists rubbed raw from ghost-binds. Every sound made her flinch.
She didn’t want to see him. She wanted to feel him.
Even his rage was a presence.
Without him…She was nothing.
The door slid open at hour eighteen. She froze.
He entered like a storm in black.
Silk dress shirt. Top buttons undone. Sleeves rolled to reveal forearms laced with veins and shadows.
His slacks clung to thick, strong thighs, tailored to his every precise movement.
His coat dropped from his shoulders mid-step, caught by Alex.
He didn’t look at her right away.
Just walked in, slow, controlled, power radiating off of him like heat from a furnace.
“Has it been quiet?” he asked, voice low.
She nodded once. He finally looked at her. And smiled.
But it wasn’t warmth. It was ownership. “You’re softer when I disappear.”
He took off his watch and set it down. Every gesture was exact—like a ritual.
He stalked toward her with perfect silence.
Boots echoing on marble. His presence hit her like gravity.
When he reached her, he didn’t speak.
He gripped her jaw gently. Turned her head left… then right.
His eyes studied her. “She didn’t cry, Alex,” he said without turning.
Alex remained outside the door. “Should we increase her isolation protocol?”
“No.” Dante’s gaze lowered to her trembling lips. “She missed me.”
He leaned down. Whispered against her mouth “Didn’t you, dove?”
She didn’t speak. He slapped her—not hard, but fast and controlled.
She gasped. Her head whipped to the side.
He cupped her jaw and kissed the cheek he struck. “I said Didn’t you?”
“Yes—” Her voice cracked.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I missed you.”
His smile deepened “There’s my good girl.”
He dragged her by the wrist to the glass wall and pressed her palms against it.
“Look at what you could’ve had,” he whispered, grinding against her backside.
“Skyscrapers. Freedom. Streets. People.”
His hand slid between her legs “But you didn’t run, did you?”
She shook “No.”
“Why?”
She gasped as his fingers slid inside her “Because I belong to you—”
“Louder.”
“Because I belong to you—!”
He turned her around and pinned her against the window, both hands gripping her thighs.
He lifted her slowly, possessively—and lowered her onto his cock in one brutal, drawn-out thrust.
Her cry fogged the glass.
He kissed her jaw, her lips, her throat—then bit her neck until she sobbed “Say it.”
“I need you—”
He pulled out. Teased her slit “Say more.”
“I need your hands—I need your voice—I need you to ruin me—please—don’t leave again—”
His moan rumbled in his chest. Then he
slammed back inside.
It wasn’t sex. It was war.
Her body convulsed under his control. His thrusts were deep, slow, punishing.
His hand fisted in her hair, yanking her head back so she had to look at her reflection in the glass.
“You beg like you were born to be mine,” he growled. “Say it again.”
“Please—don’t leave—please—”
“Louder.”
“I want to be ruined by you!”
He came with a groan, teeth sinking into her shoulder.
They collapsed onto the cold floor, tangled, shaking.
He wrapped himself around her like chains.
His lips brushed her temple.
“I’ll never leave again,” he whispered. “Unless you make me. And if you do…”
He smiled. Dark. Soft “You’ll beg for the cage again.”