Chapter 13
Belle
I collapsed the moment the door clicked shut.
My knees hit the rug hard, the ache blooming sharp and immediate. My palms scraped against the weave, leaving angry red marks I barely registered. My breath came in jagged bursts that wouldn't smooth out no matter how hard I tried.
I could still feel him.
His hand on my chin, forcing me to look.
His fingers tangled in my hair, controlling everything.
His voice in my ear, low and certain and everywhere.
He wasn't touching me anymore.
But he was everywhere.
Humiliation sat low in my stomach, hot and acidic, burning its way up my throat. I wanted to vomit. I wanted to scream. I wanted to claw the feel of him off my skin until I bled.
I hated him.
God, I hated him.
But worse—so much worse—I hated myself.
Because I hadn't screamed.
I'd knelt.
I'd stayed.
I'd taken it.
My hands shook as I pressed them against my face, trying to wipe away the evidence. The tears came hot and furious, mixing with everything else, making it worse. My fingers came away sticky, and I gagged, the sound raw and broken in the too-quiet room.
The childhood photo stared down at me from the shelf.
That scared little boy with hard eyes.
I understood now.
This was what his father had taught him. Control through pain. Silence through force.
And I was living proof the lesson had worked.
I curled forward, forehead pressed to the rug, trying to make myself smaller. Trying to disappear. My chest heaved with sobs I wouldn't let out, my throat closing around sounds I refused to make.
Because if I screamed now, he'd hear it. And he'd know he'd won.
My nails dug into my palms, sharp crescents of pain that grounded me just enough to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
Six months.
I'd signed for six months. Five months and twenty-nine days left. The number felt impossible. Endless. Suffocating.
I sat up, wiping my face with shaking hands. My reflection caught in the glass of a trophy case—red-eyed, swollen-lipped, marked.
Ruined.
His voice echoed in my head.
Good girl.
I shuddered. And hated that my body remembered.
I forced myself to stand, legs shaking so hard I had to brace against the desk. The same desk he'd bent me over. The wood was still warm where my palms had gripped it.
My throat burned.
Raw.
Used.
I kept swallowing, trying to push down the sob clawing its way up. It lodged somewhere between my chest and my mouth, sharp and desperate, refusing to stay buried.
Is this what six months will be?
The question looped endlessly, each repetition worse than the last.
I wanted to run. Sprint for the door, the car, the lake—anywhere that wasn't here. Anywhere his voice couldn't reach. But my father's face flickered behind my eyes, pale in that hospital bed, and my feet stayed rooted.
I wanted to hit him. To storm to his room and drive my fists into his chest until he felt a fraction of what he'd done. Until he understood that I wasn't nothing. That I mattered. That he couldn't just—
My hands clenched uselessly at my sides.
I wanted to claw out the part of myself that had frozen.
The part that had knelt without a real fight. The part that had stayed when every instinct screamed to flee. That traitorous piece of me that had obeyed when my pride demanded resistance.
But worst—worst of all—I was terrified of how easily he'd controlled me. How little effort it had taken. How thoroughly he'd mapped every weakness before I'd even known they existed.
He knew exactly where to press. Exactly what to say. Exactly how to make me comply.
And I had no idea how to stop him.
My hands trembled as I turned the lock—knowing full well it wouldn't matter. This was his house. His rules. His locks that opened whenever he decided they should.
But I did it anyway.
The bed sat centered in the room like an altar I'd been avoiding since I arrived.
I couldn't avoid it anymore.
I climbed onto the mattress fully clothed—jeans rough against the expensive sheets, shirt wrinkled and stained.
I refused to change. Refused to make myself vulnerable in any new way.
The fabric felt like armor, thin and useless, but mine.
If he came back—when he came back—I wouldn't be caught bare. Wouldn't give him that satisfaction.
I curled into myself, knees pulled tight to my chest, arms wrapped around my ribs like I could hold the pieces together through pressure alone. My back faced the door. I couldn't watch it. Couldn't spend the night waiting for the handle to turn.
The pillow smelled like him. Cedar and something darker.
Invasive.
My face pressed into the fabric, and the words slipped out before I could stop them. "I hate you." Whispered. Broken. Pathetic.
The sound dissolved into cotton, and down, swallowed by a room that didn't care. It should have felt powerful. Defiant. Instead, it sounded exactly like what it was: a plea from someone who'd already lost.
Minutes passed—I didn't count them.
The mattress dipped.
My entire body locked, breath stuttering in my chest. I didn't turn. Didn't move. Just stayed curled tight, every muscle screaming danger while my exhausted mind struggled to react.
And then…
The lock turned. Footsteps.
The bed shifted under his weight as he slid in behind me.
Close.
Too close.
The heat of him radiated across the small space I'd tried to claim as mine. My heart hammered so loud I was certain he could hear it, feel it through the sheets separating us.
He didn't speak. Didn't warn me. His arm simply came around my waist—firm, deliberate, inescapable.
I stiffened, a whimper catching in my throat.
He pulled. Not roughly. Not gently. Just pulled, dragging me backward until my spine met the solid wall of his chest. His body curved around mine, impossibly large, impossibly warm. His arm settled heavy across my ribs, hand splayed flat against my stomach, holding me exactly where he wanted me.
Locked in.
Pinned.
Owned.
I couldn't breathe right. My lungs refused to expand fully with his arm there, with the weight of him surrounding me on all sides. The pillow trapped my face forward, his chin somewhere near my shoulder, his breath disturbing the hair at the nape of my neck.
"Don't." The word barely made it past my lips.
He said nothing.
Just tightened his hold fractionally—not hurting, but unmistakably possessive. A reminder that my protests changed nothing. That this bed, this room, this body pressed against mine—all of it belonged to him now.
I waited for him to do more. To push further. To take what he'd threatened in the study.
But he didn't move again.
His breathing evened out first—deep, steady, infuriatingly calm. The kind of sleep that came easily to people who'd gotten exactly what they wanted. His arm stayed locked around me, dead weight I couldn't shift without waking him.
I lay rigid in his grip, every nerve firing, every thought spiraling.
This wasn't intimate. This was claiming. Marking territory. Making sure I understood that even sleep offered no escape. That surrender wasn't just expected during waking hours—it was required always. In every moment. In every breath.
I didn't feel safe. The word didn't even begin to touch what churned in my chest. Fear sat thick on my tongue, humiliation burned behind my eyes, rage coiled tight in my stomach with nowhere to go.
But.
God help me.
But.
I didn't feel alone either. And that realization hit worse than anything he'd done in the study. Because I should have felt more alone than ever—trapped, held against my will, surrounded by the man who'd systematically destroyed every boundary I'd tried to maintain.
Instead, some horrible, traitorous part of me registered his presence like comfort.
The warmth seeping into my back.
The steady rhythm of his breathing.
The solid weight of him, grounding and terrible and there.
I hated it. Hated him. Hated myself for noticing the difference between this and the cold, empty bed I'd been curled in moments before.
His arm twitched slightly in sleep, pulling me infinitesimally closer.
A tear slid hot down my cheek, soaking into the pillow.
I didn't make a sound.
I woke to sunlight slicing through curtains I hadn't closed.
The bed was empty beside me.
No weight. No warmth. No arm pinning me in place.
Just silence—the kind that felt intentional. Like he'd left hours ago and wanted me to know it.
My body protested when I moved. Shoulders locked from tension I'd held all night. Jaw sore from clenching. Throat raw in ways I refused to think about. Every muscle screamed that I'd spent eight hours rigid with terror instead of sleeping.
I sat up slowly, sheets pooling around my waist.
Still dressed in yesterday's jeans and wrinkled shirt. The fabric stuck to my skin, damp with sweat and something darker I wouldn't name. My hair fell in tangled knots around my face. I pushed it back with shaking fingers, trying to orient myself.
The room looked different in daylight. Less oppressive. Still a cage, but one with better lighting.
That's when I saw it.
A folded piece of paper on his pillow. Crisp white against dark fabric. Positioned exactly center, like he'd measured the placement before leaving.
My stomach twisted.
I reached for it anyway—what choice did I have?—fingers trembling as I unfolded the single sheet.
His handwriting hit me first. Sharp angles. Controlled loops. Every letter precise, deliberate, exactly the right size. The kind of penmanship that came from someone who'd been punished for sloppiness as a child.
You may go to work today.
Permission.
Not a suggestion. Not kindness.
Permission I shouldn't have needed in the first place.
You will be home by 6 PM.
Home.
He'd called this place home.
My hands clenched, crinkling the edges of the paper.
If you are late, you will be punished.
No explanation of what that meant.
No clarification needed.
I'd learned last night exactly what punishment looked like in Gideon Bellerose's world.
The signature sat at the bottom—just a single letter, sharp and commanding.