Chapter 53
Chapter Fifty-Three
EMILIA
The papers in front of me didn’t look like contracts.
They looked like traps.
Red ink ran through them in Luca’s neat writing, cutting lines, clauses slashed apart until they bled. Words blurred, my head still heavy from the migraine, but I tried. I forced myself to follow the arrows he’d drawn, the scrawled notes in the margins: hidden siphon , shell bleed , continuity lie.
“They buried the knives everywhere,” Luca said quietly, tapping one paragraph with his pen. “Clause Twenty-eight—looks harmless. Changes ‘exclusive access’ to ‘preferential.’ That one word means they can open your routes to anyone they please. You lose everything overnight.”
My throat went dry. “They told me it was… continuity. Tradition.”
“They told you that,” Bastion muttered, “because they wanted you blind.”
I blinked fast. My chest tightened. “So what do I do? If I refuse?—”
“You don’t sign another line,” Bastion gaze caught mine .
I swallowed hard. My hands shook as I pressed them to my knees. “And if I have to?”
“You won’t.” Luca’s voice was calm, too calm. He turned another page, tracing the ink. “Every clause, every knife—we’ll show you before it cuts. But you don’t bleed for it alone anymore.”
The silence sat thick between us. My heart pounded. I stared down at the papers, at the ledgers that had kept me awake night after night, “And what happens when they decide I can’t carry it anymore?”
Neither of them answered at first.
Then Bastion’s voice came low. “Then they face us.”
I looked between them—Luca cold, calculating, Bastion burning—and my stomach dropped.
“There’s one way to stop this,” Luca eyes didn’t leave mine. “One way to seal it so they can’t strip it from you.”
“What way?”
“Marry us.”
The words rushed through me.
“What?”
“You heard me,” Luca said, “Dynasty law is clear. The Accord belongs to your husband. Once you’re ours, they can’t touch it.”
I shook my head, fast. “That isn’t possible. My family would never?—”
“They won’t have a choice,” Bastion cut in.
I stared at him. He sounded so certain.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
“Three years,” Luca said. “Every deal we tied to an Adams ledger.”
“Every resort built with a hidden clause we controlled,” Bastion added .
“Every casino account siphoned through Crow banks. Every construction bid routed back to us.”
“Nightclubs. Logistics. Shell companies.” Luca’s added. “All of it. Woven together until Adams money was Crow money.”
My hands trembled harder. I couldn’t breathe.
“Three years,” Bastion said again, his jaw hard, his eyes burning into mine. “Every move we made was a string tied to you.”
“We built our empire into yours until your family couldn’t move without us,” Luca said. “When the time came, they’d have no choice.”
My chest seized. “You… you did what.”
Bastion hands flexed at his side. “We never let you go. We couldn’t.”
Shock rolled through me so hard I thought I’d be sick. My entire world tilted.
The silence I nearly drowned in.
They’d been pulling strings in the dark, tying me back to them while I lived like a ghost.
My vision blurred. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it had to be hidden,” Luca said, steady. “If the Adams knew, they would’ve torn you apart sooner.”
I shook my head. “You’ve—” My voice broke. “You’ve been building a cage around me.”
“No,” Bastion slid down off the couch until he was kneeling in front of me. His eyes never left mine. “Not a cage. A shield.”
I wanted to push him away. I wanted to believe him.
“Baby,” he whispered, reaching for my thigh. “Can I take your bra off?”
My shock quickly turned to anger. “Bastion—this isn’t the time. ”
His thumb stroked circles onto my leg, his mouth brushing the inside of my knee. “Please.”
I should’ve said no. Instead, I sighed, my body betraying me, and nodded.
His fingers slid slow up my back, unclasping the bra beneath my shirt. He didn’t pull the fabric off. He slid the straps down my arms, easing the bra free, then turned it over in his hands.
I frowned. “What are you?—”
He angled the inside cup toward me.
Ink.
So faint I almost missed it. Letters written where no one else would see.
My breath shattered.
Those were their names.
My hands shook as I grabbed it from him. I stared, heart hammering.
“Your names are on my bra.” I said it again, louder. “Your names are on my bra.”
Bastion’s hand was already sliding my panties down my thighs. He turned the waistband so I could see. Initials stitched faint, invisible unless you looked for them.
“We never let go, baby. We just had to hold you differently.” His thumb gently stroked my thigh. Tears blurred the fabric in my hands.
Luca leaned in from the other side, his lips brushing my cheek. “Everything you wore carried us. Every dress. Piece of jewelry. For years, you’ve worn our names.”
I couldn’t speak. How was this possible. All these years, they had… I shook my head. I wasn’t sure what was worse, that all this time I hadn’t been alone. Or that they let me think I was.
Bastion’s hands burned against my thighs. I wanted to pull away, to stand, to demand answers until their empire of secrets cracked.
Instead I sat frozen, heart hammering, the bra still clutched in my fingers.
My body was betraying me. My pulse jumped every time his thumb drew a circle into my skin.
“You’ve worn us for years,” Luca murmured, his lips brushing my cheek.
His voice was too steady, too certain, like he wasn’t asking but reminding me of something I didn’t remember agreeing to.
“Every day. Every night. Our names against your skin.”
I shook my head, but it was weak. “I didn’t know.”
“You weren’t supposed to,” Bastion pressed his mouth higher on my thigh. The rough scrape of his stubble against my skin sent heat spiraling into places I didn’t want to think about. “It was ours to know. Yours to feel.”
I should have pushed him away. Instead, my breath caught.
“Please,” Bastion murmured against me. “Let me show you.”
Luca’s hand came to the back of my neck, warm and steady. He turned my head so I had to meet his eyes. “We never left you, Em. Not once. Not for a day. We built the world around you so you could come home.”
Tears blurred my vision. I wanted to scream at them for deciding my life in secret. But the devotion in their eyes. They had branded my clothes. For three years.
My bra slipped from my fingers, falling soundless to the floor.
Bastion’s lips pressed higher, to the inside of my thigh. His hands gripped tighter, anchoring. As if by holding me here he could erase the years apart.
“Stop,” I whispered, but it broke on a sob. “Don’t?—”
“Can’t,” Bastion murmured into my skin. “Won’t.”
“You don’t have to be afraid, baby.” Luca kissed my temple, slow, reverent. “You don’t have to carry it alone. We’ll hold it. We’ll hold you.”
My breath came sharp, uneven. My family had made me believe silence was duty, that drowning alone was honor. Bloodline first. Love wasn’t an option.
And here they were, pressing their mouths to me, carving devotion into my body like a vow.
I hated them for it. I needed them for it.
“Look at me,” Luca said softly. His thumb stroked my jaw until I obeyed, turning my face toward him. His eyes burned. “Everything you wear, every where you breathe, we’ve been there. You’ve been ours, even when you thought you were alone.”
Bastion’s mouth pressed higher still, brushing so close it made my stomach twist. My hands shook as I tried to push at his shoulders, but he caught my wrists and kissed the inside of one, slow.
“Not a cage,” he whispered against my skin. “A crown.”
Something inside me cracked.
I dropped my head until my forehead rested against Luca’s shoulder, sobs breaking silently into him. They let me believe for years I was alone. Drowning.
He pulled me closer, holding me while Bastion kissed worship into my thighs like he was praying me back to life.
“You’ve worn our names,” Luca whispered into my hair. “Now we want you to wear them where no one can ever pretend not to see.”
Bastion’s hands gripped my thighs, rough. His lips pressed higher on my leg, reverent and hungry both. “We never let go, baby. We just had to hold you differently.”
I wanted to scream at them for keeping it from me. Instead I was trained to smile. Tell them it was okay. It wasn’t okay .
“You can’t just—You can’t rewrite everything. You can’t tell me this now.”
Bastion lifted his head. His eyes burned, dark and almost desperate. “We’re not rewriting. We’re showing you what was already there.”
His fingers slid my panties the rest of the way down, slow, careful, until the waistband slipped free of my ankles.
“You marked everything,” I said, staring at him.
Luca kissed the side of my face, soft. “Not everything. Just you. Just what touched you.”
My chest heaved. My mind spun, but my body didn’t move. Bastion’s mouth pressed lower again, slow, like every kiss was an apology and a vow.
“You’ve worn our names,” Luca murmured, his lips brushing my cheek, my jaw, the corner of my mouth. “Now it’s time we wear yours.”
I froze. “What?”
His hand cupped my face, steady. “Tattooed. Shoulder to shoulder.” His eyes locked into mine.“So it matches what’s been on our hearts since we were nineteen.”
Bastion’s lips paused against my thigh, then pressed harder.
“You’d—” My voice broke. “You’d put my name on you?”
“Not put.” Luca kissed me then, slow, deep, anchoring. “Tattoo. Keep. Forever.”
“So no one ever pretends not to see it.” Bastion’s voice came rough against my skin.
My hands shook as I clutched at Luca’s shirt, pulling him closer, even as Bastion’s mouth burned lower, slower, worship marking every inch of me.
Only they would mention tattooing and carving my name into their skin, as if it was nothing .
“Please,” Bastion whispered. His teeth grazed the inside of my thigh, gentle. “Let us show you.”
“This isn’t?—”
“It is,” Luca said firmly, pulling back just enough to press his forehead to mine. “It always was.”
Bastion’s fingers spread at my hips, holding me steady. “We want to carry you, baby. On our skin. On our souls. The way you’ve carried us all this time.”
My whole body betrayed me, leaning into them, aching for the truth even as my mind reeled.
Bastion kissed higher, so close it broke something inside me. Luca kissed me again, swallowing the sound, his tongue tracing devotion into me.
“Not a cage,” Luca whispered against my mouth. “A crown.”
“Not a secret,” Bastion murmured into my skin. “A vow.”
My body burned under Bastion’s mouth. I couldn’t stop shaking.
“You’re ours,” Bastion said. “Always were. Always will be.”
And as their mouths and hands worshipped me, as their voices carved promises into the cracks of my chest, I believed them.
Even through the tears. Even through the shock. Even through the ache of years I thought I’d been left behind.
I believed them.
Because I could feel it, raw and unrelenting, in every kiss and every word.