Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Dorian
I lift the brass knocker, its weight dragging at my arm, and stand before the gloss-black door of Altair Montgomery’s BDSM club, the Retreat.
The lacquered surface of the door throws back a fractured ghost of myself—eyes hollow, jaw shadowed with days of neglect.
When did I last bother to shave?
My stomach twists, hollow but for the burn of Bond’s whiskey I’ve been drowning in. No food. No sleep. Going nowhere, just staying in the penthouse, where Isla or Brennan can find me.
But neither have looked.
Of course, I keep constant track of both of them.
Brennan—so pissed he can’t speak to me—is still loyal, even though I don’t deserve it.
He moved into an apartment in the same building, five floors below ours. It might as well be on another planet.
His silence is worse than the distance, leaving me gutted .
And Isla…
She’s out there, living her life, having coffees with her sister, going to campus, attending events where Margaux’s husband is playing. It’s as if I’m nothing. As if we’re nothing.
I curl my fingers around the pink diamond ring in my pocket. Its sharp edges carve into my palm until the pain slicks with heat. I should have left it behind, but I couldn’t. Instead, I keep it with me constantly.
I don’t actively rap on the door. I simply allow the knocker to fall, then I glance to the right so the camera can perform its magic of ascertaining who’s allowed in and who will receive a visit from a shadow somewhere in the distance.
A soft, almost inaudible snick tells me the lock has released.
The door eases inward. Taranis, Altair’s dungeon master, fills the frame, a mountain of muscle. His eyes rake over me like I’m a trespasser he could crush without effort. “Vale.” The rumbled word is a warning and a welcome at the same time.
“I’m expected.”
He glances over his shoulder. Receiving confirmation, he nods and steps aside.
The foyer swallows me whole—polished wood gleaming under muted light. Pew-like benches are stiff along the wall. Probably because it’s a BDSM club, and the owner wants to telegraph his intent, that no comfort is offered here.
Miss Watson is seated at her old-fashioned desk, her gray suit pressed within an inch of its life. This evening, her obnoxious purple bow tie provides a splash of insolence.
Beyond the alcove is the club’s actual dungeon with bass thumping like a second heartbeat. I know there are shadows in there, twisting in Shibari ropes, and no doubt a woman’s barely covered rear swaying in the red-painted spanking booth .
For the first time in my life, none of that holds my interest.
Miss Watson scratches my name into the ledger without pause, her expression unreadable.
“Mr. Vale.” Her voice is crisp enough to slice through glass. “Alone tonight?”
The words hit harder than they should. I flinch. Every day for years—until now—Brennan has been a constant presence at my side.
While Isla has become as necessary to me as my next breath.
At the wedding reception, I imagined us bringing her here, dressing her beautifully and provocatively as we introduced her to the delights of flogging.
Instead, I fucked everything up.
“Mr. Vale?”
I understand her confusion. She’s never seen me without Brennan. “Yeah. Alone.”
If Altair hadn’t said this was urgent, I wouldn’t be here.
He has intel, no doubt. Too delicate for a phone call, too dangerous for anyone else’s ears. Otherwise, I’d still be clinging to the penthouse like a ghost haunting my own ruin.
“I’ll buzz you through, Sir.”
I make my way across to a side wall, then navigate around artfully arranged greenery. After I press my palm to the wood, a hidden panel slides back to reveal the elevator. Cold light scans me before the doors part.
Inside, I press my finger to the call button. The compartment hums, carrying me upward.
Moments later, the doors open onto the second floor, and Altair Montgomery’s domain spreads out before me—modern art glinting under soft light, leather and crystal, representations of a man who values privacy as much as he does power .
I walk in, the ring still clenched in my fist.
Altair stands by a chessboard that’s been moved onto a small round table angled between two chairs.
Our months-long game is a frozen war—my black king cowering on e8, queen exposed on d4, a mirror of my shredded empire, and, ironically, my heart.
His eyes glint, otherworldly, seeing into me. “Vale.” His voice is smooth as sin as he extends his hand.
I shake it, his grip firm, grounding.
“You look like shit.” He crosses to an ornate bar. “Whiskey?” Then without a pause, adds, “You should probably say no.”
Fuck you. “Make it a double.”
Though he raises an eyebrow, he doesn’t argue.
Moments later, I take the crystal from him and down half the contents.
As if it can dull the pain rotting inside me.
“Your move, if I recall.”
We sit, and I shove a pawn to f4. It’s a weak move, and it shows Altair that my hand is shaking. “You had information?” I don’t want to be here.
Altair slides his rook to c1, pinning my bishop. “You’re alone tonight.” His carefully wielded words sear.
Fuck you. Again.
Altair leans back, his gaze cold, as hard as granite.
The chessboard sits between us, a battlefield of carved wood and unspoken truths, but it’s his silence that pins me in place.
He swirls the special reserve Bonds in his glass, the amber liquid catching the light, and I brace for whatever he’s about to unload.
The man didn’t summon me to his inner sanctum for small talk.
“You’re unraveling, Dorian.” His voice is low, deliberate, each word a stone dropped into the hollow pit of my chest.
“And how the fuck would you know that? ”
Then it hits me.
The first couple of times he called, I didn’t answer.
So no doubt he reached out to Brennan.
Gritting my teeth, I bite back the urge to snap at him, telling him to mind his own damn business. After all, Altair is not my enemy, even though I’m looking for one right now. Someone I can lay out cold, for the satisfaction of punching something solid.
Anything to get rid of this gut-churning hopeless energy. “You invited me here to play therapist?” My tone’s sharper than I intend, laced with the raw edge of a man who’s been barely hanging on for days.
He tilts his head to one side, studying me like I’m a puzzle he’s already solved.
“I invited you because you’re no good to anyone like this.
Not to yourself. Not to Brennan. And sure as hell not to Isla.
” Her name lands like a punch, stealing my breath.
“I thought you were a lot of things, my friend. But I never believed you were a goddamn idiot.”
The whiskey burns my throat as I take another swallow, trying to drown the truth in his words. My eyes flick to the chessboard, to my queen on d4, exposed and vulnerable. Like Isla. Like everything I’ve built. “You don’t know shit about my life, Montgomery.”
“Don’t I?” He leans forward now, elbows on his knees, the intensity in his gaze unrelenting.
“You see it here in the club all the time. Wannabe Doms who think control is the answer to everything. They come in here, all bluster and chains, thinking dominance is about bending someone to their will, forcing submission like it’s a prize to be won.
But that’s not power, Dorian. That’s weakness dressed up in leather. ”
His words slice through me, sharp and precise, cutting to the bone. I want to look away, but his gaze holds me, unyielding. The pink diamond ring in my pocket bites into my palm, a reminder of the control I’ve tried to wield, the cage I built around Isla’s fire.
“Real dominance”—Altair’s voice drops to a near feral growl—”is about trust. It’s about creating a space where someone chooses to surrender, not because you’ve forced their hand, but because they believe in you.
Because they know you’ll catch them when they fall.
You’ve been so busy trying to own Isla, to lock her down, that you forgot the first rule of this world: submission, love, trust, loyalty…
They’re gifts, not a right. And you’re pissing it all away. ”
The air is too thick, and my chest is tight with the weight of his truth. I see Isla’s face—her green eyes blazing with defiance, her body trembling under my touch, not just from desire but from fear of losing herself.
And Brennan…
His loyalty is a constant, something I’ve always taken for granted. Now his silence is a wall I don’t know how to breach. “Fuck…”
“Pull your head out of your ass, Vale.” Altair’s tone is unrelenting, but there’s a flicker of empathy in his eyes.
“You pushed them both. Brennan’s been your shadow for years, taking bullets for you—literal and otherwise—and you’re letting your guilt over Lena blind you to what you’re doing to him. To her.”
“I don’t need a lecture.”
He lifts a shoulder as if to say, Too damn bad. Then he goes on. “Real dominance is about control over yourself and your emotions. It’s about responsibility. For their hearts, their safety, their trust.”
“I make sure they’re safe.” Even now.
“What about the rest?”
The ring in my pocket feels like a brand, burning through my resolve. Lena’s ghost hovers at the edge of my mind. Her smile. Then her blood .
I’ve been running from that pain, from the fear that I’ll lose Isla the same way. But Altair’s right. I’ve been a fool, thinking I could chain her to me, thinking I could keep Brennan’s loyalty without giving something of mine in return.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” The desperation I’ve been feeling now leaks through despite my best efforts to hide it.
“Fix your fuckups.” Over the rim of his glass, he regards me. “You’re a smart man. You know what to do. Now find the courage to do it.”
The words carve into me, each one a truth I’ve been dodging since Isla escaped. Since Brennan walked out the door and didn’t return.
My chest tightens, a vise of guilt and fear. “Maybe they’re better off without me. Safer.”
“That’s the coward’s way out, and you know it.
” Altair’s laugh is short, humorless. You’re a bastard sometimes, but you don’t quit.
” He taps the folder that’s on the table beside the chessboard, and he slides it toward me.
“This is the intel you came for. Marco Gallo’s been talking to the feds.
Everything he’s said is in here. Names, dates, shipments. Including yours. And Moretti’s.”
Fuck it to hell and back.
And how the fuck does he have the information?
“Intercepted en route to a certain senator.” His grin is cold.
I scowl. “How the hell did you get this?”
He doesn’t reply.
Even I had no idea he possessed that kind of power.
“You’re welcome.”
I put down my drink to analyze the information.
“I bought you some time. Get your house in order, Vale.”
Every line inside the folder is damning. Jesus .
“You need Brennan with you, not on the other side of a goddamn wall.”
I nod, the weight of his words settling into my bones. The ring in my pocket feels heavier, a reminder of what I’ve lost—and what I still might save.
“You need to decide what you’re fighting for. Your empire? Or your family?”
The question hangs in the air, sharp and unrelenting.
But I know.
There’s a spark inside me, one that I thought had been extinguished with Lena’s death. It’s not hope, not exactly. But purpose. Isla’s face flashes in my mind—her green eyes, her defiance, her fire. And Brennan’s steady presence, the anchor I’ve taken for granted too long.
I have a lot to atone for. A lot to fight for.
I set the folder down and move my queen to f6, a bold strike. “Your move, Montgomery.”
There’s a glint of approval in his eyes. “About damn time you showed up, Vale.”