Chapter 33
The car engine cuts out, leaving us in a heavy, ringing silence. Shadow lets out a low huff, his massive paws shifting in the back seat.
"Stay," Rhys murmurs, patting the Jaguar’s head before shutting the door.
I step out and the evening air is crisp, smelling of damp pavement and fading light.
It’s past six, and the sun is dipping low, bleeding a bruised purple and orange across the horizon.
I look up at the Tin Heart toy shop, and a shiver that has nothing to do with the cold races down my spine.
The place looks skeletal in the twilight, the windows like cataracts, blind and milky.
There’s no electricity—the power’s been out for weeks—and the darkness is already beginning to swallow the storefront. I glance at Rhys, my heart doing a weird little dance.
"I hope whatever you've got planned here, we can make it fucking fast," I mutter, pulling my coat tighter. "No lights."
He just gives me that dark, knowing smirk, the one that tells me he’s three steps ahead of everyone in the room. He leads me inside, the bell above the door giving a lonely, rusted cling.
As the door shuts behind us, the smell hits me.
Dust, old cedar, and the cloying, sweet scent of new decaying fabric.
I walk slowly, my boots clicking on the warped floorboards.
I look around at the shelves, piled high with toys from the fifties—tin soldiers with chipped paint, wind-up monkeys, and rows upon rows of cracked porcelain dolls that seem to track my movement with their glassy, frozen eyes.
It’s fucking mental. I should hate it. This place is a graveyard of my worst memories, a monument to the misery Thomas put me through.
But as I stand there in the gloom, I feel a strange, twisted sense of nostalgia.
This was the place where Rhys first saw me.
Where he first started his game of cat and mouse, stalking me through the aisles, breathing me in while I thought I was alone.
It’s where he first held me, where the obsession took root.
I notice Rhys is holding some papers he grabbed from the car. He’s looking at me with an expression that’s almost tender, though there’s always that predatory edge to him.
"What is that?" I ask, nodding toward the documents.
He steps closer, the low light casting long, jagged shadows across his face. "Ownership of the shop, love. The entire building. It’s been transferred from Thomas Sorrell to you."
My mouth drops open. I actually feel the air leave my lungs. "What? When the fuck did you do that?"
Rhys chuckles, a low vibration in his chest. "While you were busy being a little doll for me, I handled the legalities.
Thomas is... well, he's not in a position to contest a transfer of assets, is he? A few signatures, a bit of leverage, and a very terrified man in a basement. It was a piece of cake, really. He was going to lose it to the bank anyway, because of his debts.”
My mouth nearly drops. So I would have been homeless right now with my drunkard of a father?
He reaches out and hands me the title deed. My fingers tremble slightly as I take the paper. I scan the lines, my eyes landing on the name printed in bold, official ink.
Ophelia Sorrell.
I own this building. This rotting, haunted, beautiful piece of shit is mine. I can feel a surge of power hit me, a hot flash of victory that makes my blood sing. Thomas tried to strip everything from me, and now, through Rhys, I’ve taken the one thing he actually valued.
"I don't want it to just rot, darling," Rhys whispers, stepping into my personal space, his heat radiating through my clothes.
"The Tin Heart doesn't have to die. I can make it a part of the Midnight Menagerie.
An attraction. A place of nostalgia and nightmares, tucked away from the main carnival but tied to it. A sanctuary for the broken."
I look up at him, my eyes wide. "You're fucking insane. You know that, right?"
"Completely," he grins. "For you."
I don't even have time to respond before he moves. In one swift, fluid motion, he grabs my waist and slams me back against a shelf. I gasp as my back hits the wood, sending a few tin toys clattering to the floor with a metallic crash.
He doesn't give me a second to breathe. His mouth crashes onto mine, a hungry, desperate kiss that tastes of obsession and ownership. It’s not a request; it’s a claim. I moan into his mouth, my hands flying up to grip his hair, pulling him closer, wanting to be swallowed whole by him.
The atmosphere in the shop shifts, becoming electric and suffocating.
All around us, the cracked porcelain dolls stare from every corner, their ghostly faces illuminated by the dying light, witnessing our madness.
Dust hangs thick in the air, dancing in the slivers of sunset, as Rhys’s hands move with frantic purpose.
He rips my clothes open, the sound of tearing fabric echoing through the silent shop.
He doesn't care about the mess or the dust; he just wants me.
He pushes my skirt up, his fingers digging into my thighs, and I wrap my legs around his waist, pinning myself against the shelves of fifty-year-old toys.
"Right here," I hiss against his lips, my voice raw and shaking. "Fuck me right here, in the middle of all this rot."
He groans, a guttural sound of pure lust, and begins to strip himself, his eyes locked on mine with a psychotic intensity that tells me he’s about to ruin me all over again.
I’m pinned against the rotting wood of the shelf, the sharp edges of tin toys digging into my skin, but I don't give a fuck. I’m already bare beneath my torn clothes—Rhys had ripped my knickers to shreds back at the house when he took me, leaving me dripping and desperate for him long before we even stepped foot in this cursed shop.
He doesn't waste a second. His hands are bruising my hips, hoisting my legs up and locking them around his waist. I feel the cold air of the shop hit my wet pussy for a split second before he lunges forward, his thick, heavy cock slamming into me with a force that knocks the wind out of my lungs.
"Fuck!" I scream, the sound echoing through the hollow store.
I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him in so tight I can feel his heart hammering against my chest. He’s pounding into me mercilessly, each thrust sending a jolt of electricity straight to my brain.
The shelf behind me groans and shudders, and a few more porcelain dolls tumble down, shattering on the floorboards with a series of sharp cracks.
It’s mental. I can feel the glassy eyes of a hundred broken dolls watching us, their frozen faces witnessing every wet, slapping sound of his cock hitting my clit.
The dust dances in the dying orange light, swirling around us like ghosts, but the only thing that feels real is the way Rhys is absolutely ruining me.
He pulls back for a second, his eyes dark, psychotic, and filled with a hunger that would terrify any other woman. But I crave it. I want to be consumed by him.
"You're mine, Ophelia," he growls, his voice a low, dangerous vibration. "Every inch of you. Every scar. Every nightmare. You belong to me."
"I am," I gasp, arching my back, my nails digging into his shoulders, drawing blood. "I'm fucking yours, Rhys. Always. I love you... I fucking love you."
"I love you, my little doll," he whispers, his voice dripping with a possessive intensity that makes my toes curl. "I'll burn the world down just to keep you in my sight."
As he drives deeper, hitting that spot that makes my vision blur, the reality of where we are hits me.
I look around at the decaying shop, the place where my father broke me.
I realize that if Rhys hadn't stepped in, if he hadn't played his games and used his power, this building would have been snatched away by the bank soon ago to pay off Thomas's pathetic, drunken debts. I’d probably be on the street, homeless, still shaking in fear of my own reflection with that monster of a father looming over me.
The thought makes me cling to Rhys even harder. He didn't just save me; he claimed me. He turned my trauma into a kingdom.
"The shop," I moan, my voice breaking as the tension in my core reaches a breaking point. "Make it... make it part of the Menagerie. I want it. I want it all to be yours. I accept... fuck, just don't stop!"
A dark, triumphant grin spreads across his face.
He knows he’s won. He knows I’m completely under his spell.
He shifts his grip, flipping me around in one fluid motion and slamming my chest against the shelf.
He grabs my hair, pulling my head back so I have to look at the cracked faces of the dolls beside me, and then he drives back into me from behind.
The angle is perfect. He’s hitting me so hard I can feel it in my throat. I’m sobbing, laughing, and cursing all at once, my body shaking with the sheer intensity of it. I can feel the climax building, a tidal wave of heat that threatens to drown me.
As the first wave of the orgasm hits, I turn my head and catch his eye in the reflection of a dusty mirror on the wall I used to always cover.
I have no idea where that cover went, until I see it on the ground, must have fallen during the days I wasn't here.
I look unhinged, my makeup smeared, my eyes wide and glazed.
I reach back, grabbing his face and pulling him into a bruising, desperate kiss just as I come.
I scream into his mouth, my pussy clamping down on his cock in tight, rhythmic spasms that make him groan and dump his own load deep inside me, filling me up with his heat.
I slump against the shelf, breathless and shaking, my heart racing. I pull back just enough to whisper against his lips, my voice raw.
"I'm so fucking obsessed with you, Rhys. It's sickening. I can't even breathe without wanting you."
Rhys doesn't let go. He presses his forehead against mine, his breath hot and heavy, a predatory glint in his eyes.
"Good," he purrs, his voice sounding like a promise and a threat all in one. "Because I'm never letting you go. I'm even more obsessed with you, little doll. You're the only thing in this world worth owning, love.”