Chapter Sixteen
Alex
She’s all yours.
Morpheus’ words hung in the air like a death sentence as I waited for the impact. For Nano to move. For his hand to close around my throat again, for the violence I had been bracing for since the moment I saw his patch at that gas station.
But nothing happened.
Morpheus turned and walked toward the stairs, his boots heavy on the concrete. The other brothers followed. Cerberus first, then the rest of them, their laughter fading as they climbed up and out of the basement. The door at the top of the stairs opened. Closed.
And then it was just us.
Me, kneeling on the cold concrete floor as Nano stood a few feet away and watched me.
Still, I didn’t move as my knees ached where they pressed into the unforgiving surface. My thighs trembled from the effort of holding myself upright. My hands were still curled into fists against the floor, nails biting into my palms hard enough to leave crescents. But I didn’t look away from him.
He’s going to do it now. He’s going to come for you.
The thought should have terrified me. Should have sent panic clawing up my throat, should have made me scramble backward, should have triggered every survival instinct I had left.
But it didn’t. Instead, there was something else.
Something I couldn’t name. Something I couldn’t explain.
A strange, irrational certainty settled over me like a shroud.
He won’t hurt you. The thought was absurd.
Insane. He had already hurt me. Choked me until I couldn’t breathe.
Until my vision went dark and my body convulsed.
Dragged me across the clubhouse floor like I was nothing.
Looked at me with eyes that promised violence and pain, and worse.
He was a predator. A sadist. A man who got off on suffering, and I was his prey.
So why aren’t you scared?
I didn’t know. God help me, I didn’t know.
But the fear that should have been there, the primal, bone-deep terror that came with being alone in a basement with a man who wanted to destroy me, wasn’t.
Instead, there was just... waiting. Anticipation as my body was coiled tight.
Every muscle tensed, ready for the impact.
My breath came shallow and fast. My pulse hammered in my throat where his fingerprints were still bruised into my skin as I braced myself.
Preparing for the violence. And underneath the tension, underneath the adrenaline and the arousal and the shame, there was something darker.
Something that made my stomach twist with self-loathing.
I want him to do it. The realization hit me like a physical blow.
I wanted him to move. To cross the distance between us.
To wrap his hand around my throat and squeeze until I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but feel.
I wanted the violence. I needed it because at least then it would be over.
At least then the terrible, suspended anticipation would break, and I could stop waiting for the inevitable.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
I couldn’t answer that question. I couldn’t explain why my body responded this way, why my thighs were clenched and my skin burned, or that my breath was coming faster. I couldn’t explain why part of me was willing him to touch me.
Do it. Just do it. Get it over with.
But Nano didn’t move. He just stood there, a few feet away, his eyes locked on mine.
Watching.
The silence stretched between us, thick and oppressive.
The only sound was my breathing. Too fast, too shallow, and the distant hum of voices from upstairs.
I shifted slightly. My knees screamed in protest against the concrete.
The movement drew his gaze down, tracking the way my body adjusted, the way my thighs trembled. But still, he didn’t move.
Why isn’t he moving?
The question clawed at me, irrational and desperate.
He had been given permission. Morpheus had handed me over like property, like merchandise, like something to be used and discarded.
She’s all yours.
Why was he just standing there?
I tried to read his expression, tried to find some clue in the hard lines of his face, in the predatory stillness of his posture. But there was nothing. Just that black, consuming gaze. Just the weight of his attention pressing down on me like a physical force.
My hands uncurled slowly. My fingers ached from how tightly I had been clenching them. I pressed my palms flat against the concrete and felt the cold bite into my skin.
Say something. Do something. Anything.
But he didn’t. His silence was worse than violence.
Worse than pain. Because I knew how to survive violence.
I had been doing it my whole life. I knew how to shut down, how to disconnect, how to let my body take the damage while my mind went somewhere else.
But this? This suspended moment, this terrible waiting, this refusal to act? I didn’t know how to survive this.
My breath hitched as frustration built in my chest like pressure behind a dam. My skin felt too tight as my nerves screamed for release, for something to happen.
Touch me. Hurt me. Just fucking do something!
My mind screamed at him, but Nano remained motionless.
A statue carved from violence and restraint.
And I hated him for it. I hated the way he looked at me, like he could see straight to the broken thing inside me that wanted this.
I hated the way my body responded. The heat that pooled low in my belly.
The wetness between my thighs. The shameful arousal that came from being watched like prey.
Mostly, I hated that he knew. That he could see it. Smell it. That he understood exactly what I was and what I wanted and was choosing not to give it to me.
Why? The question burned in my throat, desperate and furious. Why won’t you touch me?
But I didn’t say it out loud. I couldn’t, because asking would be admitting something I couldn’t afford to admit.
It would be giving him a weapon I couldn’t afford to hand over.
So I stayed silent and kneeled on the cold concrete floor as my body trembled, my breath too fast and my eyes locked on his, and waited.
And then, without warning, Nano moved. Not toward me. Away. He turned sharply, his boots heavy on the concrete, and strode toward the stairs.
I watched him go as my mind struggled to process what had happened.
He’s leaving. The thought was incomprehensible.
He just left. Walked away. Without touching me.
Without hurting me. Without doing any of the things his eyes had promised.
My mind screamed in my head, desperate and irrational.
No, you can’t leave. You can’t just—but he was already halfway up the stairs, his broad shoulders disappearing into the shadows.
The door at the top opened, then closed, and then I was alone.
The silence that crashed over me was absolute and suffocating.
I stayed frozen for a moment, my mind blank, my body still coiled tight with anticipation that had nowhere to go, and then something broke inside me.
A sob tore from my throat. Raw, ugly, and completely involuntary.
No. No, don’t cry. Don’t you dare fucking cry.
But I couldn’t stop my tears as they streamed down my face, hot and humiliating, blurring my vision.
My shoulders shook; my breath came in rough, ragged gasps that echoed off the concrete walls.
I pressed my hands to my face, trying to wipe the tears away, trying to stop the breakdown that ripped through me like a tidal wave, but they kept coming.
Kept falling. And I didn’t understand why.
I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t scared. I was angry.
Furious. At him. At myself. At the terrible, fractured response my body was having to his absence.
He rejected you. The thought hit me like a punch to the gut.
He looked at me, saw me kneeling before him, trembling and aroused, and he walked away.
Like I wasn’t worth his time. Like I wasn’t worth the violence.
And that rejection hurt worse than anything he could have done to me.
What the fuck is wrong with you? The question echoed through my head, vicious and unforgiving. You wanted him to hurt you. You were begging for it. And now you’re crying because he didn’t?
But I couldn’t stop my tears. I couldn’t stop the sobs that were tearing from my throat, couldn’t stop the way my entire body shook with something that felt like grief.
My whole life, I had braced for violence.
I knew how to survive it. How to endure it.
How to let it wash over me and come out the other side still breathing.
But this? This psychological game, this refusal to give me what I was prepared for? I didn’t know how to survive this.
My hands dropped from my face, falling limply to my sides, as my tears kept coming, streaming down my cheeks, dripping onto the concrete floor. I felt broken. Shattered. Not because he hurt me. But because he hadn’t.
You wanted him to choke you. You wanted him to make you come so you can hate yourself for it.
You wanted the violence because at least then you will know what you are dealing with.
The realization was devastating. I had wanted him to hurt me.
Not because I was brave. Not because I had some death wish, but because the pain was familiar.
Violence was something I understood. And his rejection, his refusal to give me what my fractured body begged for, destroyed me in a way his hands around my throat could never have.
You’re so fucked up. The thought was bitter.
True. I was fucked up. Michael had only stumbled upon my fractured soul and used it to his advantage to make him seem bigger than he really was.
But the actual damage had been done long before I met him.
When I didn’t realize what was happening, when I was innocent, when I didn’t know any better.
I thought he was showering me with love, that he cared about me.
I knew now that he had trained me, molded me, and rewired my brain until pleasure and pain were so tangled together I couldn’t separate them anymore.
Until the only way I could feel anything was if someone hurt me.
And Nano knew it.
He had seen it when I came while he choked me.
Seen the wet spot on my jeans, the involuntary response my body had to his violence.
And now he was using it against me. Not by giving me what I wanted.
But by denying it. By showing me that he could hurt me.
That he had the power, the permission, the desire, and chose not to.
He is making you want him. The thought made bile rise in my throat.
Because it was true. He was making me crave violence.
Making me hunger for it. Making me beg for it without saying a word, and when he finally gave it to me, when he finally wrapped his hand around my throat and squeezed, I would be so desperate for it I would thank him for it.
Fuck.
I pressed my forehead against my knees, my breath coming in ragged gasps, as my tears soaked into the fabric of my jeans.
This was worse than anything he could have done to me in this basement.
Worse than choking. Worse than pain. Worse than violence.
Because Nano had shown me exactly how broken I was, and he had done it without laying a finger on me.
The sound of footsteps behind me made me jerk upright, my hands flying to my face to wipe away the tears.
Shit. Shit, pull yourself together. But my hands were shaking too badly, as my breath still hitched, and my vision still blurred. The footsteps grew closer, heavy and deliberate, as I looked up, expecting to see Nano returning to finish what he had started. But it wasn’t Nano.
It was Carver.
His expression was unreadable. His hands loose at his sides as he walked over to where I was kneeling and squatted down beside me. Not touching me. Just... there.
I stared at him, my throat too tight to speak, my tears still streaming down my face despite my desperate attempts to stop them. Carver said nothing at first. He just looked at me, his gaze steady and assessing, like he was trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened.
Finally, I found my voice.
“Why didn’t he touch me?” My words came out raw. Broken. A confession I hadn’t meant to make.
Carver sighed, his gaze shifting toward the stairs, toward the door at the top where Nano had disappeared. For a long moment, he didn’t answer. And then, quietly, he said, “I don’t know.”
I waited, my breath hitching, as my hands curled into fists against my thighs.
Carver looked back at me, and there was something in his expression, something dark and knowing and almost... sympathetic. “But shit is about to get really fucking interesting around here.”
His words settled over me like a shroud.
Because I understood what he wasn’t saying.
Nano hadn’t walked away because he hadn’t lost interest. He walked away because this was a game.
A psychological game that was far more dangerous than physical violence.
He was showing me he could hurt me, that he had the power, the permission, and the desire.
But he was choosing not to. He would make me want it.
Make me crave it. Make me beg for it without saying a word, and when he finally gave it to me, I would be so desperate, so broken, so completely his that I wouldn’t even fight back.
And I would thank him.
Fuck.
I pressed my hands to my face again, trying to stop the fresh wave of tears that threatened to fall. But it was too late. Nano had already won, and I hadn’t even realized we were playing.