10. Chapter Ten #5
Is he with someone else right now? Another woman, more beautiful, less broken? Is he touching her, tasting her, whispering filthy promises into her ear? Or worse…is it Ivy? Perfect curves, red lips, no complications.
My stomach twists sharply, pain and jealousy clawing viciously beneath my ribs. God, it hurts. Imagining him with someone else burns through my chest like acid.
And yet, I do it anyway. Over and over. Because Kane Rivera is the kind of poison you willingly drink, knowing exactly how it’ll ruin you from the inside out.
I press my forehead to my knees, fighting to steady my breath. Fighting the ache crawling under my skin.
I knew who he was. From the very first moment he looked at me and asked for my price, like I was something he could own. I knew exactly what he was.
And I still walked straight into his penthouse and let him destroy me.
Maybe I wanted him to.
I think about the control I used to have. My carefully constructed life, my composure, my polished exterior.
Now I flinch every time my phone vibrates.
Now I’m starving.
Isn’t that the cruelest part? That beneath the anger, beneath the betrayal, beneath every ounce of pain… I still want him to come back?
Still want him to show up at my door, uninvited, unrepentant.
Still want him to pin me against a wall and call me his Munequita.
Little doll.
Whispering filthy words until I’m trembling, shameless, surrendered.
God, how fucked up am I?
My pulse races as I lunge for my phone on the floor. My fingers tremble as I scroll to his number.
I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t.
But I’m already hitting the call button.
Because if I don’t scream at him right now, the silence will suffocate me.
I’ll drown.
I want to hurt him, punish him. I want to leave him a message that’ll scorch whatever sick hold he still has on me.
It rings once.
Twice.
Give me voicemail. Let me say everything.
Let me say…“Fuck you, Kane.”
Let me say…“I hope you choke on your own silence. On every filthy word you ever made me believe.”
Third ring.
My lips part…
Click.
He answers. Doesn’t say a word. Just silence. Thick. Intentional. Cruel.
I feel him there, breathing steady, waiting me out.
“Say something, goddamn you.” My voice trembles, fury twisted with desperation.
“Something.” His voice slides through the phone, velvet-edged, roughened by amusement.
“You fucking asshole,” I hiss softly.
Silence again, loaded. Patient.
“You disappear for weeks. You pull strings behind my back, freeze my foundation’s funding. You leave me in the dark like I was nothing but a game you got tired of playing…”
My voice cracks, betraying me.
“I hate you for what you’ve done. I hate you for what you’re still doing to me.”
Another weighted silence hangs between us, deeper, darker, heavier.
I feel him through the line, his presence like fingertips skating down my spine. His breathing is slow, calculated, like he’s savoring every second of my torment.
Then he finally speaks, voice low and devastatingly soft.
“ I miss you, Kane. I want you, Kane. Please fuck me again, Kane.” He repeats my unspoken words back to me, each syllable sharp as glass, slicing through every defense I have left.
“That’s what I hear every time you say you hate me, Munequita.
The truth you’re too damn stubborn to admit. ”
My grip tightens on the phone, knuckles whitening, fury burning deep beneath my skin. I stare blindly ahead, heart pounding so violently I can barely breathe. He thinks he knows me. Thinks he can read every secret desire I keep buried beneath anger and pride.
Maybe he can.
“Fuck you, Kane,” I whisper, desperate to reclaim some shred of control.
But it lands weak, useless.
He chuckles softly, darkly satisfied, like he knows exactly how deeply he’s fractured me. The sound vibrates through my chest, unravels me even more. I hate myself for calling, hate that his silence guts me more deeply than his words ever could.
“I’m hanging up,” I force out, voice thinner than I want.
“Go ahead,” he dares me softly.
He knows I won’t. And for one excruciating moment, I don’t. I just hold the phone, waiting…aching…to hear what he’ll say next. Because I want to know where he is. If he’s alone. If he’s coming back.
But I won’t ask. I won’t give him that power.
Then, a subtle shift. The silence breaks, the air suddenly charged.
“Where are you?” he asks.
My breath catches painfully. “What?”
“Where. Are. You.” Each word lands like footsteps coming closer, slow and deliberate, like he already knows the answer but wants me to surrender it anyway.
“Why?” I whisper.
“So I don’t have to come find you.”
A threat. A warning. A promise.
My heartbeat crashes against my ribs. “You wouldn’t.”
Another soft, cruel laugh, edged with danger. “Try me.”
Panic skitters under my skin, my pulse thrumming wildly. I should end this call. Lock every door. Shut him out for good.
But my mouth betrays me, words slipping free before my brain can scream to stop.
“I’m home.”
A heartbeat of silence stretches painfully, long enough for regret to hit, hard and cold.
“Kane, wait…” I start, voice trembling, frantic. “Don’t…”
But he’s already hung up.
Shit.
Shit.
I hit redial immediately, scrambling off the bed, my breathing shallow, harsh.
“Please answer,” I whisper desperately, pressing the phone harder against my ear. “Pick up, Kane…”
Straight to voicemail.
Damn it.
My phone rings suddenly, vibrating in my palm. My heart leaps into my throat. I answer instantly, recklessly.
“Don’t come here,” I blurt out, breathless, raw. “I’ll come to you. Just…don’t show up here.”
A heavy pause fills the line.
Then his voice returns, dangerously smooth, smug, triumphant.
“Good girl.”
Bastard.
My eyes shut tightly, shame twisting hot and deep, pride unraveling completely. I’ve handed him exactly what he wants: my surrender.
“Joaquin will be there in ten,” he says casually.
I take a shaking breath, eyes squeezed shut, trying desperately to steady my nerves. Trying to convince myself I have choices. That this isn’t inevitable. That I’m not being dragged back into his orbit against my will.
But Kane Rivera isn’t invisible.
He’s everywhere.
He’s in my blood, woven into every breath I take, occupying the hollow space inside my chest where logic used to live.
I rush to the closet, yanking a long wool coat from its hanger, throwing it over the lace barely covering my skin. I don’t change, don’t even consider it there isn’t time. Sneakers slip on silently, my pulse loud and frantic in my ears.
I slip through my bedroom door, moving quietly, swiftly, like a criminal trying desperately to escape unnoticed. My sneakers pad silently across the hallway, but my chest…
Chaos.
Panic threaded tightly with hunger and need.
I feel like the walls are watching me, judging me for running straight into the fire I should’ve learned to fear by now.
But I don’t stop.
My parents are somewhere on the opposite side of the house, probably awake, trapped in their cold world of calculated decisions and polished facades.
Oblivious.
They have no idea their perfect daughter is slipping out into the night to meet the one man who could ruin everything.
Again.
By the time I push through the front entrance door, the car is already there.
Sleek. Black. Engine humming low.
Of course it is.
Kane doesn’t wait on people.
People wait on him.
The headlights slice through the night, catching the edge of my breath, my hesitation.
I could still turn back.
I could lie to myself for one more night.
I could pretend I’m not already his.
But I don’t.
The back door opens.
Joaquin steps out, face unreadable, suit sharp. Silent storm in a tailored package.
“Ms. Sinclair,” he says, calm and clean, like he’s not ferrying me straight into hell. But his eyes…they see everything.
I pause. Just for a second. Long enough to feel the weight of the choice.
Long enough to know I’m about to do something I won’t come back from.
One second. Two. And then?
I do the only thing I ever seem to know how to do when it comes to Kane Rivera.
I surrender.
I slide into the car. The leather is cool against my thighs. The door shuts behind me with a soft click.
But it sounds like a lock sliding into place.
Like a verdict.
Joaquin doesn’t speak as we pull away from the curb. Doesn’t glance in the mirror. Doesn’t ask questions.
We weave through the city., slow, quiet, inevitable.
By the time we hit the underground garage, my hands are clenched in my lap and my heart is punching its way through my chest.
We coast past cars worth more than my foundation’s annual budget. Past steel and glass and silence.
He stops in front of the private elevator.
The one that only leads to one place.
To him.
I stare at the soft orange glow of the call button. The numbers above the doors. The faint reflection of myself, flushed cheeks, parted lips, eyes that look far too gone for this to still be a decision.
Joaquin says nothing. He doesn’t tell me to get out. He doesn’t ask if I need a moment.
Because he knows.
He knows.
That if I really wanted to stop this, I wouldn’t be here.
I exhale slowly,. My legs are jelly, but somehow, I force myself forward. Step after step.
Each footfall echoes in my ears, sounding dangerously like surrender.
I came here to end this. I came here to shove his bullshit back in his face. I came here because Kane Rivera needs to know he can’t fucking own me.
Yet as I stand in front of the elevator doors, watching them slide open, all my righteous anger twists into something hotter, darker, something I refuse to name.
I step inside.
The elevator hums beneath my feet, rising steadily while my stomach does flips. My reflection glares back at me, flushed cheeks, parted lips, eyes glittering with defiance I can barely hold onto.
This is insane. He’s insane. I’m insane.
The elevator chime pulls me from my spiral, doors sliding open smoothly, silently, and then I’m walking, slow and steady right into Kane Rivera’s penthouse.
My heaven. My hell. My biggest mistake. I still have his penthouse key. God help me, I should’ve burned it. Dropped it in the river. Melted it down and buried the metal in a concrete block. But I didn’t.
Because I knew one day I’d come back.
And here I am.
I swipe the card and push the door open like I belong here, like my legs aren’t already trembling, like my heart isn’t thudding so loud I can feel it behind my eyes.