Chapter 14
“Remind me again why we can’t just come visit you?”
Abbie’s sigh drips through my phone speakers like honey laced with vinegar.
On the screen, she’s in her kitchen, a streak of flour on her cheek, hair twisted into a messy bun.
She’s juggling a wooden spoon in one hand and her phone in the other, looking exasperated and beautiful as ever.
In the background, Rocky and Teddy—her rescue pets Logan surprised her with—are curled up around each other, watching for any scraps.
In the next square on the call, Cora’s perched on her living room floor with little April bouncing beside her, a mass of curls and sticky fingers.
Toys are strewn everywhere—blocks, stuffed animals, and a sparkly tiara lying abandoned under the coffee table.
Cora’s trying to look somewhat put together in a sleek black jumpsuit, but there’s a smear of yoghurt on one shoulder to complete the look.
These calls have kept me tethered over the past year. But lately, even the glittering pixels between us feel like an ocean. It’s as though the more we talk, the more aware we all are of the miles stretching taut between us, and while they want to erase that distance, I’m not so sure I do.
“Because Logan and Owen would lose their minds,” I say firmly, rolling my eyes. “You really think they’d let you leave the safety of the Points or the Clan just to hang out with me? Especially with the sex trafficking ring still unresolved?”
Abbie groans. “Ugh. I hate this. I hate that we can’t just be together like normal people.”
April shrieks in the background and Cora winces, clutching her toddler gently around the middle.
“April, baby, mummy’s talking.” She flashes me a grin.
“I still think we should come anyway. Screw the rules. It’s been far too long since we were all in one place.
If our husbands don’t like it, they can come with us for all I care. ”
“Oh! We could finally meet your friends,” Abbie cuts in, jabbing her spoon at the screen. “And vet these roommates of yours.”
I laugh softly. “If we do this, you’re talking your husbands into it.
I’m not getting involved in that. And we’re staying in a hotel, preferably one on the other side of the city that comes with spa robes and champagne room service.
As for meeting my friends, yeah, no thanks.
I quite like keeping them away from this shit, thank you very much. ”
They grin in their separate frames, and even April claps her chubby hands like she’s in on the plan.
I know that look too well, the one that tells you once they decide on something, there’s no stopping them.
Being Mafia brats has made them fearless, entitled, and somehow impossibly loyal.
I wouldn’t change them for the world though.
Once we hang up, the silence feels different. Softer, but charged.
I lean back in my chair and glance at the lace piece I’ve been working on, fingers ghosting over the delicate trim. It’s designed to contour the curves of my body, each line calculated to tease and command. It’s the kind of thing Jen would have hated.
If she could see me now—threading lace through a sewing machine with a thigh slit daring the world to look—she’d probably curl her lip and tell me I looked like a fat whore.
And maybe I do.
But I’ve never felt more in control, more worshipped than I do now.
Because the same body she tried to shrink, the curves she resented and punished, are the very things that pay my rent, fund my future, and keep me free.
Much to her disdain, I love every single inch of me, and I refuse to ever hide parts of myself to become what society wants.
Every stitch in this design is a quiet rebellion against her, and my only regret is that she isn’t alive to see it.
As much as I detest alarms, when my phone buzzes hours later, I’m glad I set one. I was so wrapped up in my design process that I lost all sense of time, and tonight’s stream is one I can’t afford to be late for or rush.
Because ghosts have a way of finding you, no matter how far you run.
And sometimes, revenge doesn’t look like bullets or blood. Sometimes it looks like turning the man who broke you into your biggest fan.
Tonight it’s not just about getting him off. It’s about making him feel me. About haunting him until I’m all he can think about in the dark hours before dawn.
I tie my hair into soft pigtails, adding little white bows. A touch of gloss, and a coat of mascara. Slipping the white lace mask into place and looping the silk ties behind my head, under my pigtails, completes the look.
When Matt logs on tonight and sees me in my old school uniform, I want him to feel like he’s been dragged back four years into the past. I want him to remember how it felt to peel this blouse off my shoulders, to push up my pleated skirt, and lose himself in me.
I want him to choke on the memories of us sneaking around behind our parents’ backs, slipping into each other’s rooms, pretending we couldn’t sleep.
I want him to remember exactly what he threw away, and know it’s the one thing he’ll never touch again.
And if the uniform is verging on indecent these days? Well, all the better. Let the hem flirt with danger. Let the buttons strain with intention. Let every inch of me echo the version of myself he never had the courage to claim publicly.
Going through the motions helps halt my spiralling thoughts, at least for a while.
Setting up my camera, flicking on the ring light, checking my angles—each step is mechanical, grounding, something my hands understand even when my head is a mess.
For a few minutes, the routine is enough to keep me steady.
But once I’ve logged in, once it’s just me and the blank screen waiting for me to become whoever he wants me to be tonight, the silence turns thick and heavy. It leaves too much room for the thoughts I’ve spent all day outrunning.
I close my eyes, inhale until my lungs ache, and force my heartbeat into something resembling calm before unwrapping a red lollipop. I straighten my shoulders, lift my chin, and pull the version of myself I need from the wreckage of the girl underneath.
Then I repeat the mantra I’ve told myself a thousand times:
This isn’t about him. It’s about power. It’s about control.
But when the feed goes live, and I see his name appear, all thoughts of power and control come to a crashing halt as anticipation takes over.
BegForMe: Fucking hell.
BegForMe: You’re trouble, you know that?
I shift forward, thighs inching apart until the pleats of my skirt barely bother pretending to cover me. I drag the lollipop across my lower lip before sucking it between my teeth, eyes lifted coyly to the lens.
“Trouble?” I echo, letting the word purr out of me.
I twirl a strand of pink hair and smile a soft, sugary curve that hides every wicked thing I’m thinking. “Baby, I’m harmless. I’m the one who should be scared.”
BegForMe: You don’t play fair, do you?
BegForMe: Does that taste good? Show me. Take it deeper.
I slip the red lollipop fully between my lips, hollowing my cheeks and swirling my tongue around it before pulling it free with a slick pop and dragging it down the valley between my breasts until the fabric clings, transparent and sticky, to my skin.
And for a second, I imagine it’s his tongue touching me instead.
God, I hate that part of me. The part that still wants him.
His messages come faster.
BegForMe: You want something to suck on, baby?
BegForMe: Show me how much you need it.
Trailing my hand down over my chest, past my stomach, and across my hips, I slip my fingers past the waistband of my thong. I circle my clit slowly, even as my mind screams that this is a game I’m supposed to be winning. That I’m supposed to be the one in control.
But my body doesn’t listen. It wants him. It wants the past. It wants everything I should’ve left behind.
I pull my fingers away, wet and glistening, and hold them up to the camera.
“See what you do to me, Daddy?” I whisper, licking my fingers clean. The taste is salt and heat and shame mixed into one, and I savour every drop like it’s victory.
His next message takes longer. When it finally arrives, it’s a command.
BegForMe: Take off the underwear. Skirt and tie can stay. Show me my pretty holes.
I obey slowly, every movement deliberate. I want him to ache. And yet, under it all, there’s a sick pulse of anticipation because I want to show him. I want him to remember me.
When I spread my thighs again, the light spills across my skin, glinting off the tiny pink ring nestled in my clit.
BegForMe: Fuck. You were made for this. Made for me. You want to be Daddy’s good little whore?
My chest squeezes—tight, breathless—as memories of a hundred other times he said something just like that slam into me with brutal precision. It’s muscle memory by now, his words, my undoing.
“I want you to ruin me,” I groan, pinching my nipple as I slip two fingers inside my pussy. “I want you to break me open and make me yours.”
It’s not a lie even though it should be. That’s what terrifies me most.
There’s a moment’s pause, a silence so deep I can hear my own pulse roaring in my ears.
Then his voice cuts through the speakers low and guttural.
“Look at you. So fucking desperate. Bet that tight little pussy is aching, isn’t it, baby?”
It’s the first time I’ve heard his voice in over a year. Even distorted through filters, it hits me like a slap. My body reacts before my brain can catch up. My nipples tighten, my thighs tremble and everything inside me clenches around the memory of him.
“Yes, Daddy,” I breathe. “I need you so bad it hurts.”
I reach for the toy beside me and trace it along my folds, teasing, dipping just the tip inside.
“I’m so empty, Daddy. It aches,” I sob.
Another sharp inhale from him, then a quiet, shattering exhale.
“Fuck. Show me. Show me how well you can take Daddy's cock, sweetheart.”
I ease it in, slow enough to feel every tremor, every pulse of heat. My hips tilt, searching for pressure, for release, for anything that isn’t thought. I tell myself this is just performance—my power, my rules.
But beneath all of it, shame burns hot and helpless. I want him to see me like this because nothing in this world has ever felt as devastatingly right as being wanted by him.
His breath catches. “Christ, Lily.”
My name falls from his mouth, raw enough to cut skin. For a split second, I’m right back in my old bedroom—him behind the camera, me moving for him like I was made for his eyes alone.
He doesn’t notice he’s said it.
But I do.
“I’m so full,” I moan, fingers trembling as I rock against the toy. “I’ve missed this. Missed you.”
For a heartbeat, I swear I feel him in the room. Like if I turned my head, he’d be there, watching me with that hungry, tormented stare that always had me coming back for more.
And God, I hate him.
But Christ, I still want him.
Then his voice hardens, and his next words splinter me all over again.
“Hurt yourself for me. Be my dirty little slut.” His voice is gritted steel. “You want to come for Daddy? Show me how pretty you look falling apart.”
I tug on my clit ring, gasping as my thighs begin to tremble. “It’s all for you,” I moan. “I got this piercing just for you.”
“God, I want that ring between my teeth. Want to feel it drag against my tongue while I fuck you full with my fingers. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d let me own every inch.”
“Yes,” I choke out, right on the edge. “Please. Claim me, make me yours.”
When the orgasm hits, it’s like glass shattering under pressure. My body bows, the room blurs, and everything dissolves into heat and blinding white.
When I lift the toy and show him the evidence before licking it clean, he groans, low and broken through my speakers.
BegForMe: Same time tomorrow.
And just like that, he’s gone.
Leaving me alone, soaked in sweat and silence, heart pounding in a body that still remembers what it feels like to be loved by him.
Or at least… to be wanted like it was love.
And hating myself because, despite everything, part of me still wants it, too.