Chapter Fifteen
Leona
“No.” The word comes out before I can stop it. Not quiet. Not hesitant. It cuts through the kitchen sharp enough that it surprises even me.
Marius doesn’t move. He doesn’t react at all. Which somehow makes it worse.
I push back from the table, the legs of the chair scraping against the floor as I stand.
The movement isn’t as smooth as I want it to be.
My body still lags behind my anger, still slower and sorer than it should be, but I refuse to let that stop me.
Pain drags low through my side the second I straighten.
My shoulder protests. My legs feel unreliable in ways I deeply resent. I ignore all of it.
“You don’t get to decide that,” I say again, and my voice is stronger now, steadier than it has been all morning. “You don’t get to just keep me here like that.”
“You’re not being kept.”
I let out a short, disbelieving breath. “That’s exactly what this is.”
My hand lifts, gesturing between us, the room, the house, all of it. The careful counters. The old stone. The kitchen that already feels less like a place to eat and more like a place where decisions are made and expected to hold.
“You’re telling me I can’t leave. That’s not protection, Marius. That’s control.”
The word hangs there, deliberate. I see it land. Not as anger. As recognition.
He steps forward once, measured enough that another person might miss the fact that he has shifted the room just by doing it.
My body reacts before my mind catches up.
My shoulders tighten. Something instinctive flickers sharp and ugly through me, but I force it down.
I don’t move back. I won’t give him that.
“I’m telling you that if you leave, you put yourself back in their path,” he says. “And I won’t allow that.”
There it is again. Won’t allow. My jaw tightens so hard it aches.
“You don’t get to allow anything in my life. You don’t know me. You don’t know how I live, what I’ve built—”
“I know enough.”
My breath hitches, frustration rising fast. “No, you don’t. You know what happened last night. That’s it. You don’t know me, you don’t know my animals, you don’t know what happens if I’m not there—”
“They’re being handled.”
“That’s not the same.”
The words come faster now, sharper, emotion finally pushing all the way through. My hand drags through my hair before I can stop it, and the motion pulls painfully at my scalp in a way I don’t want to think about. I force myself back into the moment before memory can drag me somewhere else.
“You can’t just send people in and think that fixes it,” I say. “They don’t know them like I do. They don’t know their routines, their behaviors. What if something goes wrong? What if one of them gets stressed, what if a gate gets missed, what if—”
“It won’t.”
The certainty cuts through me so cleanly it stops me for a second. I stare at him.
“You don’t know that,” I say, quieter now but no less intense.
“Yes,” he says. “I do.”
That confidence presses against me in a way that makes my chest tighten. Not panic this time. Something closer to anger sharpened by helplessness.
“God, you’re impossible,” I mutter.
I force myself to breathe and keep my voice steadier than I feel. “I’m not staying here,” I say, slower now, more deliberate. “I don’t care how big your house is or how many people you have or what you think is out there. That’s my life. My farm. My responsibility.”
I step forward, closing some of the space. Not all the way, but enough that this no longer feels like an argument held politely over breakfast and morning light.
“You don’t get to take that from me too.”
The words land heavier than I intend. Not just defiance. Truth.
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t step back. His gaze stays locked on mine, and something darker settles into it now. Not anger. Something harder than that. Something that doesn’t bend because it doesn’t have to.
“I’m not taking anything from you,” he says.
I let out a short, bitter laugh. “You already did.”
Silence follows. Real silence. The kind that doesn’t soften. And I see it then, for the first time since waking in this house. The edge of him. Not like the men in the cabin. Not wild. Not chaotic. Nothing sloppy about it. This is different. This is control sharpened into something dangerous.
“You’re alive because I intervened,” he says.
He isn’t loud. He isn’t harsh. But the words land like something solid dropped between us.
My breath catches. “I didn’t ask you to.”
The sentence slips out before I can stop it, and the second it does, I feel it. Not in him first. In the space between us. Like I’ve struck something I can’t take back.
He doesn’t react the way most people would. No anger. No raised voice. No flare of pride. He just looks at me. And somehow that’s worse.
“No,” he says after a moment. “You didn’t.”
The agreement throws me off balance. My chest rises and falls a little faster now, my body caught between pushing further and the growing awareness that I might already be standing inside something I don’t fully understand.
He steps closer, closing the distance I created. Not crowding. But close enough that I feel the difference.
“You also didn’t ask to be taken,” he continues. “Didn’t ask to be hurt. Didn’t ask for any of that.” His voice doesn’t change. “But it happened anyway.”
The words settle heavy and cold. My fingers curl at my sides. I don’t look away.
“I’m not letting it happen again,” he says.
There it is. Not a threat. A decision. Final.
I hold his gaze, every instinct in me splitting in two. One part is still furious, still pushing back, still refusing the shape of what he’s trying to do. The other remembers too clearly. The cabin. The ropes. The helplessness. The reality of being hurt by men I never saw coming.
My jaw tightens. “I’m not something you get to control,” I say, quieter now but unyielding.
“I know.”
That should make it better. It doesn’t. Because the way he says it sounds like he means it. And is going to do it anyway.
It isn’t the front door I think of. Not really.
The front of the house is down the hall, too far away, too exposed, too much open space while he stands there filling the kitchen with that awful certainty.
The stairs are closer. Narrower. A direction that feels briefly mine if I move fast enough.
I am not thinking about escape in any real sense. I am only thinking about away.
I don’t think. If I think, I stop.
So I move.
The chair scrapes hard against the floor as I turn, the sound sharp enough to cut through the kitchen.
He doesn’t move fast enough to stop me before I’m already crossing the room, pulse climbing, breath coming faster than it should.
My body aches with every step, but I push through it, ignoring the drag in my muscles, the slight wobble in my balance as I hit the hallway.
Out. I just need out of his voice, his certainty, the shape of him taking up all the air.
The hall opens around me, long and pale and too exposed, portraits staring down from the walls.
The front door lies farther ahead, past too much open space, too much distance to cross while I can still feel him behind me.
The stairs cut upward immediately to my right, and my body chooses them before logic can catch up.
Behind me, movement. Not loud. But there.
“I wouldn’t,” he says.
Too late.
I take the first stair anyway, one hand catching the railing. The movement jars pain straight through my side, but I climb anyway. Another step. Then another. I hear him behind me, measured even now, and that infuriates me more than if he’d shouted.
“I don’t care what you—”
His hand catches my arm.
This time it isn’t hesitant. It’s firm. Not rough. But enough. Enough to stop me.
My body reacts instantly. Everything in me locks. My breath hits hard, my chest seizing as the contact rips something sharp through my system. For one blinding second it isn’t him. It’s hands. Restraint. Pressure. The awful certainty of being stopped when stopping is the one thing I cannot survive.
“No—”
The word breaks out of me before I can stop it. Not defiance. Reflex.
My other hand jerks against the railing as I twist, trying to create space, panic flashing hot and fast through every nerve. He feels it immediately. His grip changes. Not gone. But looser. Controlled. Enough that I can pull away if I need to. And he doesn’t close in.
“I’m not them,” he says, low and certain.
I freeze there, halfway on the stairs, breath uneven, pulse loud in my ears. The house around us goes strange and distant for one second, too bright, too quiet. My skin is alive with the memory of being held wrong. My mind knows where I am. My body takes longer.
“Then don’t grab me like that,” I snap, and my voice shakes. Not weak. Raw.
For a second, he doesn’t move. Then he lets go. Completely.
The absence hits almost as hard. I suck in a breath, still tense, my grip tightening on the railing until my knuckles ache. He stands one stair below me now, not touching, not reaching, but close enough that I can feel the pressure of his presence all the same.
“You don’t get to do that,” I say, turning on him now, sharper, stronger. “You don’t get to stop me like I’m something you own.”
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t soften. Doesn’t retreat.
“You’re not walking out that door right now,” he says. Not raised. But solid.
My eyes flash. “Watch me.”
I move again. Too fast for my body.
My foot slips.
The polished wood edge disappears under me for half a second and my balance goes with it. The railing jerks in my grasp. My shoulder screams. The whole staircase tilts.
He’s there instantly. This time faster. But careful.
His hand catches my arm, steadying me. Not yanking. Not dragging. Just enough to stop me from falling down the stairs and breaking myself open on his marble floor.