Chapter 5 #2
"Whatever you want. Fuck other men. Go back to therapy. Get married. Build a normal life." The words taste like acid, and I see each one hit her like a slap. "Or... become someone worthy of standing beside me."
"How? How do I become that?"
I pause at the door. "That's for you to figure out."
"Will you... will you watch me? Keep tabs on me?"
I turn back to her. "Would it matter if I did?"
"Yes." She stands, the dress falling awkwardly around her marked body. "If I knew you were watching, I could show you. Show you how I'm changing, becoming what you need."
"This isn't a performance, Selene. This is transformation. Real change. It happens when no one's watching."
"So, you won't watch?"
I don't answer.
Let her wonder.
Let her assume every shadow is my eyes on her.
Let her live the entire year wondering if I can see her, if I know what she's doing.
"The collar," she says suddenly. "Do I... can I keep it?"
I should say no.
I should remove it myself, lock it away.
It's a ten-thousand-dollar piece, custom-made.
But more than that, it's my mark on her.
My claim.
"Please," she adds, and there's such desperation in that single word.
"Why?"
"Because without it, I might convince myself this was a dream. A fantasy. I need something real to hold onto. To remind me what I'm working toward."
I cross back to her, grip her chin, force her to look up at me. "You want to wear my collar for a year? While you're out there, living your life, possibly fucking other men?"
"I won't?—"
"You will. You'll try to forget me. Try to find someone who can give you what I give you.
" I grip her throat, feel her pulse race.
"But you won't find it. You'll compare every touch to mine and find them lacking.
You'll fake orgasms while thinking of me.
You'll wear that collar and count the days until you can come back. "
"Yes," she breathes.
"And if you take it off? Even once?"
"Then I've failed."
"Then you never come back."
She swallows hard against my hand. "I won't take it off."
"We'll see."
I leave her there to finish her breakfast alone.
Once I'm away, I pull up the camera feeds and watch her.
She's not crying anymore. She's sitting perfectly still, staring at nothing, processing.
Then she does something unexpected.
She finishes her breakfast.
Every bite.
Following my last order, even though I'm sending her away.
My phone rings.
Vincent. "Is it done? Did you send her away?"
"She'll be gone within the hour."
"Good. It's for the best. The distance will give you perspective."
Perspective. Right.
A year of knowing she's out there, possibly fucking other men, possibly forgetting me, possibly moving on.
The thought makes me want to destroy something.
Makes me want to lock her in my bedroom and never let her leave.
"She's dangerous, Cassius. You know that."
"Everything dangerous can be controlled with the right leverage."
"And what leverage do you have over her?"
"She loves me."
The words slip out before I can stop them.
Vincent is silent for a long moment. "Does she? Or does she love what you do to her?"
"Does it matter?"
"It does if she finds out the truth. Love can turn to hate very quickly."
"Then I'll make sure she never finds out."
"Secrets have a way of surfacing. Especially ones this big."
"Not this one."
Vincent laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Your father would have killed her just to eliminate the risk."
"I'm not my father."
"No. You're worse. He was cruel but practical. You're cruel and sentimental."
I hang up on him.
Through the monitor, I watch Selene stand, smooth down the wrinkled dress.
She moves to the mirror, studies herself.
Touches the collar.
Then she does something that makes my chest tighten.
She kneels.
Right there, alone in the room, she assumes the position I taught her.
Perfect form.
And she stays there, waiting.
For me.
I shouldn't go back.
I should let her kneel until she realizes I'm not coming, then leave.
Make this a clean break.
Instead, I find myself walking back to the guest room.
She doesn't look up when I enter, maintains perfect position.
"What are you doing?"
"Waiting for my orders, Sir."
"I told you. You're leaving."
"You said within the hour. It hasn't been an hour."
Technical obedience.
She’s using my own rules against me.
Despite everything, I almost smile.
"Stand."
She rises gracefully, and I notice she's removed the dress.
She's naked except for the collar, displaying all my marks one last time.
"These will fade," she says, touching a bruise on her hip. "But I won't forget how they got there."
"Selene—"
"You're right. I'm not ready. I'm soft. Weak. I showed mercy when I shouldn't have." She steps closer, close enough that I can feel the heat from her skin. "But I can learn. I will learn. I'll become someone you can't send away. Someone who belongs in your world completely."
"How?"
"I don't know yet. But I'll figure it out." She reaches up, touches the collar. "This will remind me every day what I'm working toward. Who I belong to."
"Even if a year passes, and I decide you're still not ready?"
"Then at least I'll have tried. At least I'll have had this." She gestures between us. "Whatever this is."
"This is ownership," I tell her. "Possession. Control."
"It's more than that, and you know it."
"Is it?"
"You wouldn't be angry if it wasn't. You'd have killed David without hesitation. You'd have removed this collar yourself. You'd have fucked me last night instead of sending me to bed alone." She meets my eyes. "You care. Even if you don't want to."
She's too perceptive. Too smart. It will be her downfall eventually.
"Get dressed," I order. "You leave in twenty minutes."
She doesn't move. "Will you miss me?"
"No."
"Liar."
The audacity of her calling me a liar should anger me.
Instead, it makes me want to fuck her against the wall.
Make her take back the words while she screams my name.
But that's not happening. She's leaving. For a year.
"Nineteen minutes," I say, and walk out.
I watch from my window as Lionel loads her into the car.
She's wearing her own clothes now—jeans and a sweater that do nothing to hide the collar.
She didn't even try to cover it.
She wears it like armor.
Like pride.
Like mine.
The car pulls away, and she doesn't look back.
Doesn't wave. Doesn't hesitate. Just goes.
The room still smells like her.
The bed still holds the shape of her body.
The collar is gone with her, but everything else remains—the memory of her submission, her defiance, her tears.
Peter appears in my doorway. "Boss? She's gone?"
"For now."
"You think she'll come back?"
I think about her kneeling alone in that room, waiting for orders that weren't coming.
Think about her wearing my collar for a year, remembering.
Think about the determination in her eyes when she said she'd learn.
"Yes."
"And if she does?"
"Then I'll destroy her completely. Remake her into something that can survive in our world."
"And if she finds out? About her parents?"
I pour myself a whiskey even though it's not even noon. "Then we'll see if she's really mine."
Peter leaves, and I'm alone with the monitors and the whiskey and the ghost of her presence.
365 days.
I've given her a year to become someone else, someone harder, someone who belongs in my world.
What I haven't told her is that I'll be watching.
Every day.
Every decision.
Every move she makes will be reported to me.
She thinks she's free for a year, but she's never been less free.
Because now she knows what she's missing.
Now she knows what she needs, aAnd that need will drive her to become exactly what I want her to be—or it will destroy her.
Either way, she's mine.
My phone buzzes with a text from Lionel:
She asked to go to her apartment. She's wearing the collar openly. People are staring.
Good. Let them stare. Let them wonder. Let her feel the weight of it every second of every day.
I pull up the surveillance feeds from her apartment, watch as she enters.
She goes straight to her bedroom, to the closet where my men found her collection of evidence about her parents' murder.
She stares at the wall of articles, the sketch of the masked figure.
Her hand goes to the collar.
"I'll become someone you can't send away," she says to the sketch. To me, though she doesn't know it.
"I'll become someone worthy of your world. Someone hard enough to stand beside you. Someone who won't flinch at violence or show mercy to those who threaten us."
She starts taking down the articles, packing them away.
Not throwing them out—she's too sentimental for that—but putting them away.
Moving on.
Moving toward something else.
Toward me.
If only she knew she was promising the man who killed them.
If only she knew that sketch was my face behind a mask.
That the monster she's been obsessing over and the man she's fallen for are the same person.
But she will know.
Eventually.
When she's so deep in my world that she can't leave.
When she's so thoroughly mine that the truth won't matter.
Or it will matter too much, and I'll lose her.
But that's a problem for a year from now.
For now, I have work to do.
An empire to run. Enemies to destroy.
And a girl to watch transform herself into something worthy of standing beside a monster.
The countdown begins now.
364 days to go.