CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
I lay curled on the edge of the mattress, the cotton sheets twisting around my legs like restraints. The room is dark, suffocating. The only light comes from beneath the door, a narrow strip that flickers whenever one of them walks past.
A knock at the door comes but very lightly.
“Starling?” I hear a voice. It is so low I can’t tell which of them it is.
The silence stretches between the knock and my breathing, slow, thin and hollow. I keep my back to the door, curled around myself like I can still protect what little of me hasn’t been shattered and sold and labeled with a barcode.
“Starling?”The voice comes again—barely a whisper, like the speaker already knows I’m not in the mood to be saved.
I don’t know whose it was.
And that is the problem, isn’t it?
I can’t tell them apart anymore. Not by voice, not by motive, not even by the ghosts they leave behind when they walk out of a room.
Montgomery. Shoomaker.
Two uniforms. Two chains. Two men who swear they are here to protect me.
But both of them had watched me rot in one hell or another.
And now they want me to crawl out of it smiling.
I stare at the door like it might explode.
A part of me—an older, darker part—wants them both to go away. Wants them to walk back down that hallway and never come back. Let me rot in peace this time. Let me choose silence over manipulation.
But another part…
Another part wants to throw that door open, storm into the war room, and shove every goddamn file off the table. I want to drag Tomas into the light myself. I want to take the operation from their hands, shove their orders down their throats, and remind them that I’m not just an asset.
I am the reason any of this is working.
And I am done being the girl in the file. The pawn in their rivalry.
I am the queen on the board now.
My fingers curl in the sheets, sweat slick at the back of my neck. My mind replays the image of Tomas in that mask. Of Shoomaker’s controlled hunger. Of Montgomery’s trembling hands and broken apology.
I roll to my back and stare at the ceiling.
I don’t know what I want more: vengeance…or clarity.
****
I wake up to warmth pressed against my back—an arm slung low over my waist, breath steady against my neck.
And wetness.
Tears.
I bolt upright, heart in my throat, stumbling out of the tangle of sheets like I’d woken into another nightmare. My bare feet hit the cold floor. I turn sharply—
Montgomery.
Lying there like he belongs. Like we aren’t on opposite sides of a line he helped draw in blood.
“Starling,” he starts, voice heavy with sleep and something else—something cracked.
“No,” I snap, pointing a finger at him like it might keep me steady. “No, you don’t get to come in here. Not in the middle of the night. Not like this. You don’t get to crawl into my bed like you’re welcome. Like I’m yours.”
His hand drags down his face. He sits up slowly, exhaling hard. “Please, let me talk.”
“There’s nothing left for you to say right now,” I say, arms crossed over my chest. I can still feel where his breath had touched my skin. It makes me sick and starving all at once.
“But last night—” he starts, the desperation barely hidden in his voice.
“Last night,” I cut in sharply, “was nothing. A moment of weakness. That’s all it was.”
His jaw tightens. He looks like I’d slapped him. Good. Let him feel it.
“A moment of weakness?” he repeats softly, almost like he is trying to convince himself.
I nod once. Firm. Final. Even if my heart hasn’t gotten the memo.
“If last night was a moment of weakness, what was tonight in the garden?” he asks, voice quieter now, more measured. “You let me touch you.”
The words hang there between us, heavy with meaning neither of us says out loud.
“And I shouldn’t have.” I look away. “I was tired and confused and—God, Montgomery, I just needed something to feel real for a second.”
“I was real,” he says, voice sharp now. “I am real.”
I turn back to him slowly, my voice a whisper edged in steel. “Then why did everything between us feel like a performance?”
He looks like he wants to argue. To fight. To reach for me again.
I hold his gaze. “Get out.”
He hesitates for only a moment, then nods once and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. He doesn’t look back as he leaves.
The door never clicks shut behind him.
And I am left standing there in the silence, trembling, arms wrapped around myself.
Not even a minute passes before I hear footsteps.
Shoomaker.
He leans against the open door frame, arms crossed, eyes scanning me like he already knows something has cracked open between us.
“You okay?”
I don’t answer.
He steps in, glancing once at the bed, then at the heap of sheets like he can read the aftermath written in the wrinkles.
“What happened?” His tone is gentler than I expected. But that only makes it worse.
“You want the full list?” I snap, crossing the room and grabbing my robe. “Or just the parts that make good notes in your little goddamn case file?”
Shoomaker doesn’t flinch. “Starling.”
I whirl around. “Don’t call me that. Don’t you dare. Not when you’re the one who dragged me back into this.”
He moves closer, faster this time, reaching for me before stopping himself. His hand hovers in the air between us.
“My little survivor,” he breathes, the nickname slipping out like a plea. His voice is desperate, almost broken. “Please…just look at me.”
I freeze at his words, but then he keeps going.
“You dragged yourself back in.”
“I followed a flyer,” I hiss. “I emailed you before I walked in that room. Yet, you teamed up with the man that built the stage I walked onto. You let them—” I choke back the rest, the memory of all the men’s touch seared across my skin. “You watched this happen.”
“I stepped in after the auction had already taken place,” he adds, his hand clamping around mine. “Because Montgomery and his men were the ones running this whole operation all along.”
The words hit me hard. I stare at him, chest tightening as betrayal and confusion swirl inside me. My hand twitches in his grip, but he doesn’t let go.
Before I can find my voice, Shoomaker’s entire demeanor shifts.
“I did what I had to do,” Shoomaker says coldly now. That softness vanishes like it had never been there. His spine straightens. His jaw ticks. “Just like I’m about to again.”
He takes a step forward, his voice dropping into something sharper. Familiar.
Controlling.
“Get dressed.”
I blink. “What?”
“I said get dressed.” He motions toward the closet. “You want answers, you’re going to earn them. The others are still out there, Starling. We don’t have time to wallow over the last few weeks.”
“You’re not the Warden,” I snap.
“No?” His voice darkens. “Want to test the theory of who is better at playing the Warden? I’ve let you play victim long enough. Now, you’re going to do what you were brought here to do.”
The words slap me harder than a hand ever could.
The Warden.
He is using that voice again—the one that used to make my knees lock and my throat close in submission.
But I’m not that girl anymore.
And he isn’t a god in the dark.
I step up to him, eyes burning, chest heaving. “You think ordering me around is going to make me forget that you let them touch me? That you watched me break and documented it like a fucking lab rat?”
Shoomaker’s jaw tightens. In a flash, his control snaps.
His hand shoots out and grabs my jaw in that familiar, bruising grip—the same way the Warden used to do it. Hard. Possessive. Unforgiving. Before I can finish my next angry word, he spins me around and slams my back against the wall with his body.
“You think I wanted to watch that?” he growls, voice low and dangerous.
He forces my chin up with his fingers, making me look straight into his dark, stormy eyes.
Then his mouth crashes down on mine in a brutal, passionate kiss.
There’s nothing gentle about it. It’s all teeth and hunger and pent-up fury as he devours me, pinning me harder against the wall with his hips.
I try to push back at first, but he doesn’t let me.
His tongue sweeps into my mouth, demanding submission, kissing me like he’s trying to break me down and rebuild me at the same time.
A desperate, angry sound vibrates from his chest into mine as his free hand fists in my hair, tilting my head exactly how he wants it.
When he finally pulls back just enough to speak, his lips are still brushing mine, breath ragged.
“I hated every second of it,” he rasps against my mouth, thumb pressing into my jaw. “But I’d do it again because it means you are here. In my arms. Alive.”
Then he kisses me again, even deeper, like he’s pouring every unspoken thing into me—rage, guilt, obsession, and something dangerously close to devotion.
“Now get dressed,” he says again, quieter this time. “Or I drag Montgomery in here and we both remind you what disobedience looks like.”
It isn’t a threat.
It is a tactic.
And it works.
Because even through the rage, even through the fire in my veins, my body remembers. My skin goes still. My hands curl into fists to hide the tremble.
Not fear.
Resentment.
Because I still don’t know which man is worse.
And worse than that…I don’t know which one I trust more.