Chapter 33 Pieces He Gave You
Pieces He Gave You
Summer
The front doors swing wide. They’re carved wood, taller than any I’ve ever seen, etched with vines and roses.
A man in a perfectly pressed black suit stands waiting.
White gloves. His face is weathered, sagging like melted wax, but his eyes are blue glass under pressure—cold, brittle, ready to break.
“We’ve been expecting you, Miss Miller,” he says, his voice crisp, rehearsed.
My stomach folds in on itself. Expecting me. Like this is an appointment. Like I’m a delivery scheduled for a Tuesday afternoon.
“Thank you, Harris,” Jackson says smoothly, the name rolling from his tongue like he’s rehearsed it too. He even dips his head, all courtly and charming.
But Harris—he doesn’t smile. He only bows, stiff, mechanical. I catch the flicker in his eyes when they slide to me. Pity. It’s gone in an instant, smoothed over with professionalism, but I saw it.
Behind him, a woman emerges. She’s tall, thin, her black hair scraped into a bun so tight it drags her brows up into arches. Her apron is spotless. Her hands folded.
“This is Mrs. Dorsey,” Jackson says. “She’ll make sure you’re comfortable.”
Comfortable. The word sticks like glass in my throat.
And then another appears—a man this time, shorter, wide through the middle, with dark skin and gentle eyes that don’t belong in this place. He wipes his hands on a flour-dusted towel knotted at his waist.
“Mr. Lyle,” Jackson says warmly. “The heart of this home.”
Lyle dips his head in acknowledgement. He doesn’t meet my eyes long. But in the second he does, I feel it. The pity again. The ‘I’m sorry’ he can’t say out loud.
Jackson releases me, his palm sliding down my arm, like it’s a caress instead of a command. “Mrs. Dorsey, if you’d be so kind, give our guest a tour. Donnie will accompany you.”
I almost laugh. A tour. Like I’m a bride seeing my new house. Not a prisoner being marched deeper into her cage.
“Yes, sir,” Mrs. Dorsey replies. Her voice is flat. Dutiful. But her gaze cuts past Jackson to me. Her lips press tight, and I know she wants to say more. She doesn’t.
We move.
The marble floors stretch beneath feet, veined with silver that catches the light from chandeliers. The ceilings soar high enough to echo. The walls are pale, broken by oil paintings—men with stern faces, women draped in pearls, none of them smiling. Their eyes follow. Judge. Condemn.
Donnie lumbers behind us, hands shoved in his pockets, whistling off-key. A watchdog with too many teeth.
Mrs. Dorsey walks briskly, pointing out rooms like this is all perfectly normal. The library, lined with shelves and leather armchairs. The dining hall—a table long enough to seat thirty. A ballroom with polished floors that gleam like ice.
My pulse drums hard in my ears.
“This wing is private,” Mrs. Dorsey says quickly, regaining her composure. She doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t have to. The tension in her jaw says enough. Don’t ask. Don’t look. Don’t push.
We keep walking.
Every step makes me smaller, even though the house is too big, too open. There’s nowhere to hide. Nowhere to breathe.
Mrs. Dorsey’s heels click on the marble as she leads me deeper into the house.
I’m barely listening to her soft, practised words anymore— something about the East Wing being quieter, more private.
My stomach is a knot, twisted so tight it might snap.
Every hallway looks the same—long stretches of pale walls, thick rugs muffling steps, chandeliers dripping with crystals that sparkle like they’re laughing at me.
Finally, she stops in front of a door. It’s white, carved with delicate flowers and painted gold at the edges. Too soft. Too pretty. Like it’s waiting for a little girl to skip through it, not a prisoner being shoved inside.
Mrs. Dorsey opens it. “This will be your room,” she says, voice clipped.
The space is enormous. My breath stutters when I step inside.
A four-poster bed dominates the center, its frame carved from dark mahogany with a canopy draped in sheer white curtains.
At the foot sits a velvet chaise in blood-red.
The wallpaper is pale cream, patterned with gold vines that twist like chains.
A chandelier dangles low, scattering light across polished floorboards and a massive armoire with brass handles.
It’s beautiful. Too beautiful. Which makes it worse.
Because I can already see myself locked in here, the walls closing in. The pretty details morphing into prison bars. The curtains like gauze thrown over a body.
Mrs. Dorsey hesitates. Her mouth parts like she wants to say something, but Donnie shifts behind us, clearing his throat. She stiffens and smooths her apron instead. “If you need anything, ring the bell beside the bed.”
I nod, my throat raw.
And then she leaves. Donnie leaves too. The heavy click of the lock echoes through the silence, and my chest constricts.
I’m alone at least for a moment.
But I know—I know—he’s coming.
I pace the room, my hands shaking. My eyes catch on the objects around me, desperate for a weapon. The only thing that looks remotely useful is the silver candelabra sitting on the dresser. Heavy, ornate, its arms curling into jagged points.
I grip it with both hands, hiding in the middle of the room, staring at the door.
It doesn’t take long.
The handle turns. Slowly. Then the door opens and Jackson steps in.
He fills the doorway like a shadow dragged into flesh.
His frame is tall, broad, but it’s his face that makes my blood curdle.
His hair is thick, dark, and curls messily around his temples.
There’s a heaviness to his jaw, covered with a day’s stubble.
His lips are cut into a mocking smile, but it’s his eyes—the same blue flames I saw before—that strip the breath from my lungs.
They’re too bright, too alive, too cruel.
“Planning to set the mood, Summer?” His gaze drops to the candelabra trembling in my grip. He laughs. Not loud. Just low and amused, like I’m a child waving a stick at a wolf.
“Stay back,” I whisper. My voice cracks.
In one stride, he’s on me. His hand shoots out, snatching the candelabra from mine in a single motion. Metal scrapes as he tosses it across the room—it clatters against the floorboards, useless.
Then he turns me around so fast my breath bursts. His chest presses into my back, hot, suffocating. His mouth is at my ear. His breath fans against my skin, slow, deliberate.
“I don’t plan to rush this,” he murmurs, voice low enough to slide down my spine. “Do you know how many men would kill to have you? How much they’d pay just to touch you?”
He sniffs the side of my hair, taking his time to work his way around to my ear.
“Your father…. He crossed too many people. I could get millions for you… in less than five minutes. But no one will so much as get a whiff of you. You belong to me… and so help me God, I will enjoy every second of your company.”
My stomach heaves. My knees threaten to buckle. But something snaps inside me—I twist my heel down hard, stomping onto his foot.
He grunts, a deep sound that rumbles in my bones. In an instant, his hand shoves me forward. I stumble onto the bed, the mattress dipping beneath me.
Looming above me. Shoulders squared, head tilted slightly, lips curved in a cruel half-thought. His eyes—glacial blue—scorch into me, narrowing, dissecting. The muscle in his jaw ticks, the cords in his arms drawn tight as though one wrong breath from me will snap the restraint holding him back.
I go still. My pulse slams against my ribs, so loud I swear the room can hear it.
His stare lingers. Unblinking. Weighing. Measuring. For a heartbeat too long, I’m certain he’s deciding whether to break me here and now, to scatter me across the floorboards just to prove he can.
“So fucking beautiful,” he murmurs, his voice a low growl as he brushes a strand of hair away from my eyes.
Then, slowly, he eases upright. Shoulders roll back. His hands smooth the front of his shirt in deliberate, precise movements, as though I’m nothing but grit he brushed from his skin.
At the doorway he halts, one hand curling around the frame. His gaze slices back over me—brutal, knowing, a warning wrapped in silence.
“Dinner will be ready in thirty minutes.”
The slam of the door rattles the walls. The lock turns with a final, metallic click that echoes in my chest.
And then—nothing.
Just me. The four walls. The throb of my pulse filling the space where he’d been.
Alone.
I don’t want to eat. I can’t think of anything worse right now. My stomach twists with every heartbeat, nausea rising like bile. The thought of sitting at a table across from him—pretending this is some sort of dinner party instead of a nightmare—makes me want to claw my own skin off.
I search the room instead, bare feet whispering across the polished floorboards.
My eyes scan everything, desperate, frantic.
I pull open the closet. Dresses, blouses, skirts—rows of them, all my size.
Neatly folded underwear in the drawers, some modest cotton, others lacey and obscene, meant for display, not comfort. My chest tightens.
The bathroom is the same—stocked like it’s been prepared for me.
A toothbrush already unwrapped, moisturisers and expensive creams lined up like an offering.
Even tampons, tucked neatly in a basket.
The realization slams into me harder than any slap—this wasn’t improvised.
This wasn’t chance. They’ve been waiting for me.
I drop to my knees, searching under the bed, running my hands over the floorboards, tugging at the edges of the rug. I fling open cupboards, rattle drawers, tap the walls—looking for hidden cameras, for wires, for something. But the room just stares back, pristine and suffocating.
Then—A knock at the door.
I freeze, breath lodged in my throat. My heart slams so hard against my ribs it hurts.
I don’t move.
The knock comes again, harder.
I still don’t answer.