Chapter 20 Cora
CORA
Ican’t look at my father or stepmother. Can’t bear to see the disgust etched into every line of his face as he watches me—impaled on Dominic’s cock, spread open like some obscene display, my body no longer my own.
His knuckles are white where they grip his champagne flute, jaw clenched so tight I’m certain his teeth will shatter. Every few seconds, his eyes dart to my face before jerking away, unable to fully process what he’s witnessing. Unable to accept that his perfect daughter has become this.
And the worst part? I can’t tell if he’s more disgusted by what’s happening or by the fact that he can’t stop it.
Dominic’s fingers brush against my lips, offering me a strawberry with deliberate slowness. His touch lingers far longer than necessary, and when I whimper—a sound of distress that he somehow twists into something that sounds like pleasure—he leans close to my ear.
“Look how red your cheeks are, baby,” he whispers, his voice dripping with false tenderness. “Your father’s watching you take my cock. Watching you be the perfect little slut for Daddy.”
The words are meant to humiliate me, and they do. But worse than the humiliation is the realization that crashes over me like ice water.
He planned this.
All of it. The tenderness in the Red Room, the careful touches in the baths, the whispered promises about protecting me were all foreplay for this moment. A setup designed to make the betrayal cut deeper.
A piece of my heart breaks off and dies.
I glance up at him, and there’s something in his eyes that lies there beneath the darkness. A flicker of regret, perhaps? His gaze holds mine for a fraction too long, and I see conflict warring in those dark depths, but then he looks away, back toward my father, and the moment passes.
It makes everything worse somehow. Because if he does care, if he’s struggling with this, then the cruelty is even more deliberate. Even more painful.
Liam’s hand strokes across my breast, his touch sending revulsion through my entire body despite the arousal still thrumming in my veins. How is it possible to feel both? How can my body respond to him while my mind screams in horror at what they’ve done?
“The fish is remarkable,” Liam says to Xavier, his voice conversational as if he isn’t actively groping me in front of my father, as if I’m not sobbing silently on Dominic’s lap. “You must give me the name of your chef.”
He’s talking about food while my entire world implodes. While I sit here, exposed and humiliated, realizing that everything between us was a lie.
Liam’s eyes are cold, analytical—the look of someone observing a particularly interesting experiment.
My eyes dart to Ryder, searching desperately for some sign of remorse, some indication that he’s struggling with this. And I find it.
His eyes are anguished. They meet mine with an intensity that steals my breath—there’s genuine pain there, genuine conflict.
He’s not looking away. He’s staring directly at me, and in those eyes, I see the war he’s waging with himself.
The man who whispered tenderly about protecting me is in there, still present, still suffering at what he’s being forced to do.
But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t release me. Doesn’t break formation with Dominic and Liam.
Because my father is still here, watching. Because backing down now would mean admitting they planned this cruelty, and in this room full of power and predators, weakness is death.
So, Ryder stays. Stays and holds me open while his eyes scream silent apologies.
Stays and participates in my humiliation while his soul apparently tears itself apart.
It’s somehow worse than if he’d simply looked away—this evidence that he knows what he’s doing is wrong, that he feels my pain, but continues anyway.
My father’s breathing grows increasingly labored.
I can feel his anguish radiating across the glass table like heat from a furnace.
For all the ways he’s hurt me, he’s still my father, and I never would have wanted him to see me like this.
And watching him realize that his political power means nothing here—breaks something inside me.
“I can’t—” His voice cracks.
He shoves back from the table so violently that his chair scrapes loudly against the stone floor. For a moment, I think he might come for me, might try to fight them. But he just stares at me—at what I’ve become, at what they’ve made me—and then he turns and walks away.
The heavy doors slam shut behind him with a resounding echo that cuts through the dining hall like a blade.
And that’s when my composure shatters.
The moment the doors close, I break. My shoulders begin to shake, small tremors that quickly escalate into full-body sobs that wrack my frame.
Tears stream down my cheeks in rivers, and I can’t stop them, can’t control them, can’t do anything but sit here and fall apart while still impaled on Dominic’s cock.
The realization of what’s happened hits me in waves:
They knew he’d be here. They planned this. Everything they did before lowered my defenses so that when they destroyed me in front of my father, it would hurt more.
I thought I was safe with them. Thought that what we shared transcended the Hunt, transcended revenge. I was such a fool.
“Please,” I beg, my voice barely audible beneath my sobs. “Please, let me go. Please, I can’t—”
For a moment, nothing changes. Then Dominic’s arms loosen slightly. Not a release, but a shift. A softening.
“Shhh,” he murmurs against my ear, and there’s genuine tenderness in his voice now that the performance is over. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
I look back, and his eyes hold mine with an intensity that makes my chest clench. There’s real regret there now—no mask between us except the literal one on his face. I can see the conflict, the pain, the struggle with what he’s just done.
But it doesn’t matter. Because he did do it. Because he held me down and displayed me like a trophy while my father watched, and no amount of softening now can undo that.
Ryder leans forward, his masked face hovering near mine. “Cora,” he whispers, and his voice is breaking. “Look at me. Please look at me.”
I meet his gaze, and what I see destroys me all over again. He’s crying. Actually crying, tears streaming down his face and into his mask.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. This wasn’t—we didn’t think—”
“Didn’t think what?” My voice is hollow. “That it would hurt? That I’d feel betrayed? That everything you said in the Red Room was a lie?”
“It wasn’t a lie,” Liam says softly. “Cora, what happened with your father—that was the plan, yes. But what happened between us, that was real. That is real.”
I want to believe him. God, I want to believe him so badly that it physically hurts. But the betrayal cuts too deep, the wound is too fresh.
“You used me,” I whisper. “You made me trust you, made me think I was safe, and then you used me as a weapon against him.”
“We did,” Dominic says. “We planned this. We executed it. And we’ll carry the guilt of it for the rest of our lives.”
The words are meant to comfort, but they only make it worse. Because now I know they understood the magnitude of the betrayal and did it anyway.
Ryder’s hand reaches for my face, but I flinch away.
“Don’t,” I say, my voice small and broken. “Please don’t touch me.”
The three men in their skull masks watch me with what might be remorse, what might be regret. But I can’t accept it. Can’t let the tiny glimmer of hope they’re offering penetrate the walls I’m rapidly constructing around my heart.
Because if I let myself believe that the tenderness was real, then I must accept that they’re capable of hurting people they care for. That they could care for me and still destroy me. That they could hold me gently and still hold me down.
And that realization is somehow even worse than the simple truth that they never cared at all.
I realize with nauseating clarity that I’ll never be able to unsee them like this. Will never be able to look at them again without remembering what they chose to do.
The tiny glimmer of hope they’re offering isn’t enough to light the darkness they’ve created.
It’s only enough to make me see exactly how far I could fall.