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“Shh.” I grip her tighter. “I told you. I have you. We’re going to play a little game, and you’re going to stay here for it. You’re going to stay with me for the rest of your life. This could either be your prison or your home. Makes no difference to me. Either way, you’re never leaving.”

I’m being as cruel as I sounded the night I visited her in the cell for the first time. When I stared into her pretty little cunt as if I were a gynecologist.

The only breathing woman I performed this check-up on.

The other one was a cadaver Dad’s gynecologist supplied for me and Oliver. Oliver checked his sacrifice later. Back then, the check-ups weren’t done on stage. That was Oliver’s idea. He didn’t want our sons to perform it, but he wanted a show.

I said I checked mine too back then. I lied.

“It’s a promise and a motherfucking threat,” I whisper against the shell of her ear. “One I’ll follow through with.”

“I’m doing this for you,” she groans, talking through clenched teeth.

This again. “I know. Shh.”

Oliver’s car idles when he reaches us. He’s on the phone, studying Ophelia and me without lowering his window. We have time until he hangs up. Two minutes, I’d say, since he was just talking to me before I buzzed him in.

Right after I hung up on Clara.

Right before I hunted Ophelia down.

“Act like that sweet captive you were in your cell.” My fingers dig into her flesh. She whimpers. “Tell me you understand.”

“I understand.” Finally, I sense the fight leaving her body.

When she struggles now, it’s all for show.

She’s being so good for me.

“Oh, and Sonnet?” I slip my hand over her mouth, returning Oliver’s grin with a smaller one.

Her body heat seeps into mine. I’m fighting to keep a straight face. It’s all I can do to haul her over my shoulder, take her back home, and fuck her. If I do, we won’t leave the room until she’s pregnant.

Until we’re old and gray.

Until our happily ever after.

But we need to kill our enemies first. We have to.

“Mmm?”

“Unless I specifically tell you to.” She’s light in my arms as I pick her up. She’s kicking the air, the driver door of Oliver’s car. The asshole laughs, his smile wide under the soft lights in the driveway. “Never run from me again. Never think I’ll be better off without you. Ever.”

Her delicate feet in the white flats slam on his car over and over again. She pushes back, knocks her head into my chin.

Ophelia’s way of telling me she understands.

Oliver clicks a button to end his call. Presses another one to lower the window. “You have a girl here.”

A good girl who screams into my palm. Who gets me painfully fucking hard for her.

“You brought me here so I can kill you?” He laughs as if we’re sharing a joke.

I don’t buy it.

He’d love nothing more than to kill me.

He’s done looking over his shoulder.