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To see what’s underneath. To demand names or identities or truths.

Because they already knowme.

They’ve said it. Whispered it.Provenit in every cruel, calculated move they’ve made.

I know they’ve watched me for years. Know they’ve memorized the way I walk, the way I fight, the way I run my tongue over my teeth when I’m debating between cutting a man’s Achilles or just dropping him with a bullet.

But who the fuck arethey?

Are they part of my everyday life?

People I see at work? On the street? At the goddamn café down the block where I used to get those cherry pastries they somehow knew I loved?

Or are they just ghosts—observers with obsession issues and a god complex—who’ve watched me from a distance for far too long?

They say they want Reyes in the ground. That I was going to get myself killed. So theyhadto interfere.

But why?

Why did it matter to them?

How did they evenknowhe was targeting me? That I was getting close enough to be a threat?

And why risk blowing my entire case—my entire life—just to get in the way?

I should be thinking clearer than this. Plotting my next move. Getting answers. Setting fires.

But all I can do is stare ahead numbly as Rule carries me into the house like I’m something breakable. Like he hasn’t already fucked the fight out of me on the forest floor. Like he didn’t stretch me open and destroy me—twice.

Because of course the bastard hadn’t been satisfied with just one round. No. He’d stayed inside me, still hard, stillthere, his magic cock dragging slow and deep like he was etching himself into my fucking soul. He didn’t rush. Didn’t pull out. Just rocked into me with that same unbearable control until theasshole got a second windand fucked me again. Right there in the dirt, while I was still shivering from the first round.

And now?

Now he’s carrying me through the house like I weigh nothing. Like I’m not still leaking his cum down my thigh. As though I’m not splattered with dried blood and humiliation and goddamnneed.

The sun’s up now. Full and bright and mocking.

I don’t know what time it is anymore, but I know it’s long past dawn. I know I should feel shame. Fury. Something sharp enough to cut through the haze still thick in my veins.

But all I feel is hollow.

No—raw.

Because everything hurts. My thighs. My wrists. My pride. And still, my body remembers every second of it.

Rule carries me straight back to the room they’ve kept me in and heads directly into the bathroom attached to it.

It’s too pristine. Sleek, polished, dark marble that gleams like it’s mocking me. Now I’m going to be bleeding all over those pretty surfaces.

Rule sets me down on the counter like I’m something precious. As though I won’t immediately try to slit his throat if I ever get my hands free and a knife in them.

He doesn’t speak. Just steadies me with one firm gloved hand on my thigh, the other ghosting along my waist as he makes sure I don’t fall.

As if I could fallmorethan I already have.

Once he’s sure I’m not about to topple over, he unties my wrists before turning his back to me and moves toward the shower. As if this is normal and all just part of the fucking routine now.

And maybe it is.