Page 22 of Her Obedience (Ruin & Gold #1)

T he darkness swallows me whole. I'm running down an alley that stretches endlessly before me, my lungs burning with each desperate breath.

Footsteps echo behind me, gaining ground no matter how fast I push myself.

The weight of fear presses against my chest, making each inhale more painful than the last.

"Just hand over your necklace," a voice growls from the shadows. "And no one gets hurt."

But I know it's a lie. I know what comes next.

I spin around, facing my pursuer, but instead of the mugger, it's Victor standing there, his expression cold and calculating as he raises a gun.

"Nothing personal, Miss Everett," he says, the barrel gleaming in the dim light. "Just business."

The crack of the gunshot jolts through me, but there's no pain. Instead, I watch as a man crumples to the ground before me, blood pooling around his head like a grotesque halo. I can feel the warm spray across my face, taste the metallic tang on my lips.

"Package secured," Victor says into his wrist communication device, his voice distant and professional. "Bringing her in now."

Hands reach for me from all directions, faceless men in black suits dragging me toward a waiting vehicle. I try to scream, but no sound comes out. I struggle against their grip, but my limbs are leaden, useless.

And then Gage is there, watching from a distance, his face impassive as I'm bundled into the back of the SUV.

"You've always been mine," his voice echoes, though his lips don't move. "You just didn't know it yet."

The darkness closes in, suffocating, inescapable ? —

I wake with a scream tearing from my throat, bolting upright in bed with my heart hammering against my ribs. Sweat plasters my nightgown to my skin, and I can't stop shaking. The room swims around me, reality and nightmare blurring together until I can't distinguish one from the other.

My hands fly to my face, half-expecting to find blood there. Finding only tears, I gulp in air, trying to ground myself in the present.

A soft knock at the door makes me flinch.

"Penelope?" Gage's voice, low and concerned, filters through the heavy wood. "Are you all right?"

I can't answer, still trapped in the lingering tendrils of terror. The door opens slowly, and Gage appears in the doorway, silhouetted against the dim light from the hallway. He's wearing sleep pants and a t-shirt, his hair mussed, looking more human than I've ever seen him.

"I heard you scream," he says, remaining at the threshold, watching me with an expression I can't quite read in the darkness.

"I'm fine," I manage, my voice cracking in betrayal. "Just a dream."

He steps into the room but doesn't approach the bed. "About the mugging."

It's not a question. He knows exactly what haunts my sleep.

"Among other things," I say, pulling my knees to my chest, creating a barrier between us.

"May I turn on the lamp?" he asks, surprising me with the request for permission when he usually takes whatever he wants.

I nod, and soft light blooms from the bedside table, casting the room in gentle shadows. Gage looks different in this light, less the controlled businessman and more... something else. Something almost approachable.

"Would you prefer I call Marta?" he asks.

"No." The answer comes quickly, surprising even me. "No need to wake her."

He nods, then moves to the chair near the window, sitting down rather than invading my space. His posture is relaxed, non-threatening.

"Nightmares are the mind's way of processing trauma," he says after a moment. "There's no weakness in experiencing them."

I stare at him, caught off guard by the absence of mockery I'd expected. "Is that your professional opinion, Mr. Blackwood?"

A hint of a smile touches his lips. "No. Just personal experience."

The admission hangs between us, unexpectedly intimate.

"You have nightmares?" I find myself asking, curiosity momentarily overriding caution.

He studies me for a long moment. "Yes," he says finally. "Less frequently now than in my youth, but they never truly disappear."

"What are they about?" The question slips out before I can stop myself.

His gaze shifts to the window, where moonlight casts silver patterns through the glass. "Various things. Childhood memories, mostly. My father was not... gentle with failure."

The careful phrasing tells me more than a detailed explanation might have. I remember the documents mentioning that Gage had taken over the family business after his father's death, the way he tenses whenever the man is mentioned.

"My nightmare was about the mugging," I admit, the confession easier in this strange, suspended moment between night and morning. "Except in the dream, I knew it was staged. I knew what was coming, but couldn't stop it."

"The mind reconstructs events with the benefit of hindsight," he says, his tone almost gentle. "Inserting current knowledge into past experiences."

"Is that supposed to make it better? Knowing it was all orchestrated? That a man died as part of your... plot?" I can't keep the bitterness from my voice.

"No," he says simply. "Nothing makes that better. The operation went wrong. Victor exceeded his instructions. It wasn't supposed to happen that way."

I watch him, searching for signs of deception, finding none. "Then how was it supposed to happen?"

"A frightening but ultimately harmless encounter. Enough to justify bringing you here, but without bloodshed." He meets my gaze directly. "I don't expect you to believe that, but it's the truth."

Strangely, I do believe him. Not because I trust him, but because the cold efficiency I've come to know in Gage Blackwood wouldn't include unnecessary violence. It would be... inefficient.

"That doesn't change where we are now," I say.

"No, it doesn't." He leans back in the chair, his expression thoughtful. "When I was a child, after the worst nights, my mother would sit with me until I fell asleep again. Just her presence was enough to keep the shadows at bay."

The image is startlingly human—Gage as a frightened child, his mother standing guard against invisible demons. I try to reconcile it with the controlled, calculating man before me and find I can't quite bridge the gap.

"Where is she now? Your mother?" I ask.

"Gone," he says, the single word heavy with meaning. "When I was fourteen."

Another piece of the puzzle that is Gage Blackwood falls into place—the loss of his buffer against a harsh father, the boy forced to grow up too quickly in a world without gentleness.

We sit in silence for a while, the atmosphere between us shifting into something I don't quite understand. Not friendship, certainly not affection, but perhaps a fragile truce built on shared vulnerability.

"Would you like me to leave?" he asks eventually, making no move to rise.

I should say yes. Should maintain the emotional distance that keeps me focused on eventual escape. Instead, I find myself shaking my head.

"No," I whisper. "Stay. Just... stay there." I gesture to the chair, establishing boundaries even in this moment of weakness.

He nods, settling more comfortably. "I'll stay until you fall asleep."

I lie back against the pillows, pulling the covers up to my chin. The remnants of the nightmare still hover at the edges of my consciousness, but they seem less threatening with another person in the room, even if that person is the architect of my captivity.

"I used to have nightmares about my father," I find myself saying, eyes fixed on the ceiling. "About disappointing him. About never being good enough, no matter how hard I tried."

"William Everett is a man who thrives on the inadequacy of others," Gage observes. "It's how he maintains control."

"Is that so different from you?" The question emerges sharp-edged, my momentary vulnerability giving way to renewed awareness of our fundamental dynamic.

"I prefer competence to inadequacy," he replies, seemingly unbothered by the comparison. "Your strengths were what interested me, Penelope. Not your weaknesses."

"Yet here I am, caged by your authority, my independence stripped away."

"Temporarily constrained," he corrects, the familiar reframing that never changes the fundamental reality. "Until trust is established."

I turn my head to look at him, finding his gaze steady on mine. "Will that ever happen? Really?"

He considers the question with unexpected seriousness. "I believe so. Not through force, but through time and shared experience. Through moments like this one."

The raw honesty in his voice catches me off guard. For the first time, I glimpse what might be genuine belief behind his words—that he truly sees our future unfolding toward some kind of functional partnership, that this isn't merely about possession but about something more complex.

I close my eyes, suddenly exhausted. "I don't want to argue philosophy tonight."

"Then we won't," he says simply. "Rest, Penelope. I'll be here."

The surreal quality of the moment settles over me like a blanket—Gage Blackwood, who orchestrated my capture and controls my every waking hour, now standing guard against the nightmares he indirectly created.

The contradictions should keep me awake, but instead, I find myself drifting, my body surrendering to exhaustion even as my mind continues to puzzle over the enigma sitting across the room.

The last thing I remember before sleep claims me is the sound of his breathing, steady and calm in the quiet room, and the strange realization that for the first time since my capture, I feel almost safe.

When I wake in the morning, he's gone, the chair empty, the room bathed in early sunlight. Only the faint impression on the cushion suggests he was ever there at all, that the night's strange intimacy wasn't just another dream.

But on the bedside table sits a small origami bird, folded from heavy cream paper, its wings poised as if for flight. I pick it up, turning it in my fingers, wondering at its meaning. A peace offering? A reminder of constrained freedom? Another manipulation?

The game continues, but the board has subtly changed.