Page 32

Chapter 31

Seanna

I don’t need help walking.

Try telling that to Rule—who lifts me off the counter like I’m some broken doll and carries me toward the shower as if I didn’t just survive being hunted through a goddamn trap-laced forest and fucked into the soil like a prize-winning mare.

“Put me down,” I growl, shoving weakly at his chest. “I’m not glass.”

“No,” he agrees calmly, stepping into the bathroom with that maddening steadiness of his. “But you’re bleeding and dehydrated. So for once, try not being so fucking strong.”

That shouldn’t make my breath catch.

It shouldn’t make something ugly twist in my chest either.

But it does.

The bastard sets me down carefully in the oversized shower stall, the tiles cold against my feet, steam already curling around us in lazy spirals. Then he steps back, but not far. Just enough to lean against the wall on the other side of the glass and cross his arms, black mask fixed on my naked body like I’m a specimen in his private collection.

I glare at him. “You’re not staying.”

“You want to fall face-first into ceramic and bleed out?” he asks mildly. “Didn’t think so.”

Arrogant son of a—

I step under the water.

And I let it hit me—hot and unrelenting. It stings against the welts, the shallow cuts, the bruises that are already blooming purple across my thighs and ribs. But I stand there anyway, fists clenched at my sides, trying not to collapse under the heat or his gaze.

I don’t ask him to leave again.

Because I know he won’t.

Because a small, sick part of me doesn’t want him to.

I grab the soap and start scrubbing, harder than I need to. Like maybe I can scrape off the layers of Rule and Ruin still clinging to my skin. But no matter how raw I make myself, I still feel them there. Their hands. Their voices. Their fucking breath in my ear.

When I’m finished, I shut the water off and step out, dripping wet and exhausted.

Rule’s already waiting with a towel. Of course he is.

I snatch it from him—but his hand doesn’t let go. He holds it firm.

“Let me,” he says, quieter now. “Just this once.”

I want to scream at him. Tell him to fuck off. That I’m not his pet, not his responsibility, not his anything.

But the towel in his hand is soft. And I’m so goddamn tired.

So I let him.

He kneels and starts at my ankles, drying me with slow, deliberate strokes. Up my calves. Over my thighs. He doesn’t rush. Doesn’t leer. Just touches me like he has every right to. Like this is penance. Or prayer.

“Why do you care?” I ask suddenly, voice brittle and sharp with accusation. “Why any of this?”

Rule stills, the towel held loosely in his hands, his body tense, every muscle suddenly rigid beneath his tactical gear. “Because we’ve watched you for a very long time, Seanna. Longer than you can imagine.”

I narrow my eyes, feeling a chill climb slowly up my spine. “How long?”

“Long enough,” he murmurs, his voice softer now, almost distant. “Ruin found you first, years before we even met. It’s not my place to tell his story, but he showed you to me. I was fifteen, just a fucked-up kid with too much anger and not enough purpose. And then I saw you through a video feed—footage he’d hacked into—and suddenly, you became all the purpose I needed.”

My pulse quickens, breath catching in my chest. “What the hell does that even mean?”

“It means we’ve watched every part of your life unfold,” he continues. “The way you fight, the way you bleed, the way you hide every vulnerability behind rage and strength. We’ve watched you pace your cabin late at night when sleep wouldn’t come. Seen you train until your knuckles bled because you’d rather hurt than break.”

“I know how long it takes you to lace your boots in the morning when you’re pissed off. I know you leave your cabin exactly two minutes early on Thursdays because you always drop by your sister's cabin to make sure she is safe. I know you grind your teeth if anyone talks over you. You clench your left fist tighter than your right when you lie. And you make grilled cheese when you’re feeling low.”

My throat tightens.

“I know,” he breathes, pressing the towel to my collarbone, “that when you wear your hair in a braid, it’s because you’re trying to look more put together than you feel. I know you buy cherry pastries when you want a treat, and I know you eat the cream cheese out of the center first. I know that the sound of a lighter flick makes you flinch. I know where every scar on your body came from.”

His voice drops even lower.

“And I know you pretend not to want to be owned. But you do. You want someone to see through every shield you wear and still choose you. You want someone to take the control away, just long enough for you to remember how to breathe.”

My heart’s slamming in my chest now.

“I care, we both care,” he murmurs, leaning in slightly, “because we’ve been inside your life longer than you realize. Not just a shadow, not just a name. We were there. Every time you thought you were being watched—you were. Every time you felt like someone had been inside your cabin—someone had. It was us.”

I swallow hard, trying to breathe.

His voice grows quieter, deeper. “And we watched you bury your friend last year—Jessica. The one who went through DEA training with you. Watched you stand by her grave in the rain, fists clenched so tight I thought your bones would break, all because Reyes’ drugs stole her from you.”

Pain lashes through me, sudden and raw, slicing open memories I’ve tried desperately to keep buried. “Stop it.”

“No,” he says firmly, standing to his full hight. “You asked, so now you get the truth. You consumed us, little storm. Ruin first, and then me. You became our obsession, our fixation—something fierce and unstoppable. We’ve watched you burn through life, leaving destruction in your wake, and instead of turning away, we found ourselves wanting to step closer. Wanting to feel the heat firsthand, knowing full well it might destroy us.”

I’m breathing harder now, chest heaving as something dark and tangled coils tightly within me. “Why do you both call me that?” I ask, my voice quieter than I intend but steady.

His head tilts slightly, considering me. The stillness in him is more unnerving than any movement could ever be. "Little storm?" he repeats, as though savoring the words.

I nod, my heart aching beneath the weight of everything he’s revealing. He steps closer. My heart slams violently against my ribs, but I refuse to flinch.

"Because," he murmurs, voice silk and smoke, "you’ve swept through our lives like thunder and lightning. Unpredictable. Fierce. Impossible to control."

He circles me slowly, and I shiver despite myself. I sense him behind me, his presence brushing my skin like an invisible force. The heat radiating from him, the whisper of his mask against my hair, intensifies my awareness of how dangerously close he is.

"But storms are also beautiful," he continues softly. "Terrifyingly so. They are untamed power, captivating chaos."

A shudder rakes through me—not fear, but something else, something darker and deeper. His gloved fingers trace the curve of my shoulder, barely touching, sending electricity jolting through every nerve.

"So we watched you," he says. "We waited. We saw you set your sights on Reyes. Tried to predict your moves. But deep down, we knew storms can’t truly be tamed. They can only be admired—or feared."

I turn my head slightly, desperate to catch a glimpse beyond his mask. “And you?” I ask, voice barely above a whisper. “Do you admire the storm, or fear it?”

He pauses for a moment, his proximity suffocating, his touch tantalizingly withheld. "Both," he admits, the single word wrapping around me like velvet bindings. "And perhaps that’s exactly why you’re irresistible. Taking you was like capturing lightning in a bottle—thrilling, impossible, bound to burn us if we aren’t careful."

My breath hitches as he finally steps back into view. My pulse thundering in my ears.

"Now you know," he says quietly, and for the first time, there is something in his voice that might be vulnerability. "Does the truth change anything?"

I stare at him, anger and longing warring violently inside me. My voice emerges raw, betraying every conflict I feel. "It changes everything—and nothing at all."

I say it without thinking, without even caring that I’m still standing there naked, steam curling from my skin, water clinging to my body like grief I can’t wipe away. I don’t care anymore. There’s nothing left to hide. Nothing Rule hasn’t already seen, nothing he doesn’t already fucking know.

So I ask a question that’s been plaguing me.

"How did you do it?" My voice is quieter now, but laced with a sharp edge. "Cruz. The club. All of them. You took them out by yourself. That wasn’t chaos—it was surgical. They were cartel soldiers. On alert. Guarding one of Reyes’ top men. And you walked in like it was nothing."

He doesn't answer right away. Just stands there, still as shadow, the towel hanging limply in his hand like he’s waiting for something he can’t name.

"It wasn’t nothing," he says eventually. "But it was easy."

My stomach twists. "How? It was broad daylight. Not club hours. There weren’t even patrons there to hide behind. Just Cruz and his men. Locked down. Private. No reason to expect anyone."

His voice is flat. Distant.

"Porque sabían a quién servían."

The words roll off his tongue like smoke.

And I freeze.

Because I know what that means.

Because I speak enough Spanish to recognize the quiet weight behind them.

Because they knew who they served.

My eyes narrow. My heart kicks up. "What did you just say?"

Rule tilts his head slightly, like he hadn’t meant to say it aloud.

"I said I walked in," he replies instead.

"No." I take a step forward. My voice sharpens. My chest heaves with the effort of trying to contain the storm building inside me. "No more cryptic bullshit. How did you just walk in? How did they let you get that close with a weapon? And then not a single one of them raised a fucking gun?"

He looks at me for a long time.

Then he says it.

"Because they would never raise a weapon to Reyes’ son."

The air leaves my lungs like a punch. The room tilts. My knees threaten to buckle.

"What… what did you say?"

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look away.

"My real name is Kingston Reyes."

It hits like a gunshot straight to my spine.

And then I move.

I launch at him, fury snapping through me like a live wire. I swing, and he catches my wrist. I twist, kick, claw, screaming without sound. My whole body fights him like it's the only thing left keeping me from shattering.

"You bastard! You fucking lying, manipulative, stalking piece of shit!"

He grabs both my wrists and shoves me back against the wall, water still dripping from my skin. I don’t care. I bare my teeth like an animal, thrashing.

"You’re just like him," I snarl. "You think the world owes you. You think you can take whatever you want just because your name is Reyes! You think you can watch me, take me, fuck with my life—and what? That makes you better than your father?"

"Don’t," he growls, his voice sharp and guttural. "Don’t you fucking dare compare me to him."

I spit the words like acid. "Why not? You use power and fear. You stalked me, drugged me, kidnapped me. You played God and called it obsession. If that’s not a Reyes move, then what the hell is it?"

"I’m not him!" he snaps, voice like thunder now, echoing off the tiles. "Everything he built, I want to tear apart with my bare fucking hands. Every brick, every drop of blood that funded his empire—I want it gone, burned to ashes. Because of what it cost people like you. Because of what it cost me ."

"Then show me your face," I demand. My voice breaks, my hands trembling even as I try to wrest them from his grip. "If you’re not him, then take off the fucking mask. Look me in the eye. Prove it."

His hold tightens. He doesn’t move.

Silence.

The refusal is louder than a confession.

"You can’t," I whisper, devastated. "Because you’re still hiding. Because you’re still him."

His jaw clenches behind the black tactical mask. "I’m not my father, Seanna. But I’ll never show you my face if the only reason you want to see it is to look for the monster you think I am. You already know the face beneath this mask—but right now, you're not in the right frame of mind to remember that. And the face I wear? It’s not my father's. It’s not carved by power or fear. It's the face of someone who chose to fight against everything he built. Someone who has already bled trying to undo the legacy I was born into. And deep down, you know that. You’ve seen it—you just don’t realize it yet."

My throat thickens with grief, rage, betrayal.

I shove him again. This time with everything I have.

And this time he lets me go.

I don’t say another word.

I just wrap the towel around me, turn my back to him, and walk away.

But my knees are shaking.

And my world is already burning.