Page 38 of Sunrise (Monarch Club #3)

Sophie

I’m sitting at my vanity with a tube of lip gloss in my hand and tears streaming down my face when Dmitri nearly rips the door off its hinges.

“God damnit,” he mumbles, yanking my chair out so he can scoop me into his arms.

I feel so dumb. I don’t even know why I lost it just now.

“I’m so sorry,” I sob into his black cotton t-shirt.

“You don’t ever say sorry to me, honey.” He rocks me back and forth on the floor like he’s done a dozen times before. Only those times always happen when I knock on his door in the basement of the club and secretly fall apart with him.

Not even Dmitri knows my secrets, but it’s never stopped him from sitting with me through my suffering. The guilt of all my lies and trickery is eating me alive. “I’m an emotional mess lately,” I say, hiccupping into his shirt.

My door swings open again and Vault slips in. “I got her.”

“No, I want Dmitri.”

The pain my words must cause Vault puts a chill between us. But I can’t let him be the one to hold me together. I’m supposed to be the strong one in our dynamic who has her shit together. If he sees me unraveling, he’ll look at me differently.

That rocket ship has already blasted off, dumbass.

Vault has seen me drunk, scared, and now… this.

I’d be a hypocrite to hide my trauma when I’ve spent the better part of two years dragging him through all of his in an effort to help him heal. The difference is his secrets only kept his dignity intact—his words, not mine—while my secrets keep me alive.

“I’m okay, guys.” Sucking in a deep breath, I wipe the tears off my cheeks and climb out of D’s lap. “I’m so sorry. I’m just all over the place lately and I haven’t gotten much sleep, and I just want…” To be held. To run. To forget my past and work towards a future . “Nachos and a cold beer.”

“Sophie!” Knox yells from outside. “Where the fuck are you?”

Vault pushes the door open but keeps his agonized gaze on me.

“I’m sorry,” I say to him again, just as Knox barrels into my tiny dressing room.

“God damnit, there are too many rooms in this fucking place.” He pushes past Vault and ignores Dmitri. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

“How did you even know I…” Oh . Lifting my eyes to the camera in my room, annoyance hits me as I salute Ryker, who is undoubtedly watching from his office.

Being safely monitored is more like getting spied on lately.

Not that I’d change the way they operate around here. It’s nice to have them all running to my aid .

No one else ever has.

Tears fill my eyes again and I so badly want to tell them what’s really wrong.

Vault’s mouth is set in a tight line. He drops his gaze to the floor and backs up towards the door.

He’s going to leave because I chose D over him for comfort.

And with Knox here too, he probably thinks they have me covered.

He’s never been good at aftercare when he’s with a Butterfly.

He goes through the movements, but his heart isn’t in it.

I think it’s different with me and I’ve just crushed him.

“Stay,” I say quickly. “Please, stay, Alex.”

He lets go of the doorknob. “You sure? D and Knox…”

“I want you.” Then I look up at Knox. “I need you both.”

Dmitri moves in complete silence, letting me go and unfolding off the floor. With one last, long glance, he kisses my forehead and leaves.

“Turn the camera off,” I demand loudly. “Now.”

Instead of looking at the mount in the corner of my room, I read Vault’s expression. He’s staring at the camera, his chest rising and falling with his deep breaths. One curt nod from him and I know Ryker’s turned the surveillance in my room off.

“I… I…” There are a million confessions on the tip of my tongue, and none of them taste good. If I don’t say something now, it’ll just make things worse. “I love you.”

That’s not what I meant to say, but here I am. A fool. This news is not worthy of having a meltdown over or the camera turned off for .

And we all fucking know it.

Knox’s brow furrows. “We love you too, Soph.”

“No. I mean I’m in love with you both.” I toss my hands up. “I’m crazy in love with both of you. I know that wasn’t part of the deal when we started. Getting this emotionally attached is a huge infraction, but I did, and I can’t just turn it off.”

Vault’s gaze softens. “We know.”

“I’m feeling pretty lost about it because I…” Hang on. What did he just say? “Wait. What you do you mean, you know?”

“We heard you loud and clear this morning when you yelled it at Dmitri in the hallway.”

“With every fiber of your being,” Knox adds.

God. Damnit. Now what? Do I tell them the real problem or just continue to be fake? Am I even fake anymore or is this the real me? I’m so confused I want to throttle myself.

Looking up at the camera again, I can’t tell if it’s on or off. I have to trust Ryker did what I asked. I have to trust …

“You don’t know me.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Soph?” Knox huffs like what I said is crazy. “Of course, we know you.”

“No. You don’t.” My gaze shifts from Knox to Vault. I can’t keep lying to them. It’s not fair to keep them in the dark. I can’t expect them to love me back without knowing exactly who I am.

I thought I hit rock bottom before, but now I see how wrong I was.

This is rock bottom.

After Knox left with Ryker earlier, and I’d rushed to my dressing room to get ready for the night when my brain exploded.

I was thrown back into the past. I’d triggered myself by running half-dressed down the hall of my home—which is exactly what the Monarch is to me—and I downward spiraled back into the worst moment of my life.

“You guys used to go on midnight runs together,” I say, carefully building up the courage to out myself.

“All the time. Still do. Why?” Knox acts like he’s not sure what to do with his arms, so he ends up crossing them over his chest.

“I hold the record for the fastest mile at my high school.”

Knox’s eyebrows shoot up like he’s impressed.

“Four minutes and twenty-three seconds.” I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. “My speed won me the state championship twice, and it saved my life once.”

Vault’s hands fall to his side.

Bile rises in my throat. If this goes south, I’ll have to leave and never come back.

Maybe that’s why I’m doing this. Since my job is already a pile of ashes, this part of my life can catch fire next, and I’ll have no choice but to leave. Start fresh somewhere new. Again.

“My name isn’t Sophie Ross.” Staring at the floor, tears drip off my nose. “I’ve been lying to everyone since the moment I joined the Monarch Club.” The ache in my chest intensifies with every passing, electrically charged second. “I’ve actually been lying for a lot longer than that.”

Numbness creeps up my ankles, knees, and thighs. It slithers up my spine and down my arms, wrapping itself around my neck and across my face .

“My real name is Katrina Mayfire.” Before my legs give out on me, I sink into the chair at my vanity and continue staring at the floor.

I wish it would open up and swallow me whole.

“I was a Domme in college. It paid for my tuition.” The instant I start talking, my confessions flow like a dam inside me has finally burst. “I had a sub who became… very close to me. We’d started by meeting in motels, but after a few months of steady, weekly sessions, he would come to my apartment.

I’d degrade him. Treat him like a pet.” My throat’s too tight.

It hurts to swallow. “He would be anything from a footstool to a maid for me. I even had a dog cage for him to sleep in.”

My gaze slowly crawls to Knox.

“We never had sex.” It seems like a million years ago.

“But I was fascinated with him. The way his mind worked, the things he liked me to do to him, the absolute rapture on his face when I’d…

” There’s no need to go into details. I’m just digging myself into a deeper hole.

“He paid so much money that I never turned him down.” Dropping my gaze to my bare feet again, a heavy sigh leaves me.

“But he became obsessed. He’d overwhelm me with mass texts and voicemails and emails, and he started showing up unannounced at my job or apartment.

The final straw was when I came home one night and found him in position on my living room floor.

That violation of trust, his breaking and entering…

” Shaking my head, I get angry about it all over again.

“I ended up getting a restraining order against him.”

The silence is deafening.

“Once I filed the restraining order, he disappeared. I started to feel safe again. About a year later, I went out for a run. It was just after I finished my master’s degree, and I was mentally working through my next steps for what I wanted in my future.”

These are the nightmares I still have. The ones I can’t escape.

“I always took the same trail. It was a ten-mile stretch through a park, into town, and would loop back around to my apartment complex. It was a popular circuit for most runners in the area because it’s well lit.” Blood swishes in my ears. “That night, he grabbed me and dragged me into the woods.”

A strangled noise comes out of Vault.

“He wore his sub mask that had a zipper over his face, but I knew it was him. The name Samantha was tattooed on his forearm before we were ever a thing, and I saw it on the man who attacked me that night.” I don’t even know why I’m sharing this much detail.

“He hauled me into the woods, ripped at my clothes, hit me and covered my mouth with his filthy hand…”

A shiver runs down my body remembering the terror I felt.

Another noise comes out, this time from Knox, but I still can’t look up at either of them.

“I managed to grab a rock and hit him in the head with it. It was enough to stun him, which gave me time to get away. I took off as fast as I could.” My hands shake in my lap. “I got to my apartment but had lost my cell somewhere during the attack, along with one of my shoes.”