Page 40 of Sunrise (Monarch Club #3)

Vault

Sophie refuses to leave the club tonight, and I understand why. The Monarch truly is Sophie’s safe space. And with Ryker, Dmitri, and I constantly vigilant, it’s the only place she can relax and enjoy the lifestyle she loves.

Knox has left to get to his restaurant for the night, which is probably a good thing. We need a breather. So much has happened so fast that I haven’t had a chance to process most of it. Maybe it’s better that way. For now, at least.

While Soph gets dressed for a night of prowling the halls, open-door sessions, and general performances and meet-and-greets, I’m in my office digging deeper into this Christopher Rivetti motherfucker.

My cell dings and I know who it is before I even look.

Knox : Find anything yet?

Vault : No.

Sophie was right, this man seems to have vanished into thin air.

I can find plenty about him before his court case, and very little after it.

He’s got a degree in biochemistry, worked for a pharmaceutical company until he was arrested and went to jail for what he did to Sophie, and there’s no record of him being married, or owning property.

It’s all very basic shit. The only photos I can find of him are headshots from his former employment, and his mugshots.

One thing I can say is, this man was big and the guy who freaked Sophie out the other night at the club was smaller.

He could have hit the gym. Dieted.

Or they could be two completely different people.

I can’t run a facial recognition program to compare because he’s in a mask at the club, or his head is down.

“Ready?” Sophie asks from my doorway.

I minimize the search window so she can’t see what I’m up to.

“Yeah.” Pushing back in my chair, I drain the last half of my energy drink and toss it in the trash. “Let me grab my suit jacket.”

“Actually…” She fidgets with her fingers. “Do you mind doing me a big favor?”

“Absolutely.” I’d do anything for her, she knows that.

“Can you strip out of your shirt and wear a collar and leash?”

The favor isn’t big. “No problem.”

I decode her request as a need to keep me close and have control tonight because she’s feeling fragile and vulnerable. Fine by me. “Do you want to pick it out or should I?”

“Me.”

I smile. “Okay, baby.”

Unbuttoning my shirt, a calmness settles in my bones. My brain has been frazzled for days, weeks even, and for some ungodly reason, this is the moment my fight or flight has decided to float.

The Monarch Club is very much my safe space, too.

Knowing the root of Sophie’s fear gives me confidence that I can take care of her moving forward. Between Knox and I, she’ll never been tormented again.

Peeling my shirt off, I hang it across the back of my chair and walk around my desk to meet her at the door. “After you, Mistress.”

She grabs my hand and leads the way. Dressed in a full latex body suit and heels, her hair is pulled back into another tight ponytail, and a fresh coat of blood red lipstick colors her mouth.

It makes me think back to when she first started as a Domme at the club.

Ryker gave her a chance because she was so quick to learn about kinks and aftercare—which we now understand was because she was already deep into the lifestyle—but I wasn’t enthralled by her like most members were back then.

She was too fake. First the wig, then the hair dye, and those colored contacts always threw me off.

Guilt niggles my gut because I’d assumed she was a try hard back then, and now I’ve learned it was a disguise to keep the bad guy from finding her.

Over the years, she’s grown out of her disguise and back into the woman she was before.

Unknowingly, we got to see her heal. And in those subtle shifts of her short hair growing out, the wigs being tossed in the trash, her contacts disappearing, and her laughter growing louder and more frequent, I fell in love with her a million times.

We’ve all provided Sophie a place for her return to herself. There isn’t a greater honor than that.

“Those gears are grinding, Vault,” she teases, squeezing my hand. Her fingers are ice cold. “What are you thinking about?”

“How much you’ve changed since you started at the Monarch Club.”

We enter room twelve.

“Change is good, right?” She plucks a studded collar from the wall, along with a short, metal leash.

“Change is incredible.” I stay still so she can buckle the collar around my neck. “You’ve returned to yourself here.”

Sophie stills for a moment. “Yes…I suppose I did.”

“I’m very proud of you.” I lean forward to kiss her forehead.

Her cheeks turn pink. “Thank you.”

This woman is so strong and brave. “I love you more knowing you this way.”

Her mouth parts a little while she stares at me. “What if…” She bristles and blows out a sigh, then attaches my leash. “What if you’re not in love with me, though?”

What the fuck?

She reads the look on my face and before I can utter a word she says, “I mean, what if this is all just a big chemical dump? Euphoria and flogging go hand-in-hand. It’s like love and eating copious amounts of chocolate.”

“I would die for you.”

She steps back. “Vault.”

“It’s true.” I erase the distance she’s put between us. “I would die for you, without hesitation. That’s not a chemical dump, Sophie. That’s love. ”

“That’s dramatic.” She tries to brush my confession off like I couldn’t possibly mean it. “Knox is rubbing off on you.”

“He’d kill for you,” I say, knowing it’s true. She’s about to dismiss that too, but I hold her face and lock eyes with her. “There is nothing we will not do for you, Sunrise. Nothing . I just wish we’d known you sooner so we could have saved you.”

She pulls my hands off her face. “I saved myself.”

“Yeah, you did. And I’m so fucking proud of you for that.” Does she not understand how incredible that is?

“It doesn’t feel like I saved myself at all, though. I just… prolonged the inevitable.”

Her words land hard on my chest, making it hard to breathe. “He’s not going to hurt you again. He’s not coming back for you.”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“That’s why I’ve already ordered new cameras I’ll be installing at your house, with a feed directly to me. And I’m putting more up at Knox’s and his club and restaurant. If anyone so much as sneezes in a way I don’t like, I’ll be able to catch and deal with them accordingly.”

Sophie’s smile is sad. “You can’t be everywhere, all the time, Vault.”

She’s right. But I’m not about to let her live in fear and always looking over her shoulder. At least Knox took care of that for me back in the day. This is the best I can do for Sophie until we find this fucker and end him for good.

“Besides…” she says. “You’re already working yourself to the ground at the club. There are only so ma ny hours in the day.”

“And every hour, every minute, every second is yours.” Gliding my hand down the leash, I place the end of it in Sophie’s hand. “I’m all yours.”

We table the discussion for now and head out of the room, ready to spend the evening as the hottest dominating couple on the planet.

At least that’s how Sophie makes me feel.

The instant we step out of room twelve, her personality hardens.

Confidence radiates off her and covers me.

I don’t show off my body like this often. When I do, it’s for a good reason.

Sophie is one hell of a good reason.

Within an hour, she’s relaxed and laughing at the bar. The woman never lets go of my leash. I’m basically arm candy for her, which is easy for me. No talking. No flirting. No performing. I’m her guard dog, which is exactly how I fucking like it.

Tuning out the music, conversation, and white noise, I focus solely on Sophie.

Her voice, her body language, the level of liquid in her glass, the coverage of her lipstick, the absence of anxiousness in her laugh, the stray hairs that fall out of her tight ponytail and curl over her right ear.

The fact that her painted nails are perfect, except for one slight chip on the corner of her left pointer finger.

The way the corners of her eyes crease when she smiles at another woman.

Her dainty wrists that can crack a whip with expert precision.

A sheen of sweat builds across her upper lip once the club becomes packed with writhing, hot, sexed up bodies.

I keep her hydrated and calm. Steady on her feet.

Free to move as she wishes, while staying close to me for comfort.

The slowness of it is hypnotic for me. I do nothing but focus on my woman.

It’s exponentially better than watching over her from a camera feed.

She’ll occasionally glance over and tug her earlobe. I love that she uses that secret way to communicate with me.

The night passes by, uneventful, and once the members have left for the night, we walk back to her dressing room together.

“I’m dying in this thing,” she fusses. “My feet are killing me.”

I scoop her up and carry her the rest of the way.

I’m mentally and physically exhausted. I know she is, too. “Do you still want to go to Knox’s tonight?”

She takes too long to answer.

“We don’t have to go. Don’t feel pressured. I’m sure he’s just as tired as we are and will understand if you’d rather…” Looking down, my heart nearly explodes when I see her curled against me, her mouth slightly open while she’s passed the fuck out.

My poor girl has truly run herself into the ground.

And the instant she was in my arms, her body’s response was to let go and sleep.

I’ve never felt so powerful and protective in my fucking life.

“I’ve got you, baby.” My whispered words are drowned out by her snoring, and I think I’ve just fallen deeper in love with her.

Busting a U-turn, I head towards the basement where Dmitri’s cot is still set up.

The less sunlight Sophie has, the longer she’ll sleep, which is good.

I’ve been crashing there more often since he moved out with Daelyn because I hate my house.

Setting her on the cot, I manage to wiggle her feet out of her shoes, but don’t want to risk waking her, so the latex outfit stays on.

“I’ve got you,” I whisper again, then I sleep on the floor, like the good guard dog I am.