Page 45 of The Cruel Heir

His eyes didn’t soften. They sharpened.

“You shouldn’t have let him near you,” he said, voice level, biting. “Not then. Not now.”

The words bruised, as if I’d invited the belt myself. Yet what cut deeper was the change behind Sterling’s eyes: anger collapsing into arithmetic. His pulse slowed, shoulders settling,predator calm. A single breath, then he slipped his phone from his pocket and tapped once. No glare, no promise, just logistics. Frankie would be coming. Chadwick’s clock had started. I tasted iron on my tongue, and understood: Sterling had moved from jealousy to judgment day, and nothing, not love, not my shame, would slow the math now.

My stomach dropped. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Don’t I?”

I looked away. “It wasn’t-” My voice cracked. “Chadwick wasn’t always like that.”

Sterling took a slow step closer.

“You’re still defending him?” His voice dropped, dangerous again, but this wasn’t about Chadwick anymore. This was about me.

I shook my head, too fast, too frantic. “No, I’m not-”

But I was. At least, that’s what it looked like. And maybe a part of me was still doing what I’d always done, pretending the past was cleaner than it was. Easier to carry.

“I’m trying to tell you-”

“Then say it.” His words were low, almost a dare. “Say what he did. Say why I found you frozen like a cornered animal, the second he looked at you.”

I opened my mouth.

Closed it.

The words stuck in my throat like glass. Not here. Not in this hallway. Not with everything shaking loose inside me.

Sterling saw it. All of it.

And what he saw must’ve twisted something in him, because his voice turned even colder.

“You think I’ll let him near you again?” he said, quiet enough to drown me. “You think I’ll watch him touch you like you stillbelongto him?”

“I don’t-” I tried, but it was too late.

“You belong to me now, little Hummingbird,” he said, stepping close enough for his breath to brush my skin. “And I don't share.”

My heart punched against my ribs. My voice had vanished. The space between us shrank, until it was thick with everything I hadn’t said, and everything he refused to ignore.

“Clear View. His eighteenth-birthday lounge,” I rasped. “He made me crawl.”

Sterling didn’t blink, and the hallway seemed to shrink.

“He took his belt off, called me a pig, shoved me on my knees…” the words tore free, copper-sharp, “and when my tooth caught his cock, he hit me, and forced himself inside me anyway.”

Silence detonated.

“I never told anyone, becausemy fatherneeded the deal, and no one saves the scholarship girl.”

Sterling’s pupils pinned me, lethal and glassy. The air between us tasted like gunmetal.

“Now you know,” I whispered, shaking. “So do whatever kings do to traitors.”

He said nothing more, but I could see the fury in his eyes. He was shaking with it, and I couldn’t tell him more. I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to live that again.

So, I went to class, and ignored the bomb waiting to go off inside of Sterling.