Page 5 of The Tower (Billionaire Brothers Grimm #1)

My hand hovers over my palette, but the colors seem wrong tonight, flat and lifeless. The painting won’t save me. Not today.

I turn instead to my computer, powering it up with a sense of desperate need.

This tricked-out machine is the one concession my father grants me without question.

Perhaps because technology serves as another barrier between me and the real world.

Or maybe he understands I need some form of escape, even if it isn’t real.

As soon as I’ve typed in the complex series of passwords, Elysium materializes on my screen—not a game but a world.

My world. With verdant landscapes and clear blue skies.

The one place where I make the rules, where gravity is optional, and doors can open anywhere I imagine.

A place where I can touch and be touched.

Where I’m not locked away like some virginal princess awaiting sacrifice.

I’ve been building Elysium since I was fifteen, teaching myself coding through online courses and programming books Ruby smuggles past my father’s watchful eyes.

What began as a tiny virtual garden has evolved into an intricate realm of impossible architecture and breathtaking landscapes, all stored on off-site servers and protected by a series of passcodes that I’m sure my father can’t hack.

I forgot to charge the headset and bodysuit that lets me fully experience Elysium, so tonight I’ll be in my virtual home only on the flat screen.

That, however, is better than not visiting at all, and I eagerly navigate to the central castle—a structure nothing like Reed Tower.

Inside, I’ve built rooms that couldn’t exist in the real world—spaces that defy physics, chambers that expand beyond their apparent dimensions, and staircases that twist into impossible geometries.

In Elysium, I’m free and unafraid.

I send my avatar to the castle’s highest tower, where Lydia tends a garden of digital stars.

I’ve given her my mother’s name and features, or at least what I’ve seen in photos: laughing blue eyes and a dimple on her left cheek.

Sometimes, I pretend it’s really her, watching over me in this world I’ve created.

“Hello, Vale darling,” digital-Lydia says, calling me by my avatar’s name. “What shall we build today?”

In answer, I start creating a dark tower with pale blue windows. A man stands to one side, his face shrouded in shadows. But I know him. A dark prince who has visited my realm for over a year. A passionate lover who has yet to reveal himself fully to me.

For months, he only watched me. Then he came closer, and closer still, until finally, we began to walk the paths of my realm together.

He refused to tell me his name, saying only that he was a prince in a far-off kingdom.

He told me that it was my privilege to name him, and I did—Prince Killiam the Noble.

He’d smiled at that, his shadowed mouth curving just slightly.

I’d tried to see beyond the shadows—hell, I’d tried to alter the code—but I’d utterly failed to learn more about this prince I crave.

I only know that the AI that I wove into this world built him for me, this prince who has become my forbidden lover.

A passionate man who fulfills all my fantasies in this illicit affair.

A romance that will prove deadly if we are discovered.

The king won’t allow his princess to be touched by a rogue prince, after all.

My fingers dance on the keys, and I—Vale—hurry closer, bounding across the open field, taking care to ensure that my father, the king, isn’t watching.

I crave him, this prince who calls to Vale. To me. We know that he’s forbidden, and yet we’re powerless to resist his touch. His kisses.

My heart pounds, my breasts ache, and a delicious warmth teases between my legs.

I slide my hand down, my breath coming ragged, but this isn’t me—it’s Vale, and I ease my avatar closer, drawn by the intensity of this man who never wavers.

This prince who has claimed me so deliciously, so thoroughly.

Closer, then closer still.

A screech rents the sky, and I look up to see my pet dragons circling above, ready to incinerate anything that might threaten me. I lift a hand to wave them off. My prince would never harm me.

But the dragons remain, their enormous wings sending shock waves through the air as I move close enough to finally, truly glimpse my prince.

Except he’s gone—a solid man one moment, then a column of mist the next.

My fingers freeze on the keys, my heart pounding with frustration and foiled desire.

Dammit .

I was so close. So close to learning what I crave. What I want.

I don’t trust my dreams in the real world—they’re too tinged with my father’s orders and demands. But in Elysium … that’s where I see the real me reflected back.

I need that.

I need to see who really hides behind the shadows.

Because in the real world, it’s Liam Grimm who has slipped into my fantasies, and that can’t be right. Because other than my father, he is the man I hate most of all.

“Dammit!” I cry again as I slam the top down on my computer. What the hell is wrong with me?

The answer comes in my father’s voice: You’re a beautiful, broken, sick little girl who men will try to take advantage of.

Who needs her father to watch over her. Who needs a strong, guiding hand.

Trust your daddy, Princess. I’ll take care of you.

I’ll keep you safe from the dark things in the world.

Except he won’t. My father is the dark thing, and I’m trapped here with him, where no one can hear me scream.