Page 225 of Their Arrangement

Turned.

Walked straight to Barron’s office. Didn’t knock. He wasn’t in yet. Of course he wasn’t. I crossed the room. Tapped the panel behind the bookshelf.

The safe was already open.

Empty.

Completely.

My vision blurred for a second. Not from anger. Not from grief. From clarity. From the kind of betrayal that explains everything. I stood in front of the safe like I might find something else inside if I looked harder.

But it was empty.

So quiet, it felt like a laugh.

Like the room itself was mocking me.

I touched the inside. There was still a faint line where the book had rested. Like a shadow that wouldn’t wash away. Like it wanted me to know it hadn’t been stolen. It had been taken. By someone I let that close. I should’ve changed the code. I should’ve never let her see me open it. But I had. Andsomewhere along the way, she stopped being a girl I wanted to keep safe?—

And started being a risk I was too far in to walk away from. I stood in front of the empty safe for a long time. Then closed it. Reset the lock. Straightened my jacket. And walked out like I hadn’t just realized the one person I would’ve burned the world for?—

Was already holding the match.

For one second, I felt it.

The same silence Barron stood in when Selene fucked another man and walked out with half his heart and none of his name. He never said a word about it. Not to me. Not to anyone.

But I’d seen it.

In the way he stopped trusting softness. In the way he let power become punishment. In the way he looked at me when I started touching her like she was mine.

Back then, I thought he was weak.

Now?

Now I fucking understood it.

This wasn’t heartbreak. This was a slow bleed under the skin. The kind of betrayal that turns to bone. The kind you build a kingdom out of—just to bury someone in it.

Want more? Wolfe never said it. But she did. Read the thank you that changed everything.

She breathes like she still remembers the leash.

Moves like she knows I’m already watching.

But she doesn’t run.

Not anymore.

She kneels—bare feet, bloodied floor, collar tight—and hums like that sound belongs to her.

It doesn’t.

It belongs to me.

Always did.

They starved her.