“One more thing.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small black phone. “This is yours now. My number is the only one programmed in it. If you need anything—anything at all—you call me. Not your father, not his men. Me.”
She took it hesitantly, her fingers brushing against mine in the exchange. “He’ll find it.”
“Let him. You don’t need to hide it. From this moment on, you don’t answer to him.”
I stepped back, giving her space. “I’ll see you soon.”
She nodded, eyes fixed on the device in her palm as I turned to leave. Every step away from her felt like resistance against gravity—my instinct was to take her from this place immediately. But the Dominion had rules, and for now, I would follow them as expected of me.
By the time I reached the front foyer to leave, not bothering seeking out Darius again, I could feel eyes on me. I paused outside the door and glanced up, finding them easily—an older man in the east wing window, heavyset, dark-eyed, trying too hard not to look caught— Pedro Sánchez.
The name came back fast; I’d seen it in the Darzi personnel list before I ever agreed to dinner. Long-time servant. His concern wasn’t for Darius. It was for her.
He didn’t hide it well.
I made a note of that as I crossed the drive and climbed into my car, the engine’s purr breaking the quiet. I wasn’t worried. Men like Pedro were a different kind of useful. Every man who built their fortress the way Darzi did, had someone inside who wanted to see the gates fall.
The headlights swept across the avenue of trees as I drove away, casting long shadows that reached like fingers across the pavement. Her image lingered in my mind. The straight spine, the measured breathing, the slight tension in her jaw that betrayed something beneath her composure. I’d seen enough empires fall to know the danger in underestimating what you wanted most, but I’d also never once let something I wanted slip through my hands.
Her father keeping her cut off from all other parties now worked in my favor. She didn’t have any nefarious connections or people to rely on. Selene’s position—isolated, vulnerable, with no one but me to turn to, was perfect for what I had planned. The less support she had, the more dependent she’d become. It wasn’t cruelty; it was necessity. What I needed from her required complete loyalty, and loyalty born of desperation was the most reliable kind.
I wanted that.
There was something intoxicating about knowing I would be the one to straighten her out, to show her what it meant to belong to someone who actually saw her. Darius treated her like property—something to be bartered and displayed. I wanted more than that. I wanted her loyalty, her fire, her surrender. Not beaten out of her but given willingly.
I wanted to be the only one she turned to. The only one she trusted and the only one she feared. The contradiction didn’t escape me. I’d spent years keeping everyone but a small select few at a distance. Yet here I was, already obsessing overa woman I barely knew. Planning how I would dismantle her defenses while simultaneously drawing her closer.
The car hugged a sharp curve as my thoughts shifted to the immediate tasks ahead. My phone would be ringing non-stop within the hour.
Cassian needed briefing first—then my parents. Derrick would be next, and then the board before the Dominion’s gossip mill churned into motion. Beyond that lay the vast machinery of my real influence.
The Kostas branch didn’t appear on any official ledger, yet it controlled the flow of trade, security, and the shadowy veins of the Dominion’s black market routes. Every smuggler, captain, and enforcer breathed at my discretion, and they’d all understand that I had claimed a queen.
Selene represented far more than a marriage certificate.
She would become the foundation stone in my expanding empire, the first strategic placement in a game I’d been orchestrating for years. The chains her father had wrapped around her had shattered the moment I decided to give her my name. By dawn, every power player in our world would understand what that meant.
CHAPTER EIGHT
There was nothing quite like being forced to endure the company of the only friend you ever had while knowing your father's cock had been jammed down her throat hours ago. I never knew when she was in the house until they carried on loud enough everyone heard.
Coraline was exactly what he devoured. She was decorative and breakable, with just enough fight left in her to make the conquest worth his time despite how often he’d conquered it.
Summer still blazed in her skin's golden undertone, though winter lived in her eyes now. Her hair fell in purposeful disarray around her face, and her green-gold eyes caught the light like pawned jewelry.
I'd grown up watching her beauty transform from girlish to devastating to haunted. Now, beneath the careful makeup, a violent purple-black mark beneath her jaw betrayed what she'd become – prey wearing the collar of my father's ownership.
"Sel, you look good" she said, smiling.
I arranged my napkin across my lap without acknowledging her.
"We haven't really gotten to talk much,” she continued. "I've missed you. This distance between us, it wasn't what I wanted."
"Half a year."
"What?" Her brow furrowed, a practiced confusion.
I met her eyes, unflinching. "The affair with my father. One hundred and eighty-two nights of spreading your legs for him while I slept down the hall."
