Daniel. Anders.
Memory didn't come back in a linear stream; it returned in violent, strobe-light flashes that seared against the back of my eyes.
The cold shock of gel pads slapping against my chest. The panicked shouting. The feeling of being pinned to the concreteby weight that felt impossible to move. The shame, God, the shame, of grinding my hips against a flannel-clad arm, desperate for friction. The command in that bourbon-soaked voice telling me to breathe. The roughness of calloused fingers sliding inside me, not for pleasure, but for survival.
I gasped, the sound wet and loud, tearing through the quiet room like a gunshot.
I sat up, the sudden movement sending a bolt of agony shooting down my spine. I clutched the sheet to my chest, my knuckles turning white, my heart hammering a frantic, hummingbird rhythm against my ribs.
I wasn't alone.
They were here. Inside the sanctuary. Inside the bedroom that even my housekeeper wasn't allowed to enter while I was home. The one room in the world where Tessa Kane was safe from prying eyes.
To my left, slumped in my reading chair like a deposed king who had lost his crown in the night, was the man in the charcoal suit. His jacket was gone, draped somewhere in the chaos. His pristine white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, the tie missing, the sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms that looked rigid and corded with tension even in sleep. His golden hair was a mess, tousled and spiked, destroying the perfect, gelled coif I had seen in his press photos for years.
Anders Svinton. The voice in the emails. The barrier between me and the world.
My gaze snapped to the foot of the bed.
A massive figure was sitting on the floor, his back resting against the bed frame, his long legs sprawled out into the room. His head was tipped back, his mouth slightly open, snoring softly in a rhythm that vibrated the floorboards. He looked like a slumbering bear, smelling of safety and sleep.
Daniel Matherson. The Voice. The narrator who made millions of Omegas feel safe in the dark, whose baritone hum I had listened to while editing my own manuscripts.
And near the window, curled up on the rug with his knees pulled tight to his chest, clutching a leather messenger bag like a lifeline, was the third one. Dark hair falling into his eyes, five-o'clock shadow looking like charcoal smudges on his jawline. He looked exhausted, twitching slightly in his sleep.
Simon Bradlee. The Artist. The man who drew my fantasies.
The air left my lungs in a silent, suffocating whoosh, leaving me lightheaded.
I knew them.
I didn't just know them as the professional team Anders had forced upon me for this multimedia project. I didn't just know them as the men who had broken into my house and… touched me.
I knewthem.
The timeline superimposed itself over the bedroom, dissolving the grey morning walls and replacing them with the brightly lit, suffocating expanse of a high school gymnasium. The sound of rain was replaced by the low hum of feedback from a microphone and the rustle of a thousand restless bodies.
Anders.The Class President. The Salutatorian who sat directly behind me on the stage, stiff as a board in his cheap rental suit, breathing down my neck while I fell apart. The boy who followed the rules so hard, who adhered to protocol so strictly, that he let me drown in my own fluids rather than break ranks to help me.
Daniel.The giant in the choir row. The shy one who always looked at the floor, terrified of his own shadow. The one who had a microphone stand right next to him and stayed silent, letting the dead air amplify my humiliation while the entire auditorium laughed.
Simon.The weird art kid in the back of the bleachers. The one who stared. The one who watched everything with those dark, unsettling eyes, sketching the tragedy as it unfolded, consuming my pain as content and never doing a damn thing to help.
The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow, nausea rolling in my gut, hot and acidic.
It was them. It was always them.
The universe wasn't just cruel; it was a hack writer. It was a sadistic storyteller that had brought the exact three men who had witnessed the destruction of Tessa Kane to witness the destruction of T.L. Rose.
And last night…
My hand flew to my mouth, stifling a scream that threatened to shatter my teeth.
Last night, I begged them. I had writhed on the floor, naked and delusional, stripping away every layer of dignity I had rebuilt over the last decade, and I had asked them to touch me.
And they had.
I looked at Simon’s hand, resting limp on the rug. The long fingers. The permanent ink stains. I remembered the feel of those fingers inside me, the clinical, desperate rhythm, the way he had watched my face, terrified and fascinated, while he brought me to the most shameful climax of my life.
