His master bedroom is a monument to male arrogance. Black marble, dark wood, and mirrors that reflect my wedding gown from every angle. I stand frozen in the center, while my hands won't stop shaking.
I'm in his bedroom. His territory. His world. And I have no idea who the man I married actually is.
The door opens without warning and Cassian enters still wearing his wedding tuxedo.
He's already loosening his tie with those same fingers that once wiped my tears in the pool house. That held me while I broke apart. He doesn't speak. Doesn't acknowledge me standing there like a statue.
Just moves to the bar with liquid grace and pours bourbon like this is any other night.
The silence stretches until I can't breathe through it anymore, until my lungs feel like they're collapsing. "Are you going to say anything?"
He takes a slow sip, his back still to me, shoulders relaxed. "What would you like me to say, princess? Welcome home? Make yourself comfortable? The bathroom's through there if you need to vomit?"
The casual cruelty steals my breath. "How about starting with why you lied to me?"
He turns then, and even knowing what he is—killer, monster, the thing nightmares are made of—my traitorous body responds to his beauty like a betrayal of everything I should feel.
Those striking blue eyes study me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. Makes me feel dissected, catalogued, owned.
"I never lied." His voice is calm, reasonable, which somehow makes it worse. "You never asked what I did for a living. You made assumptions, and I simply... didn't correct them."
"Semantics." My voice cracks with fury I can barely contain. "You knew exactly what you were doing. You manipulated me!"
"I comforted you." He sets down the glass with deliberate care. "I held you while you cried. I made you feel seen. If that's manipulation, princess, then I'm guilty."
He approaches slowly, each step measured and predatory. When he stops in front of me and I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.
His thumb traces my jaw with a gentleness that feels like mockery.
"You're trying to reconcile the man in the pool house with the monster they told you about." His voice drops, intimate and dangerous. "Don't. They're the same person. I'm both. I'm neither. I'm whatever I need to be, princess."
Before I can respond, his hands move to my back, finding the hidden zipper of my dress. "Let's start being honest with each other, shall we?"
"What are you—" I try to step back but he holds me in place.
"Relax." The zipper slides down with agonizing slowness.
Cool air hits my spine as the dress loosens. I grab at the bodice, trying to hold it up. "Stop it!"
"Why? We're married." But his hands fall away, letting me clutch the dress to my chest. "Though if you'd prefer to struggle out of it yourself, be my guest. Those corset laces look complicated."
I shove him then. It's pathetic, really—my hands against his solid chest accomplish nothing except making him smile that crooked smile that used to charm me.
"Careful, princess." But he doesn't move, doesn't stop me when I shove again, harder.
"You bastard! You sent my sister a wedding gift that killed her baby!" The words tear from me, raw and horrified. "Murdered an innocent child!"
"So you figured it out." He sounds almost proud. "I wondered if you would."
"How can you just—" I'm choking on rage and horror. "That was a human life. And you—"
Cassian catches my wrists when I try to hit him again, his grip firm enough to still me but not bruise. His thumbs stroke the inside of my wrists, feeling my pulse hammer against his touch.
"She took what was yours. She destroyed your happiness, stole your future, broke your kind heart. Actions have consequences. She learned hers."
"That's not protection. That's murder." My voice cracks. "That's—"
"Justice." His hand tightens on my wrists, possessive and unyielding. "That's what happens to people who hurt what belongs to me."
"I don't belong to you!"
"Don't you?" In one smooth motion, he releases my wrists and the dress falls, pooling at my feet in a cascade.
I'm left standing in nothing but the delicate lingerie Patricia insisted I wear—white lace and innocence, purchased for a wedding night I never wanted.
I cross my arms over my chest, fury and humiliation burning through me. "You have no right—"
"I have every right." He circles me slowly, assessing. "You're my wife. This is my bedroom. Those are the facts you need to accept."
"I'll never accept this!" I lunge at him, all coherent thoughts gone, just pure rage.
We collide, and suddenly I'm falling backward, the world tilting as he uses my momentum against me. My back hits the mattress hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.
He follows me down, his body caging mine, hands pinning my wrists above my head. His weight presses me into expensive sheets that smell like him—bourbon and bergamot.
"Easy there," he murmurs against my ear. "You keep attacking me like this, I might think you want me to fight back."
"I hate you." But my voice comes out breathless, and I hate myself for the way my body responds to his proximity.
"You don't know me well enough to hate me yet." His lips brush my throat, and I feel him smile against my skin when I shudder. "But you will. I promise you that."
"Get off me!"
"Say please."
"Go to hell!" He laughs, dark and amused, his breath warm against my neck.
"Been there. Bought property." His hand slides down my arm, his touch deliberately gentle in contrast to his words. "But since you asked so nicely..."
He releases me abruptly and stands, reaching for something at the foot of the bed. A blanket unfurls in his hands, heavy and luxurious cashmere, and he drapes it over me with unexpected care, covering my exposed skin from view.
"What…"
"I won't take you by force, if that's your concern. I'm not Aaron, fumbling around in wine cellars like a teenager. When you come to my bed, it'll be because you want to. Because you need to."
"That will never happen."
"We'll see." He moves toward the door, pauses with his hand on the knob. "Don't leave this room tonight. I won't be responsible for what my men might think if they see the bride wandering the halls half-dressed."
"You can't just lock me in."
"I can do whatever I want, princess. You're in my world now. My house. My rules." His eyes gleam with something dangerous. "But I'm not locking the door. I don't need to. Where would you go? Back to Daddy? He sold you, remember? To me. Legally. Completely."
The door closes behind him with a soft click. I wait exactly ten minutes before taking the silk robe from the bath and testing the handle.
The hallway stretches in both directions, dimly lit and silent as a mausoleum. My bare feet whisper against Persian runners as I choose a direction at random.
I need to understand my cage.
The mansion is obscene in its luxury—room after room of priceless art and custom furniture that no one uses. The staff ghosts through my peripheral vision, vanishing around corners when they spot me.
Everyone pretends not to see the bride wandering like a specter.
Light spills from a door ahead—his study perhaps. Low voices carry through the gap, and against every instinct, I creep closer.
Through the crack, I see Cassian behind a massive desk, looking every inch the businessman except for the blood speckling his white shirt. A man kneels on the floor, hands zip-tied behind his back.
"Please, Mr. Greyhaven, I didn't tell anyone about the shipment—"
"Lying." Cassian's voice doesn't change, doesn't rise.
He simply nods at Rafael.
The crack of breaking bone is loud as a gunshot. The man screams, and I bite my tongue hard enough to taste copper.
"That's one finger, Lui." Cassian lights a cigarette with steady hands. "You have nine more. Then we move to your teeth."
Lui sobs something unintelligible. Another nod. Another crack. Another scream that will live in my nightmares.
Cassian doesn't flinch. Doesn't react. Just smokes and watches like he's observing an ant farm.
This is him without the mask. This is the monster I married.