Page 4 of Ruin
"And I reached for the clasp," I continue, "and discovered there isn't one. Not one that opens without a key I don't have."
The corridor is quiet. The bass from above is a distant pulse, like a heartbeat heard through walls.
"You locked it," I say. "Before you sent me away. Before you told me keeping it on was my choice. Before you made me think that wearing it for 365 days meant something about my loyalty. You locked it."
He doesn't deny it, doesn't flinch, doesn't even break eye contact.
The man who runs an empire on the principle that denial is weakness just stands there and lets the truth exist between us without apology.
"Yes," he says.
"So, the test was rigged."
"The test was irrelevant. The collar was always staying on."
"Because you didn't trust me to keep it."
"Because you were always meant to be mine."
The words land in my chest like a stone dropped into deep water.
I feel them sink, feel the ripples spread outward into places I've spent a year trying to harden, and the thing that rises to the surface isn't anger.
He was afraid. This man who kills without flinching, who runs a city from the shadows, who has never once shownweakness in front of anyone—he was afraid that a twenty-three-year-old woman might take off a necklace and disappear.
So, he cheated because he couldn't risk losing.
"You could have just asked me to stay," I say.
"I don't ask."
"No. You lock collars and call it destiny."
The corner of his mouth moves. Not a smile. Something darker. Something that says he knows exactly what he did and he'd do it again.
Somehow, I'm certain the only thing he regrets is that I figured it out.
"You're here," he says. "Locked collar or not. You walked through that door tonight, sat at that bar, followed Peter into this elevator. You're here because you want to be. The lock didn't do that."
He's right. That's the worst part. He's right, and I came back anyway.
"I want you beside me," he says. The shift is subtle, but I feel it—the conversation turning from what happened to what happens next. "Not for three nights. Not as a visitor in my world. In it. Working for me. With me. Building something that lasts longer than either of us."
"And in your bed."
"That's not negotiable." His eyes darken. "It never was."
"What if I said no?"
"You won't."
"But if I did."
"Then you'd walk out of here and I'd let you go, and we'd both spend the rest of our lives knowing you lied."
The truth of that sits between us, undeniable and heavy.
"Say yes," he says. It's not a command. Not the Sir voice, not the tone that drops my stomach and makes my knees want to fold. It's something I haven't heard from him before. A requestmade by a man who doesn't make requests, offered to a woman he locked a collar on because he was too proud to ask her to stay.
