Victor stared at the monitor.
The new room suited her.
Too well.
Muted walls, clean lines, light flooding in from high windows, everything about it whispered calm, comfort, safety. A curated illusion. A silk wrapped cage.
And Ivy moved within it like a queen in her sanctuary. Brushing her hair with unhurried strokes. Folding her hands in her lap like a woman meditating. Walking barefoot from window to bed like the walls didn’t choke her.
Like she had won something.
She hadn’t.
Victor’s fingers tapped rhythmically against the leather armrest. One beat, then two. His eyes never left the screen.
Her silence had once been sweet to him, proof that she was breaking. A subtle kind of surrender. The absence of screams had meant progress.
Now it felt… defiant. Rehearsed.
Weaponized.
A kind of stillness that threatened everything he’d carved into her skin, everything he’d trained into her breath. It wasn’t obedience. It was control.
Hers.
“She should be grateful,” he muttered under his breath, l
