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Gone

Author: Bea Baum
last update publish date: 2025-12-28 17:31:10

BRYNN POV

Two weeks later, I almost forget what fear feels like.

That should’ve been my first warning.

The city is busy in that late-morning way—cars humming, people weaving past each other with coffee cups and headphones and places to be. I have bags looped over my wrist, new clothes folded neatly inside. Things I chose. Colors I like. Proof that I exist outside guarded halls and marble floors.

Normal.

I’m halfway down the sidewalk, mentally checking off errands, when something shifts behind m
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  • Cage to Cage   Use Your Words

    BRYNN POV The tension doesn’t break.It stretches.Tightens.Something unspoken passes between the three of us — a silent understanding that the room we’re standing in suddenly feels too small for what’s happening.Vex’s hand slides from my waist to my lower back.Grounding.Claiming.“Not here,” he murmurs against my ear.Kade exhales a quiet laugh.“Agreed.”His fingers brush down my arm — deliberate, slow — before he finally steps away from me.The loss of heat is immediate.Temporary.“We should go,” Vex says.It isn’t a question.⸻The drive back to the mansion feels longer than it should.The city lights blur past the windows, neon streaking across glass while silence settles thick inside the car.Not awkward.Charged.Kade sits across from me, one arm resting along the seat, eyes never leaving my face.Studying.Relearning.Every time the streetlights pass overhead they catch in his eyes — dark, restless.Vex sits beside me.Close.His hand rests loosely on my thigh, thumb mov

  • Cage to Cage   Six Months Later

    SIX MONTHS LATERBRYNN POVRoutine is a strange thing.Six months ago, the idea of normal felt impossible.Now it’s almost believable.The club hums beneath my feet most nights — bass vibrating through polished floors, men laughing too loud, deals being made in shadows behind purple velvet curtains. Vex runs business from the back office like he always has. Calm. Controlled. Untouchable.He looks the same.But there’s a quiet sharpness in him now.Waiting.We don’t talk about the countdown.We don’t have to.Kade said six months.So we let the clock run.Contact has been… sparse. Strategic. A message every few weeks. Secure lines. Short updates.Alive.Progressing.Soon.Soon is a dangerous word.I keep busy.Training. Meetings. Logistics. Making sure our territories don’t shift while one king is rebuilding his throne.Tonight the club is quieter. A private event downstairs. Vex is handling investors. I’m upstairs in the secured room, field-stripping one of my pistols on the long meta

  • Cage to Cage   Sovereignty

    BRYNN POVI don’t go back to Vex’s room.I don’t even hesitate.Kade is still standing close to me when I ask him to stay, and when he says yes, something settles inside my chest.Not reckless.Not desperate.Certain.⸻His room feels different than Vex’s.Less polished. Less controlled.More him.The door closes quietly behind us, and for a moment neither of us move. The air shifts—thick with everything we’ve never allowed ourselves to touch.Kade exhales slowly.“If we do this,” he says, voice low, steady in that dangerous way he gets when he’s holding too much inside, “it’s because you’re choosing it. Choosing us. I step into him.“I’m not afraid,” I whisper.And that’s the truth.His hand finds my waist. Mine finds his collar.The kiss is different than Vex’s.Where Vex was restraint and reverence, Kade is heat held on a knife’s edge. Months—years—of self-denial breaking open in one breath.He kisses me like he’s memorizing me.Like he’s reclaiming something he thought he’d burie

  • Cage to Cage   Three hearts

    BRYNN POV Vex doesn’t rush it. He steps into my space like he’s approaching something sacred, one hand lifting to cup my jaw—not claiming, not pulling—just there. “Brynn,” he murmurs, like my name is a question. I tilt my face up. That’s all the permission he needs. His mouth brushes mine first—soft, tentative, like he’s making sure I’m real. Like he’s afraid if he presses too hard, I’ll fracture again. My breath stutters. Then he kisses me. Slow. Deep. The kind of kiss that carries everything he hasn’t said—fear, relief, love twisted tight in his chest. His hand slides to my lower back, warm and steady, anchoring me as the world narrows to heat and breath and the feel of his mouth on mine. Something in me opens. Not hunger. Release. I kiss him back, harder this time, fingers fisting in his shirt like I need proof he’s here—that this is now. His breath breaks against my lips. And then— He pulls away. Not abruptly. Not cold. Deliberately. His forehead rests against

  • Cage to Cage   Brynn’s Choices

    BRYNN POVVex doesn’t say a word when he pulls his phone out.He steps a few feet away, voice low, controlled—professional in the way men get when they’re holding something together with sheer force of will.“Cleanup,” he says. “Warehouse on Fifth. One body. Discreet.”A pause.“Yes. Full sweep.”He ends the call and turns back to me like nothing about the world has shifted—like there isn’t a man dead on the concrete because I finally chose myself.My stomach twists.I don’t look at Ivan again.I don’t need to.⸻The ride back to the mansion is quiet.Not awkward.Not tense.Just… heavy.Kade sits across from me, his knee angled toward mine, close enough that I feel the heat through the space between us. He doesn’t touch me—not yet—but he’s there. Present. Steady. Watching me like he’s memorizing every breath I take.Vex sits beside me, one arm stretched along the back of the seat, not caging me in, just… available.No one tells me what to do.No one asks me to explain.And that, some

  • Cage to Cage   Caged Mind

    BRYNN POVNoise comes back first.Not sound—pressure.Like the world is squeezing in around my skull, every thought trying to occupy the same inch of space.My hands are shaking.I don’t remember telling them to stop being still.I stare at them like they belong to someone else—fingers flexing, curling, deadly in ways my body understands even if my mind doesn’t.Neutralize.The word still echoes, sharp and clean, like it was etched into bone.No emotion attached.No choice.Just execution.Except now there’s something else.A crack.Vex’s voice threads through the static, low and rough and wrong in a way that hurts.You chose us.My chest tightens.Chosen.That word doesn’t fit the framework in my head. There’s no protocol for it. No command tree. No outcome calculation.Ivan shifts behind me, and my skin crawls.That reaction shouldn’t exist.Fear isn’t efficient.My breathing stutters anyway.“You’re destabilizing,” Ivan says, sharp now. No amusement. His hand hovers close—too close

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