Chapter 2: The Terms

"I can explain—" The words died in my throat the second I met his eyes.

"No need." Silas walked toward us like he had all the time in the world, each step measured and deliberate. A predator who'd already decided we weren't threats. "I know exactly what happened. You got curious. You went somewhere you had no business going. And now everyone in this house has a problem."

"I won't tell anyone—" I started, but he cut me off with a look.

"No," he agreed softly. "You won't."

He reached us then, and instead of pulling Julian away — instead of yelling or threatening or doing literally anything normal — he placed his hand directly on top of his son's.

The one still inside me.

I stopped breathing.

"But not because you're trustworthy," Silas continued, his voice dropping to something intimate and horrifying. "Because we're going to give you a reason to keep our secrets. A very compelling one."

Julian's fingers withdrew slowly, and I hated myself for the sound I made — desperate, bereft. But then Silas's hand replaced his son's, and oh God, his fingers were thicker, longer, pushing into me with an authority that made my spine arch clean off the desk.

"Look at her," Silas murmured, his eyes locked on my face like he was conducting an experiment. "Terrified. But also the wettest thing I've ever felt in my life."

Julian shifted to my other side, his hand finding my breast and squeezing hard enough to make me gasp. "Told you she wanted this."

"Does she?" Silas's thumb found my clit, pressed down, and pleasure detonated through my nervous system. "Or does she just not know how to say no?"

"I—" I couldn't finish. Couldn't think past the sensations.

"Let's find out." Silas leaned down until his breath ghosted across my ear, his fingers still working inside me with devastating precision. "If you want us to stop, Elena, say the word 'red.' Say it right now, and we let you walk out of here. We'll figure out some other solution to our mutual problem."

His fingers curled, hitting something inside me that made stars burst behind my eyelids.

"But if you don't say it," he continued, his voice like silk over razors, "if you stay quiet and let us do whatever we want to this body, that's you agreeing. That's you choosing this. Choosing us. Do you understand?"

I understood. Oh God, I understood with perfect, crystalline clarity.

My mouth opened. The word "red" sat right there on my tongue, a lifeline, my last chance at salvation.

What came out instead was a moan.

Silas's smile was the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen in my life. "That's what I thought." He looked at Julian. "Get her dress off. Now."

Julian didn't hesitate. He grabbed the fabric and yanked it over my head in one brutal motion, leaving me in just my panties. Which Silas tore off half a second later, the lace shredding with a sound that seemed obscenely loud in the quiet office.

I was naked. Completely naked on a desk surrounded by evidence of their crimes, lit by monitors showing God knows what horrors, and I'd never been more turned on in my entire life.

The shame of that burned almost as hot as the arousal.

Silas's fingers went back to work while Julian's mouth found my breast again, sucking, biting, marking me like I was something he owned. I could feel the pleasure building, coiling tighter and tighter at the base of my spine, my whole body tensing toward release—

Silas pulled his hand away.

I actually sobbed. Out loud. Like a desperate animal.

"Not yet," he said calmly, like he hadn't just ripped away everything I needed. "You don't get to come until we've discussed the terms of our arrangement."

"Terms?" I could barely form words through my panting.

"You saw our business," Julian said, straightening up. His lips were wet from my skin, his eyes dark with something between hunger and satisfaction. "Which means you're either dead, or you're ours. Pick one."

"That's not— you can't—" My voice broke.

"Those are your options." Silas pulled a handkerchief from his inside pocket and wiped his fingers clean with casual efficiency. "And you need to choose right fucking now."

On the monitors behind us, the kneeling man collapsed face-first onto concrete. No one moved to help him.

"If you choose to be ours," Silas continued, his tone businesslike, "you agree to complete silence about everything you've seen or will see in this house. You agree to absolute obedience. And you agree that this body—" his hand pressed flat against my lower belly, possessive "—belongs to both of us. Whenever we want it. Wherever we want it. However we want it."

"And my mother?" My voice was barely a whisper.

"Stays employed. Stays safe. Stays completely ignorant of everything happening under this roof." His hand moved up to cup my face, forcing me to meet his eyes. "But if you ever tell her — if you ever tell anyone what you've seen tonight or what we do to you — she'll be the very first casualty. Do you understand me?"

Tears burned hot tracks down my face. "You're fucking monsters."

"Yes," Silas agreed without a shred of shame. "We are. And you're going to let us destroy you piece by piece because the alternative is so much worse."

Julian's hand slid back between my legs, fingers teasing my entrance without pushing in. "Say yes, Elena. Say you're ours."

I looked at the monitors. At the ledger face-down on the floor. At my own reflection in the dark window behind them — flushed cheeks, dilated pupils, body arching toward their hands even while my brain screamed at me to run.

What did it say about me that I wanted this? That some sick, twisted part of my soul was already saying yes before my mouth caught up?

"Say it," Silas commanded.

From somewhere downstairs, I heard my mother laugh at something. Happy. Safe. Clueless.

"Yes," I whispered. "I'm yours."

Julian's fingers slammed into me — three at once, no mercy —and Silas's mouth crashed down on mine, swallowing my cry of shock and pleasure. They worked me in perfect synchronization, like they'd done this before, like they'd planned exactly how to take me apart.

"That's our good girl," Julian growled against my neck. "Our perfect little secret."

Thunder shook the windows outside. Rain hammered the glass.

But it was nothing — nothing — compared to the storm building inside me, the one they were creating with their hands and mouths and absolute ownership of my body.

I was going to shatter. Going to break into a thousand pieces—

A door slammed somewhere below us.

"Silas? Julian? Where did everyone disappear to?" My mother's voice floated up the stairs, slightly slurred from wine.

We all froze.

"She's coming up here," I breathed, panic cutting through the haze.

Silas's hand clamped over my mouth, silencing me. "Then I suggest you learn to be very, very quiet."

Julian's fingers didn't stop moving. Didn't even slow down.

And as my mother's footsteps grew louder, as the pleasure built toward a breaking point I couldn't control, I realized the real nightmare wasn't what I'd discovered in this office.

It was what I'd discovered about myself — and how much I wanted them to ruin me anyway.