LOGINCHAPTER 86
SANTIAGOFORTY-EIGHT HOURS OF SILENCEForty-eight hours.That was how long it had been since I’d last heard my brother’s voice since he made that last call. Not a call. Not a message. Not even one of Matteo’s irritatingly vague “I’m fine” check-ins that usually meant he was very much not fine. Which, might I add, is very annoying. Just… nothing. Silence so thick it felt like it had weight, like it pressed down on my chest every time I tried toCHAPTER 96 MATTEO HELD BY TEETH Pain had layers. I discovered that sitting there. The first layer was physical, wrists bound too tight, shoulders screaming, spine aching from being forced upright for too long. The suppression wards crawled under my skin, a constant pressure that made my wolf snarl and recoil, like claws scraping glass inside my chest. One. The second layer was rage. That one burned hotter. It coiled in my gut, climbed my ribs, lodged in my throat until every breath felt like I was swallowing fire. I hadn’t stopped pulling against the restraints, not really. Even when my muscles shook and my hands went numb, even when the leather bit deep enough to draw blood, I kept testing them. Kept pushing. Kept reminding the room that I was still an Alpha. That Alessandro hadn’t won yet. But the third layer, the one that nearly broke me, was watching Marco fall apart in slow motion and being un
CHAPTER 95 CALLIE THE QUIET REALISATION Time didn’t move normally in that room. It stretched and warped, pulling tight around my ribs until every breath felt borrowed. The wards hummed softly, almost gently, as if they were alive and pleased with themselves. I sat bound in the same chair, muscles aching, wrists raw, but the pain had faded into something dull and distant. My body was still here. My mind kept drifting somewhere darker. Santiago’s breathing was uneven across from me. I focused on it without meaning to, counting the rise and fall of his chest because if I stopped, my thoughts went places I couldn’t survive. He looked worse now. The blood on his face had dried into dark streaks, his head tilting forward slightly as exhaustion dragged him down in waves. His wolf flickered weakly through the bond, a fragile presence that made my chest ache with every pulse. I hated that I couldn’t touch him. I hated
CHAPTER 94MARCOUNWANTED DECISIONSThe first thing I noticed was the quiet. Not the absence of sound, there was plenty of that. The wards hummed like a living thing, a low vibration that settled into my skull and refused to leave. Chains scraped when someone shifted. Santiago’s breathing was shallow and wrong. Callie’s muffled sobs kept tearing through me like glass. No, this was a different kind of quiet. It was the stillness that came right before something inside you snapped.I sat bound in the chair, shoulders pulled back by restraints that burned against my skin, my wrists numb where the metal bit too deep. My wolf paced inside me, frantic, claws shredding the inside of my chest, slamming against the suppression wards like it might break through sheer desperation alone. It didn’t. Nothing did.Across from me, Santiago sagged forward, blood drying dark against his skin. His head dipped, lifted, dipped again. Every time it did, panic
CHAPTER 93SANTIAGOWHEN THE BODY GIVES WAYPain had its own language. I learned that sometime between the second time my vision went white and the moment my knees finally gave out. Pain didn’t shout. It didn’t rush. It stayed. It layered itself carefully, deliberately, until it rewrote everything else, thought, memory, time, into something smaller and meaner. By the time they dragged me into the room, I wasn’t even sure my legs belonged to me anymore.Stone scraped my knees. Hard. Cold. The sound echoed too loudly in my skull, like the room wanted credit for my collapse. My wolf curled tighter, a sick, wounded thing pressed so deep inside me I barely felt him breathe. That scared me more than the blood loss. More than the way my ribs screamed every time I inhaled.The air here wasn’t neutral. It leaned. It pressed. It reminded you, constantly, that you were allowed to exist only because someone stronger hadn’t decided otherwise yet.
CHAPTER 92MATTEOASH IN THE LUNGSPain had a rhythm. I noticed it only after Alessandro left, after the door sealed and the wards flared brighter, after the silence settled so thick it pressed against my ears. Pain wasn’t just there, it pulsed. It rose and fell in time with the wards, with my heartbeat, with the shallow breathing of everyone else trapped in that room.It lived in my wrists first. Leather biting skin, circulation half-cut, nerves screaming every time my fingers twitched. Then my shoulders. My spine. My chest, where my wolf paced and slammed and snarled without sound, furious at being trapped, terrified of moving too much. But the worst of it was in my lungs.I kept my head bowed, eyes fixed on the stone floor, because if I lifted them too soon, I knew exactly what I’d see. Santiago. Bloody. Broken. Dragged in like a trophy. And Callie watching it happen. I didn’t trust myself to witness that again without losing cont
CHAPTER 91CALLIEWHAT REMAINSTime stopped meaning anything after that. Not because it truly froze, but because every second dragged itself forward like it was wounded, bleeding out slowly on the stone floor between us. The kind of time that didn’t move in hours or minutes, only in heartbeats and breaths and the ache in my wrists where the restraints rubbed raw.The wards never stopped humming. They pulsed low and steady, like a second heartbeat layered over my own, artificial and cruel. Every time my wolf shifted or stirred too loudly inside me, the sound sharpened, biting down until she whimpered and retreated again. It felt like being watched by the walls themselves, like the room was alert and waiting for weakness.We sat in silence for a long time. Not the peaceful kind. Not the kind that let you rest. This silence was heavy with unspoken fears, with things none of us dared say because saying them would make them real. I could
CHAPTER 37CALLIE IN BETWEEN PLEASURE AND WORRYA few seconds ago, I was angry, pissed that someone disturbed my shower. But when I pulled the door open and my eyes landed on Santiago, my anger vanished. For just a second I lost my voice, but when I'm found it and was about to use it, he pulled m
CHAPTER 36MARCOTHE HORROR THAT IS MY FATHERFor a few seconds when I stood in the ring, I locked eyes with Tyrone. I couldn't really tell what was behind his eyes, but I knew one thing. His eyes were cold and all he could see was blood. His eyes held no mercy.He was not going to go easy on me.A
CHAPTER 34MARCOBLOOD ON MY HANDSIt's one thing to take your freedom by force, it's another to sell it back to the same people you took it from. When I told my father I would heed to his words, I gave him the cuffs he needed to keep me in place. It was the most difficult decision I have ever mad
CHAPTER 33SANTIAGO ALL ROADS LEAD TO CALLIEAnger, pure range boiled in my veins as I stared at her. The only thing holding me back from hitting her was that she was a female. I was using every will in my to stop myself from doing something drastic.“What the hell is wrong with you, Stella?”She







