How To Wreck An Empire

**Rhea**

“O my god! Fuck. Yes.” The words came out low and shaky. His tongue was already inside me.

Slow. Filthy. Relentless. The kind of wet, deliberate movement that made my thighs shake, my toes curled and my fingers twist in his hair, pulling him closer, while I tried not to make a sound. He held my hips down like he owned the right to keep me open, and every time I tried to close my legs he forced them wider with his head and groaned against my cunt like he was starving.

My god. Those eyes. The intensity of his stare. I couldn’t look away, even when every instinct told me I should.

I came with my hand over my mouth and his name trapped behind my teeth.

____________________

THREE MONTHS EARLIER…

Rain ran cold down the inside of my dress and I still didn’t move. My phone was pressed to my ear. Jakob’s voice came through low and controlled, the way it always did, like the decision had already been made and I was only catching up.

“You have nowhere else to go, Rhea.”

I stared at the black iron gates. Water slid between my breasts and down my stomach. The thin fabric clung to every curve I had stopped trying to hide.

“I know,” I said.

A short silence. I could almost hear him weighing the inconvenience of me against whatever old obligation still existed between him and my dead father.

“The gate will open. Come to the front door.”

The iron swung inward with a soft mechanical hum. I walked up the long driveway without hurrying. My heels clicked against the wet ground. Every step felt like crossing a line I had drawn myself months ago.

The moment my foot touched the estate grounds, the memory slammed into me—Damon’s hand clamped over my mouth, the rough wall of the pool house against my back, the way my body had gone rigid and useless while he took what he wanted. The silence and his disgusting smile afterward had been worse than the act itself. I remembered how my best friend, Owen, had looked away when I needed him to say something. Just anything. To stand up for me.

I forced down the memory and kept walking.

The front door opened before I could knock. Jakob Prescott filled the doorway. Salt—and—pepper hair. Black shirt, sleeves rolled once, the dark ink of his right sleeve tattoo just visible at the wrist. His green eyes moved over me once, taking in the soaked dress, the water dripping from my hair. I was standing there as though the rain had done nothing to me. His expression remained unreadable. He looked bigger than I remembered. Broader. The kind of man who made a doorway feel smaller just by standing in it.

“You’re soaked,” he said.

“I am.”

Something flickered across his face—annoyance, or the beginning of reluctant concern. He stepped aside. I walked past him into the warm foyer and caught the faint scent of his cologne, clean and expensive. When he took my bag from my hand, his fingers brushed mine. Warm. Strong.

I looked up and held his gaze longer than was polite. He didn’t look away first.

Footsteps came down the wide staircase. Owen stopped two steps from the bottom when he saw me. For a second neither of us spoke. The air around us pulled tight the way it always had—years of almosts and never-crossing-the-line condensed into one heavy breath. His dark hair was slightly messy. His brown eyes moved over me, and whatever he felt was far less controlled than what I saw in his father’s face. Want was there, unmistakable beneath the guilt.

“Rhea.”

My name in his mouth still landed lower than it should have. I kept my expression the same.

“Hey,” I said, careful and soft enough to sound fragile. I had practiced that tone.

Jakob’s voice cut in, clipped. “She’s staying in the east wing guest suite. Show her upstairs.” He said handing my bag to Owen. “There’s a dry towel in the room.”

Owen nodded once, but his eyes lingered on the wet fabric clinging to my body. We walked up the stairs side by side, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him. Neither of us mentioned the last time we had been alone together, or the way he had stayed silent when I needed him. The air between us was thick with everything that had been left unsaid.

The guest suite was larger than the entire first floor of the house I grew up in. Soft lighting. A bed big enough for three. Floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the dark, rain-soaked grounds.

Owen lingered in the doorway. “If you need anything—”

“I’ll be fine.”

He hesitated, jaw tight, then left. I listened to his footsteps fade before I locked the door and stripped out of my wet dress.

In the mirror I studied my body. Long legs. Soft curves. Hazel eyes that looked almost gold under the warm light. I dried my hair with the towel on the bed, pulled a short black slip gown from my bag and let the silk settle over my skin. I looked in the mirror again, adjusting one strap before letting my half-dried hair fall over my shoulder.

This was the version of me they were going to get. Soft. Uncertain. Grateful for a roof over my head. Exactly vulnerable enough to make them lower their guard.

They could believe whatever they needed to believe.

I was going to live in their house.

I was going to smile when it was useful.

I was going to let Jakob Prescott believe he was protecting something fragile.

And then I was going to ruin everything they cherished.

Later, long after the house had gone quiet, I left my room. The hallway was dark except for a thin line of light under the study door at the far end. I moved without sound.

Jakob’s voice carried through the wooden door, low and rough.

“—no. She’s here now. That’s the end of it.”

A pause. Then, quieter, almost reluctant, like the words cost him something:

“Rhea isn’t leaving.”

I stood frozen in the dark hallway, pulse slamming against my throat, and smiled.