LOGINVictor's POVIris had been pacing the house for days like a caged animal, her hand pressed against her growing stomach and her eyes darting toward every window and door. She complained that the walls were closing in on her and the silence made her skin crawl and she felt like she was slowly suffocating in the beautiful prison I had built for her. I had ignored her complaints for as long as I could, but the doctor said stress was bad for the baby, and she was carrying my child. Or possibly my grandchild. The test results were still days away, and the uncertainty was gnawing at me from the inside.So I agreed to take her for a drive. A short one, just to get her out of the house and let her feel the sun on her face. I chose a route that avoided main roads and traffic cameras, a winding path through the countryside where no one would recognize her or ask questions. She sat quietly in the passenger seat with her forehead pressed against the window and her eyes fixed on the passing trees,
Victor's POVNothing was going the way I had planned, and I was beginning to understand that it never would.Iris had been in my house for three days, and she had spent every waking moment making it clear that she would rather be anywhere else. She didn't eat the meals I prepared for her. She didn't wear the clothes I had bought for her, choosing instead to wrap herself in a robe she had found in the closet and refuse everything else. She didn't look at me when I entered the room, and when she did look at me, her eyes were filled with hatred.This was not how it was supposed to go. She was supposed to wake up in the beautiful room I had prepared for her and realize that I was the only man who had ever truly loved her. She was supposed to see the silk sheets and the peonies and the first edition books and understand that I had done all of this for her, that I had sacrificed everything for her, that I was the one who had been there all along while other men tried to take her from me. Sh
Iris's POVVictor didn't move from the doorway, and his calm was the most infuriating thing about him. He stood there with his arms crossed and his expression unreadable, like he was waiting for me to tire myself out, like my anger was just a storm that would pass if he weathered it long enough. I had seen that look before. I had seen it a dozen times, in boardrooms and coffee shops and that terrible night on the island when he told me he would never let me go. He thought he could outlast me. He thought my fury was a temporary inconvenience rather than a permanent state of being."You can glare at me all you want," I said, my voice shaking with the effort of keeping it steady. "But I'm not going to calm down. I'm not going to realize you were right all along. I'm not going to fall into your arms and thank you for rescuing me from a situation you helped create.""I didn't create this situation. Adrian Cross created it when he decided to kidnap you.""Adrian Cross is a symptom. You're t
Iris's POVI woke up drowning in silk.The sheets were so soft they felt like water against my skin, and for one disoriented moment I thought I was back in Adrian's estate but when I turned my head and saw the peonies on the nightstand, fresh-cut and arranged in a crystal vase that probably cost more than my first car, and I knew exactly where I was.This had to be Victor’s doing. The peonies were from Victor. The silk sheets were Victor. The faint smell of cedar and whiskey lingering in the air was Victor. He had found me. He must have taken me from my parents' house in the middle of the night while I was too drugged to fight back, and now I was here, in his bed, in his house, like some kind of possession he had finally reclaimed.I sat up so fast my head spun. The room was beautiful in that cold, expensive way Victor did everything. First edition books stacked on the dresser, their spines uncracked and their covers pristine. A breakfast tray waiting on the nightstand with tea and to
Victor’s POV I turned and walked away, my heart pounding with a mixture of rage and exhilaration. He knew something. He suspected I had found her, and he was going to try to follow me. But I had been dealing with men like Adrian Cross my entire life, and I knew exactly how to shake him off my trail.I drove through the city for the next hour, taking detours and doubling back until I was certain no one was following me. I switched cars twice, abandoned my phone in a parking garage, and used a burner to contact Hyde with the final instructions. By the time I arrived at the rendezvous point, I was certain Cross had no idea where I was.The extraction was set for two in the morning, when the house was dark and the guards were at their most complacent. But when we arrived, something was wrong. There were more lights on than there should have been, more movement behind the curtains. Someone had warned them. Someone had told them we were coming.Hyde's voice crackled through my earpiece. "W
Victor's POVThe call came at four in the afternoon, and for the first time in weeks, I felt something other than the slow, grinding emptiness that had consumed me since Iris disappeared.Hyde's name flashed on my screen, and I answered before the first ring finished, my voice rough from disuse. "Tell me you have something.""I have her." He was not a man who wasted words, but I heard the satisfaction buried beneath his usual flat tone. "I wanted to be certain before I contacted you. My men spotted her at a private hospital two towns over. She was with her mother. They arrived before dawn and left within the hour."The photograph of Iris on my desk blurred in front of my eyes, and I realized my hands were shaking. "Where is she staying?""Her parents' house. They have security posted around the perimeter, but it's nothing sophisticated. Local hires. Ex-cops and private security types who are used to babysitting wealthy families, not dealing with a professional extraction. The cameras
Iris's POVI wrote.The words came faster than they had in weeks, pouring out of me like water through a broken dam. My fingers flew across the keyboard, barely keeping pace with the scenes unfolding behind my eyes. A new hero emerged from the haze, darker than Daniel, sharper around the edges. He
Iris’s POV We ate slowly, trading bites back and forth while our conversation drifted over nothing particularly important, the kind of lazy morning talk that felt like an extension of sleep itself. Every so often he leaned across the small space between us and kissed the corner of my mouth, his to
Iris’s POV I woke up with a jolt. The dream had been hazy but vivid enough to leave me throbbing. There were dark eyes watching me, a low magnetic voice murmuring praise against my throat and strong hands sliding up my thighs with slow deliberate purpose. I had arched into the touch in the dream d
Iris’s POV The drive home felt longer than it should have. Marcus had the radio tuned to that low jazz station he likes, humming off-key while he scrolled emails at red lights. I stared out the passenger window, watching streetlights smear past, but my brain was still stuck on the terrace. I cou







