MasukVictor'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 POV The mall was way too loud for a Tuesday afternoon. Music blasted from three different stores at once, a baby was screaming somewhere near the food court, and a teenager walked past me yelling into her phone about someone named Derek who had apparently "liked her story but didn't text ba
Iris’s POV His fingers tightened around my throat. “I know.” The words came out low, steady, and far too calm for the way his hands were pressing into my skin. I clawed at his wrists, my nails digging in, my body twisting beneath him as I tried to pull free. “I know what you’ve been doing.” My
Iris's POVIt's finally the dreaded Friday. I was standing in front of my closet, staring at the armor I'd carefully selected: high-necked black blouse, long sleeves, trousers that buttoned at the waist instead of anything that flowed or teased, when my phone buzzed on the dresser.A text from Marc
Iris’s POV The café on Fourth was the kind of place that made you want to be a better person. Exposed brick walls, hanging ferns, mismatched vintage chairs that somehow looked intentional rather than chaotic. The smell of fresh bread and lavender drifted through the air, and every table had a tiny







