Chapter 2 – Fury and Solitude

I yank the black silk ropes with every ounce of strength I can muster, feeling them bite into my wrists like sharp teeth. My heart is pounding so hard it feels like it wants to escape my chest. I’m naked. Completely exposed. Surrounded by the three men I love and hate most in the entire world, while the ship rocks gently in the open sea, reminding me with every second that there is no escape.

Zion is leaning over me, his hot mouth closed around my left nipple, sucking with that possessive hunger that always dismantles me. Luka holds my chin, forcing me to look at him while his fingers slide along my thigh. Elias keeps my legs spread with a firm hand, two thick fingers brushing my wet entrance—teasing, tormenting.

“You kidnapped me,” I growl, my voice hoarse from sleep and pure rage. “You drugged me. You brought me here like I’m your fucking toy. You sons of bitches.”

Zion releases my nipple with a wet pop and lifts his head. His black eyes gleam with dark amusement.

“Our toy?” He chuckles lowly, the sound vibrating against my skin. “You always were, princess. Since you were sixteen.”

It’s too much. The anger explodes inside me like gasoline thrown on fire. When he leans in again to kiss me, I turn my face and sink my teeth hard into his shoulder, right above the collarbone. I taste the metallic tang of blood on my tongue.

Zion lets out a rough grunt—not of pain, but of surprise and something that sounds like sick pleasure. He pulls back just enough to look at me, blood slowly trickling down the white fabric of his shirt.

For a second, the silence is absolute, broken only by the distant hum of the ship’s engines.

Then Luka starts laughing. A low, genuine laugh that makes his heterochromatic eyes sparkle. Elias lets out an amused sigh, shaking his head. Zion runs his thumb over the bitten shoulder, spreading his own blood, and smiles like a wolf that has just been challenged.

“Look at her,” Zion murmurs, licking the blood from his finger. “Still got that fire. After everything.”

“I told you she’d fight,” Luka says, crossing his arms, the smile still plastered on his face. “She always fights before she surrenders.”

Elias watches me for a long moment, his dark brown eyes roaming over my bound, naked body and lingering on the red mark my teeth left on Zion’s shoulder.

“If this is how you want to play, Maeve…” he says, his voice deep and calm as always, but laced with dangerous promise, “then we’ll play your way.”

They step away from the bed at the same time. As if they had rehearsed it. As if it had been part of the plan all along.

I’m left there, panting, my body still throbbing with unwanted desire, wrists burning against the ropes. I try to sit up, but the restraints yank me back against the satin pillows. My legs are free, but for what? The suite is enormous and luxurious, with panoramic windows showing nothing but the endless dark sea. There’s no door I can reach. No visible phone. Not even my clothes.

Zion stops at the door and turns to me one last time. The blood on his shoulder stains his white shirt obscenely.

“You bit me, princess. Now you get to taste solitude.” He winks. “When you’re ready to apologize… or to beg… just scream our names.”

Luka approaches the headboard, leans down, and brushes his lips against my forehead, almost tenderly.

“We’re right outside, love. The entire ship is ours. The presidential suite has soundproofing. No one will hear you screaming. Not from rage… and not from anything else.”

Elias is the last. He stops beside the bed, runs his large hand over my bare stomach once—possessively—then steps back without saying a word. The click of the door closing is the loudest sound I’ve ever heard.

And then… silence.

I’m alone.

Completely naked. Tied to a king-size bed in a presidential suite in the middle of the ocean. The cool sheets against my overheated skin. The air conditioning blows lightly over my nipples, still wet from Zion’s mouth. Between my legs, I still feel the ghost of Elias’s fingers, the treacherous wetness they provoked and then abandoned.

The rage rises like bile in my throat.

“You bastards!” I scream, pulling the ropes so hard I feel my skin tear. “Let me go right now! You can’t do this! I’m not your property!”

No one answers. The ship continues its steady rocking, almost mocking me. I twist, turn onto my side, try to reach the knots with my teeth. Impossible. The ropes are professional—soft enough not to hurt too much, tight enough to keep me prisoner.

My mind races.

I think about Matthew. My beautiful boy. He has no idea what’s happening. No idea that his mother is tied up and naked on a cruise ship, a prisoner of the three men he calls uncles.

Tears of pure fury burn my eyes. I swallow them. I won’t cry for them. I won’t give them that satisfaction.

I think about my father. The threatening messages I still receive. The secret I carry about what really happened after we thought Evie was dead. The depression that almost destroyed me. The night I almost abandoned my own newborn son because terror consumed me. They don’t know everything. None of them. And now they’ve dragged me here as if they could fix eleven years of trauma with a luxury cruise and silk ropes.

I laugh, a bitter sound that echoes in the empty room.

“Cowards,” I whisper to the ceiling. “You can’t convince me like normal men, so you kidnap me.”

But my body betrays me. It still throbs. It still remembers Zion’s mouth, Elias’s fingers, Luka’s kiss. The unwanted arousal pulses between my legs, demanding the relief they deliberately denied. It’s cruel. Calculated. They want me to suffer. They want me to feel every second of this frustration until I beg.

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to ignore the heat. I try to think of anything other than them. The sea outside. The cold air conditioning. The humiliation of being completely exposed, naked, tied up, abandoned.

It doesn’t work.

My mind drifts back to that night on the beach so many years ago. The three of them touching me for the first time. The overwhelming pleasure. The pregnancy that followed. The fear. My father’s abuse when he found out. Evie’s “death.” The postpartum depression that nearly killed me.

And now this.

I pull the ropes again, feeling the burn travel up my arms. My entire body trembles—with rage, with cold, with frustrated desire.

“I’m going to kill you,” I mutter to the empty room. “When I get out of here, I swear I’ll kill all three of you.”

But I know it’s a lie.

Because even now—tied up, naked, and furious—a sick part of me is already waiting for the moment they return. A part that hates how much it wants them. A part that knows I am, in fact, captive of love.

The ship sails onward. The dark sea slides past the windows. And I remain here, alone, completely exposed, my body and soul on fire.

Frustrated.

Furious.

And, God help me, far too wet to pretend I don’t want them.