Chapter Twenty: The Billionaire’s Prison (Pt 1)

“Remove all your underwear.”

Dominic’s voice is a flat, clinical vibration in the cramped luxury of the car back seat. 

He doesn't look up from his phone. The blue light of the screen carves out the sharp, merciless angles of his face, making him look less like a man and more like a statue.

Rhea freezes, her heart thudding against her ribs. “Here?” she whispers, her voice cracking.

“Unless you’d prefer to do it on the sidewalk when we arrive,” he replies. 

He still doesn't glance at her. His thumb swipes across the screen; cold, methodical, and utterly detached.

Rhea’s hands shake as she reaches under her skirt. The car is moving, the world outside the tinted windows blurring, but inside, the air is thick with the scent of his expensive cologne and her own rising panic. 

She peels the lace down her legs, feeling the sudden, biting chill of the leather against her bare skin.

She fumbles with her blouse next, slipping her arms out just enough to unhook her bra. She slides it off and quickly redresses, her skin prickling with a deep, searing shame.

Dominic doesn't look. Not once.

Usually, he would be watching her with that dark, predatory hunger, his eyes tracing every inch of exposed skin like he’s memorizing a map he’s about to conquer. 

But this silence? This lack of interest? It’s a thousand times more terrifying.

It means he’s no longer playing. It means the "Fragile" he teased in the office has been replaced by a piece of property that has stepped out of line.

The drive is slow - torturously slow. 

The heavy silence is broken only by the muffled whir of the tires. 

Rhea shifts uncomfortably on the seat. Without her underwear, she feels raw and dangerously exposed, every bump in the road a reminder of her vulnerability.

She waits for him to claim her. She waits for the rough hand on her thigh or the jagged whisper in her ear. 

But Dominic stays focused on his phone, his face a mask of iron. He’s canceled a million-dollar board meeting for this, and yet, he treats her like she’s invisible.

The realization sinks into her gut like lead. He isn't taking her somewhere to love her. He’s taking her somewhere to break the spirit she tried to show him this morning.

Rhea stares out the window, her reflection a ghost against the glass. She wanted her freedom, but as the car pulls into a familiar, gated driveway, she realizes she’s never been more trapped in her life.

The car slows, the tires crunching over a gravel drive before plunging into the sterile, fluorescent mouth of a private underground parking garage. The engine cuts, and the silence that follows is deafening.

Dominic finally pockets his phone. He doesn't look at Rhea. He simply opens the door and steps out, his silhouette tall and imposing against the concrete walls. "Out," he says. It’s not a request.

Rhea fumbles for the door handle, her skin prickling. Without her underwear, every movement feels like a betrayal of her own body. She follows him to a private elevator of his penthouse - no buttons, just a biometric scanner that glows red as it reads Dominic's palm.

The lift ascends in a nauseatingly smooth motion. When the doors slide open, they are standing directly in the center of the sprawling, glass-walled apartment of a high-rise with the city in view, his penthouse, one she had been to before.

Dominic finally turns to face her. He walks to a sleek, obsidian console and picks up a small object. He tosses it onto the sofa. It’s her old phone, the one she thought she’d never get back eventually.

"This is now your home, Fragile," he says, his voice devoid of the heat he had in the office.

"I don't understand... my apartment—"

“Your father has been moved to the VIP suite," he says, his voice devoid of emotion. "And getting him to the top of the transplant list depends on how well you behave."

“Mr. Ashcroft, my father–” Rhea says but Dominic words cut her off

He gestures to a hallway. "Your father’s medical bills will continue to be paid from here and your things in your apartment have been moved to the room beside mine"

Rhea’s heart stops. "Sir, You moved my things? Without asking me?"

"You said you wanted to quit," Dominic reminds her, stepping into her space. He doesn't touch her, which is somehow worse; he simply looms over her like a shadow.

"I told you that you don't get to make decisions for yourself. You tried to rebel with a short skirt and a resignation letter. This is the consequence."

He reaches out, his fingers tracing the edge of her jaw, forcing her to look up at the large luxury of her prison.

"You will eat when I say, sleep where I say, and wear what I provide." He leans down, his lips ghosting over her ear. 

"And since you’re so fond of your freedom, let’s be clear: the windows are reinforced. The doors require my thumbprint and the print of the guard I’ve assigned to watch your every move. You wanted to leave me, Fragile? Now, you can’t even leave this house without permission."

Rhea stands paralyzed in the center of the room, the silence of the high-rise pressing against her ears. The marble island is a slab of ice under the overhead lights. She looks at the city lights through the reinforced glass and feels the crushing weight of her new reality.

She had been trapped without knowing it, she had signed her life off to Dominic thinking she signed a few months enough to pay her bills. 

"Please," she whispers, her voice breaking. "Mr Ashcroft, let me go home. I'll wear whatever you want. I’ll never touch my glasses again. Just... don't do this."

"You had your chance for 'please,' Fragile," Dominic says, his voice a low, terrifying growl.

He doesn't hesitate. He moves with the speed of a predator, grabbing her by the wrist as her bag falls to the ground, he pulls her to the large kitchen island. 

With a sharp, jarring motion, he bends her over, forces her upper body down onto the large kitchen island. 

The cold marble bites into her chest through the thin fabric of her blouse, a shocking difference to the heat of his body pressing into her back.

"You wanted to quit?" he hisses, his hand tangling in her hair to hold her head down. "You wanted to walk away from me?"

"No... I—"

He cuts her off by bunching her skirt in his fist, hiking it up until her bare skin is exposed to the air. Without her underwear, she feels a raw, agonizing vulnerability. She is completely open to him, splayed across the stone like a sacrifice.

"You belong to me, Fragile. Every inch. Every breath. Every thought."

He raises his hand and brings it down hard against the soft curve of her bottom.

The sound of the strike echoes like a gunshot in the large, expensive apartment. 

“Sir!”

Rhea let out a sharp, jagged cry, her fingers clawing at the smooth marble. The pain is immediate - a searing, blooming heat that makes her vision swim.

"That is for the short skirt," he growls.

Crack.

Another strike, even harder than the first. Rhea’s body jolts, her eyes squeezing shut as the tears finally spill over.

"That is for the thought of quitting."

Crack.

“Please sir….Please”

Crack.

Crack.

He doesn't stop until her skin is a deep, angry red; a brand that will throb for hours. The stinging heat is all-consuming, drowning out the thoughts of Julian, the hospital, and her father. 

There is nothing in her world except the cold stone under her palms and the man breaking her spirit from behind.

"Tell me," he commands, his voice dropping to a dark, ragged whisper as he leans over her, his chest crushing her against the counter. "Who do you belong to?"

"You," she sobs, her forehead resting against the cold marble. "I belong to you sir."

"Louder."

"I'm yours!" she screams into the empty penthouse, her body trembling with a mixture of pain and a terrifying, unwanted spark of arousal.

Dominic’s hand slides down, tracing the reddened skin he just punished before moving slowly to find the wetness she can no longer hide. He lets out a low, dark chuckle - a sound of pure victory.

"Good. Because if you ever think of quitting again, what I just did will feel like a mercy and you won’t see your father again"

He leans down, biting the back of her neck, his teeth sinking into the skin right where her hair meets her spine. He marks her again - a physical seal on the cage he’s built for her.