Chapter 3

Cassian didn’t repeat himself. He simply waited, patient as winter, camera dangling from his neck like it belonged there. When I didn’t move, he reached past me, unbuttoned my coat himself, and slid it off my shoulders. His fingers brushed the bare skin at my throat (just a graze), but it burned like a brand. He hung the coat on a hook by the door, the same hook that used to hold my pink puffy jacket when I was twelve, and then he turned.

“Come,” he said. “I’ll show you what’s changed.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He just started walking, expecting me to follow.

And God help me, I did.

The lake house I remembered had been warm, cluttered with Mom’s throw pillows and my old crayon drawings taped to the fridge. This version felt like a gallery designed by someone who hated softness. The walls were bare except for enormous black-and-white photographs in severe black frames. A woman’s spine arched over a leather bench. A man’s hand wrapped around a slender throat. A close-up of lips parted on a silent scream. All artfully lit, all anonymous, all unmistakably erotic.

I stopped in front of one (close-cropped shot of a woman on her knees, wrists bound behind her back, head thrown back in obvious surrender). My stomach flipped.

“You… took these?” I asked, barely above a whisper.

“Every one.” His voice came from right behind me, close enough that I felt the warmth of his chest against my shoulder blade. “Keep walking.”

He led me through the open living room (now all dark leather and steel), past the kitchen that used to smell like cinnamon and now smelled faintly of coffee and something metallic, up the wide staircase that creaked exactly the way it always had. My old bedroom was on the second floor, third door on the left. I braced myself for memories when he opened it.

It wasn’t my room anymore.

The twin bed and boy-band posters were gone. In their place stood a massive four-poster bed made of black iron, draped in white linen so crisp it looked lethal. A single red ribbon was tied around one of the posts, the ends trailing to the floor like spilled blood. There was a velvet chaise by the window, a mirrored tray with a crystal decanter of something amber, and on the far wall, another photograph (this one of a woman suspended in red rope, body twisted into an impossible, graceful arc).

I swallowed hard. “This isn’t where I used to sleep.”

“No,” he said, stepping inside behind me. “This is where you will sleep for the next seven nights.”

He crossed to the dresser, opened a drawer, and pulled out something soft and black. A silk sleep mask. He set it on the duvet like a promise.

“You look exhausted,” he continued. “Shower if you want. Everything you need is in the bathroom. Tomorrow morning, after breakfast, I’ll explain your tasks. The rules. What I expect. Tonight you rest.”

He said it gently, almost kindly, but the gentleness felt like a trap.

I opened my mouth to argue (to demand answers now), but he was already moving toward the door.

“Cassian—”

“Tomorrow, Ivy.” He paused in the doorway, hand on the knob. “One more thing. There’s no cell service here. I had the tower disabled years ago. The wifi password changes every hour and only I know it. You’re completely cut off until the eighth morning. No one to call. No one to save you. Just us.”

He closed the door softly behind him.

I stood there for a long time, staring at the closed door, then spun around and dug my phone out of my bag. No bars. I held it up, walked to the window, waved it like an idiot. Nothing. I tried the smart TV (parental lock). The landline in the hall had been removed. He hadn’t been kidding. I was on an island with the one man my mother swore would destroy me, and no way to reach the outside world.

I showered because I didn’t know what else to do. The bathroom was marble and steam and smelled like his cologne. I used his soap, his towels, his everything, and hated how every nerve in my body felt alive and raw. When I came out, the fire in the bedroom hearth had been lit (I never heard him come back in). The red ribbon on the bedpost flickered in the firelight like it was breathing.

I crawled under the covers fully clothed, pulled them over my head like I was ten again hiding from monsters, and eventually fell asleep to the sound of wind screaming against the windows.

I don’t know what time it was when the woman’s voice woke me.

Low, sultry laughter drifting up from outside, followed by a murmured command I couldn’t quite make out. My eyes snapped open. The fire had burned down to embers, the room dim and orange. Another laugh, closer this time, and the unmistakable click of a camera shutter.

I slipped out of bed, bare feet silent on the rug, and crept to the window. The curtains were heavy velvet, but I eased them apart just enough to see.

The backyard was lit by floodlights that turned the falling snow into glittering diamonds. A woman (completely naked) lay sprawled on the frosted grass like it was a summer beach. Her skin glowed pale against the white, long dark hair fanned out around her head, arms stretched above her in deliberate surrender. She arched her back, breasts high, thighs parted just enough to be obscene and artistic at the same time. She looked fearless. Owned. Radiant.

And kneeling in front of her, camera raised to his eye, was Cassian.

He was shirtless despite the cold, black trousers low on his hips, every line of muscle carved out by the floodlights. The camera clicked in rapid bursts. He gave quiet commands (move your knee, chin up, look at me like you’re begging), and she obeyed instantly, fluidly, like they’d done this a hundred times.

I couldn’t breathe. My fingers clutched the curtain so hard my knuckles went white.

This was what he did now. This was the pleasure he’d talked about. These women, these photographs, this power.

He adjusted his angle, crouched lower, and the woman on the ground laughed again (soft, throaty), and said something that made him smile. A real smile, the one I remembered from years ago when he used to push me on the swing.

I hated her instantly.

I hated myself more for the heat pooling low in my belly.

Cassian lowered the camera for a second, reached out, and trailed two fingers down the woman’s sternum, between her breasts, all the way to her navel. She shivered, but didn’t move. He said something too low for me to hear, and she answered with a breathless yes, Sir.

My knees almost gave out.

He lifted the camera again, and for one terrifying heartbeat his head turned toward the house (toward my window), as if he could feel me watching.

I yanked the curtain shut and stumbled back, chest heaving, blood roaring in my ears.

Tomorrow morning he would tell me my tasks.

Tomorrow morning I would find out exactly what he expected from me for the next seven nights.

And after what I’d just seen, I wasn’t sure whether I was more terrified…

…or more desperate to know how it would feel when he finally turned that camera (and those commands) on me.