MasukThe blackmail reached its breaking point on a rainy Thursday night.Victor Lang sent the final ultimatum via encrypted message at 7:45 PM: a single screenshot of the unreleased video, the one captured in the executive lounge last month. Emma on her knees, permanent collar glinting under the lights, mascara streaked down her cheeks as both men used her mouth. The caption read: *Upload the override codes now or this goes to every board member, every news outlet, and your parents by midnight.*Emma didn’t tell Marcus and Ryan until she was already sliding into the back of the armored SUV on the way to the Eclipse Hotel rooftop lounge. The city lights blurred through the rain-streaked windows as she stared at the drive in her lap, fingers trembling around the encrypted file. She had no choice. One more hour and it would be too late.The rooftop lounge was packed despite the steady rain drumming against the glass ceiling panels. Soft jazz played low, but the energy felt wrong tonight. Lang
Emma tried to pull away.She moved into the guest room on the second floor of the sprawling estate, the one with the softest bed and the smallest closet, away from the master suite that now felt like a battlefield. She ate alone when she could pushing trays aside, staring at plates of pasta and salad until her nausea churned and she pushed everything back untouched. Her body was a traitor: hormones flooding the system like a storm, breasts heavy and aching, belly rounding with the life they had created together. The permanent collar remained locked around her throat, cold and unyielding, a reminder she could never remove. She covered it obsessively with high-neck sweaters and scarves, but the fabric still felt suffocating every time she caught her reflection.Every time one of them reached for her, she flinched. The pregnancy had turned her exhaustion into something deeper, a bone-weary fog that made her cry in the shower where they cou
Emma slammed the front door of their home hard enough to rattle the framed prints on the hallway wall. She didn’t stop at the kitchen or the living room. She went straight upstairs to the guest bathroom they rarely used Marcus’s study from when he first moved in, she’d always called it and locked the door behind her with the soft click that sounded louder than a gunshot.The room was empty except for the small table she’d dragged in from the hallway. On it lay the evidence. Printed, yellowed reports, text messages, spreadsheets, and a single USB drive she’d found hidden behind a book in Ryan’s office drawer last night. She’d spent the last hour printing everything twice so she wouldn’t miss a single line.It was worse than she’d feared.Ryan hadn’t just been involved. He had run the leaks like a chess grandmaster. The documents detailed every contract clause, every public risk, every training session she’d ever participated in
Emma couldn’t sleep.The new permanent collar felt heavier than ever against her throat as she slipped out of bed at 3 a.m., leaving Marcus and Ryan tangled together in the sheets. Her growing bump made her movements slower, more careful. The collar’s welded ring pressed cool against her skin, a constant reminder of the vow she had signed just days ago. She padded barefoot through the dimly lit penthouse, one hand resting protectively on the firm curve of her belly, where their baby kicked softly in response to the quiet. The city lights shimmered far below the floor-to-ceiling windows, but inside her chest, everything was dark and churning.She told herself it was only to look at the files one more time. Just one last check. The investigation still felt like a shadow, but she needed certainty before the baby arrived. Her bare feet whispered across the cool hardwood as she reached Ryan’s home office the door left ajar like it always was when the stress of the last few weeks had kept h
The folder was thick, black, and final. No turning back. Ryan placed it on the dining table under the soft glow of the pendant lights that bathed the penthouse in a warm amber haze. Marcus stood beside him, arms crossed over his chest, his dark eyes locked on Emma with a mixture of intensity and vulnerability. Far below, the city hummed with life, but inside the penthouse the air was thick with tension and the electric possibility of everything they were about to commit to.“This is the extension,” Ryan said, voice low and serious, each word measured like a vow. “No more temporary arrangements. No more gray areas. Full, permanent ownership. Twenty-four-seven submission. The collar never comes off. We decide your limits. We decide when and how you’re used. Public risks stay controlled but real. And we keep breeding you on purpose. In return… we give you everything. Protection. Love. The family we’re building with our baby. But once you sign, there’s no walking away without mutual conse
The evidence was damning.Emma had risked everything her career, her freedom, her sanity to compile the files that proved the leaks originated inside Harrington Dynamics. But the deeper the investigation went, the more the trail looped in ways that made no sense. Ryan’s private access logs showed anomalies at precisely the moments the bids had been compromised. Marcus’s encrypted communications carried strange timestamps that only appeared when the leaks were being prepared. Even the accusations, which had once been aimed outward at external saboteurs, were now turning inward, landing on the shoulders of the very men she loved.“You really think I’d sell us out?” Ryan snapped in the penthouse office, voice rising to a roar that echoed off the glass walls. “After everything? After I built this place with you, Marcus? After I let you both into my bed and my life?”Marcus slammed a thick folder onto the polished desk so hard the crystal paperweight rattled. “Your signature was on three o







