If you kneel, kneel for love—or not at all. That was the last commandment. The one Lilith could never write. But Lydia had gone further. She didn’t just kneel. She made others do it. She didn’t just survive. She rewrote survival. And now, it was time. Not to escape. But to leave a legacy. She stood at the top of the staircase, overlooking the halls that once imprisoned her—barefoot, bruised, dripping in the heat of her final high. Damian lay beneath her somewhere still catching his breath, skin marked by her, mouth stained from the worship she allowed. But Lydia? She had already moved past him. Past the guilt. Past the hunger. Straight into the world she would now claim for herself. In the Red Room—rebuilt, repurposed—she laid out the commandments one by one on the altar of velvet. Not printed. Not digital. Etched by hand. In her ink. In her blood. In her story. Was The TEN SINFUL COMMANDMENTS And then She added the last one. One Lilith never had the stre
The air in the sealed room pressed in from all sides.Still.Suffocating.As if the space itself knew this moment was sacred. A moment that would split Lydia’s soul wide open—and reveal who she really was when all the fire had cleared.Dr. Marlow blinked slowly, wrists still strapped tight to the chair.Across the room, Damian hadn’t moved.But Lydia had.Not forward.Not backward.Inward.She stood between them now.The girl she’d been? Gone.The weapon she became? Spent.This woman?She was choosing.“You said you were watching me for them,” Lydia murmured, circling Marlow slowly. “But you didn’t stop anything. You didn’t warn me. You let it happen.”Marlow didn’t beg. Didn’t deny it.“I observed,” she said quietly. “Because I wasn’t allowed to interfere. And if I had… you wouldn’t have become what you are.”Lydia paused.Brows lifting.“That’s not an excuse. That’s a confession.”Marlow met her gaze. “It’s a truth. You don’t like it. But it’s why you survived.”Lydia turned then—sl
The reel in Lydia’s arms felt heavier with every step.Not because of its weight.But because of what it meant.It wasn’t just evidence.It wasn’t just memory.It was the last thread tying her to Lilith.And she was ready to burn it.She moved deeper into the underground wing—past every hall that once threatened her. Past the velvet. Past the mirrored rooms. Past the ghosts of moans and scars and rules carved in lust.Until she reached it.The final door.Unlike the others, it was white.Unassuming.Ordinary.Except for the keypad beside it—and a small scanner that blinked red.She lifted the reel.Slid the embedded chip from its core and touched it to the scanner.The red light blinked.Then turned green.Click.The door unlatched.“Lydia.”She froze.Damian’s voice.She turned slowly.He stood at the end of the hall, breathless, eyes locked on the reel in her hands.“I was looking for you,” he said, his voice tight.She said nothing.Not yet.His eyes dropped to the door behind her.
The key was warm in her palm.Not hot. Not glowing. Just… alive. Like it had waited for her skin. Her readiness.Lydia walked alone through the west corridor—silent, stripped down to the simplest version of herself. No robe. No red. No mask. Just the echo of her bare feet, and the heartbeat she no longer hid from.Damian hadn’t followed her.She hadn’t asked him to.Some things, she needed to face alone.The key slid easily into the lock.A door she’d never seen before—because it had never wanted to be seen.It opened with no sound.Just stillness.And a soft whisper of air, as if the room had just exhaled for the first time in years.Inside: darkness.And at the center of it, a small pedestal. A sealed glass case.Inside the case: a reel of film.Old. Fragile. Unmarked.Beside it, a note in Lilith’s handwriting:“For the girl who made it through the fire.”There was only one screen in the room.A projector, already wired.Waiting.Lydia moved without hesitation.Slotted the reel in.
The candle had burned low beside them.Its wax curled like a closing eye, as if the room itself had finally stopped watching. The silence wasn’t sacred now.It was final.Lydia shifted slowly, her body aching in that beautiful, soul-deep way—the kind that meant something real had happened. Not just to her body. But to the thing inside it.She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling as Damian traced slow, reverent circles on her stomach.He hadn’t spoken since she told him she didn’t regret the kneeling.But she could feel the words building in him.And when they finally came, they didn’t sound like a man seeking forgiveness.They sounded like a man who wanted to start over.“What happens now?” he asked.Lydia turned to him.“Now,” she said quietly, “we see who we are when no one is watching.”He swallowed.“And if I’m not the man you need me to be?”She reached out and cupped his jaw, her thumb brushing the place he used to hide behind.“You already are.”They didn’t speak for a while
The house was silent.Not the kind of silence that hides screams or swallows memories.The kind of silence that waits.Lydia moved through the corridor barefoot, skin still glowing from the flames she’d lit—on his body, on her rules, on everything they’d built from obedience and sin.She didn’t tremble anymore.She didn’t second-guess.Not even after what happened in the red room.Not even after what she let herself feel.But that was the danger now, wasn’t it?She had punished. She had reclaimed. She had dominated.And now the question wasn’t what else she could takeIt was: Would she ever give again?The elevator doors opened on a floor she didn’t recognize.No red velvet.No sterile lights.No mirrored walls.Just warmth.And a single flickering candle in the center of the room.Next to it, a chair.And next to the chair—Damian.Kneeling.Head bowed.Unbound.Unshackled.Uncommanded.Waiting.Not because he was ordered.Not because she broke him.But because something in him chose