Lahat ng Kabanata ng Cage to Cage: Kabanata 121 - Kabanata 129

VEX POV I sit motionless in the chair, the same one I’ve occupied for weeks, maybe months—time has lost meaning in this place. The sterile air smells like antiseptic and burnt coffee, and my clothes are still wrinkled from sleeping in them night after night. The quiet hum of machines fills the room. Beep. Pause. Beep. Her heartbeat—steady, but fragile. Every morning, I wait for her to open her eyes. Every night, I tell myself she will tomorrow. When I hear the faint rustle of movement, I think I’m dreaming again. My head snaps up before I can stop it, my body going rigid. Her eyes are open. For a second, I forget how to breathe. Three months of silence, of fear and guilt, hang suspended in the sterile air between us. The sound of her breath. The faint flutter of her pulse on the monitor. The world shrinks until there’s only her. “Brynn.” Her name leaves my lips. Rough, cracked. Too small for the weight it carries. She blinks, disoriented, her gaze drifting over the room bef

KADE POV — FLASHBACKThe hospital fades away—the smell of antiseptic replaced by smoke, the hum of machines by the rhythm of rain.Chicago.Winter.The night I stopped being a boy.Gunfire shattered the calm first. Not the kind that echoes from a distance—this was close, inside the house. My father’s voice carried through the chaos, steady even as men he trusted raised their weapons against him.The Russo family once ruled Chicago’s underground. My father built that empire from the ground up. But power invites betrayal, and the people he made kings decided they didn’t need him anymore.They killed him in front of me. My mother too.I remember the smell of gasoline, the sting of smoke in my lungs, and the sound of my heartbeat pounding in my ears as I ran barefoot through snow and blood.They left me for dead. I stayed that way.For weeks, I lived like a ghost—under bridges, inside train tunnels, sleeping anywhere the wind couldn’t reach. The city didn’t care about my name or my bloodl

BRYNN POV The night hums with quiet life. Cicadas sing in the trees beyond the estate walls, and the air smells faintly of wet earth and sandalwood. Rain still clings to the iron railing, jeweled droplets reflecting the faint city lights in the distance. I stand barefoot on the balcony, wrapped in one of the soft robes left in the wardrobe. The fabric feels foreign against my skin—too familiar to be new, too impersonal to be mine. I light a cigarette, watching the flame tremble before catching. The first inhale burns. The taste is sharp and bitter, grounding me in a way nothing else has since waking up in that hospital room. Smoke drifts upward, curling into the cool air like a ghost of something I used to be. Behind me, the door creaks softly. I turn my head just enough to see Kade in the doorway—barefoot, shirt rumpled, sleeves rolled halfway up his arms. His presence fills the quiet effortlessly, like he’s always belonged there. “Didn’t think you smoked anymore,” he says, voi

BRYNN POVSleep won’t come.The sheets smell faintly of sandalwood and smoke—his scent—and it only makes the silence louder. I stare at the ceiling, tracing the faint shadows cast by the rain-damp moonlight, counting seconds until the clock somewhere in the hall ticks over to another hour I can’t feel.Everything here feels borrowed. The room. The clothes. Even my name when people speak it.I used to belong somewhere, to someone. But now it’s like living inside a story everyone remembers except me.The image of Kade’s eyes—dark, steady, full of something I can’t name—won’t leave me. And behind it, Vex’s silhouette on the opposite balcony, cigarette ember glowing like a warning light in the dark.Three people. One truth I can’t remember.I throw off the sheets and stand, wrapping the robe tighter around me. The mansion is quiet, the kind of silence that hums beneath marble and memory. My bare feet make no sound on the polished floor as I step into the hallway.The walls are lined with

The words hang between us long after he stops speaking. Rather have you partly—than not at all.Something inside me twists, tightens. The room blurs at the edges. My pulse pounds in my ears, drowning out the sound of rain beginning again beyond the windows.And then—A flash.The sharp echo of footsteps in a marble hallway. Music spilling faintly from a ballroom. A glint of gold light against Vex’s eyes just before he says, forgive me.My breath catches.Suddenly I’m not sitting at the table anymore. I’m there—pressed against the wall, the world shrinking to the heat of his hand at my throat and the taste of danger on his lips. The kiss crashes through me all over again—rough, consuming, meant to be a cover but becoming something else entirely.I can feel it—the press of his chest, the low growl in his throat, the split second before the guards rounded the corner. The way he broke the kiss like it cost him something to stop.The memory fades as fast as it came, leaving me trembling. M