Semua Bab Cage to Cage: Bab 151 - Bab 160

VEX POV Jessie Mason is still smiling. That’s how I know we’re running out of time. Not nervous. Not defiant. Not cracking under the pressure the way most people do when they realize they’re sitting in a concrete box with two men who don’t miss. She’s comfortable. Legs crossed. Shoulders loose. Mouth curved like she’s enjoying the show. That smile tells me everything I need to know. “She’s not here anymore,” Kade says, voice sharp as broken glass. He slams both hands onto the steel table, the sound echoing through the room. “Where did he take her? Where the hell is Ivan operating out of?” Jessie lifts one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Told you. I don’t know specifics.” I don’t interrupt. I just watch her. “I wasn’t inner circle,” she continues. “I passed messages. Drop points. Locations after the fact. That’s it.” Kade’s jaw flexes. He’s barely holding himself back from flipping the table and dragging answers out of her the hard way. I don’t blame him. But rage is loud. An

BRYNN POV The door opens again. I feel it before I hear it—my body tightening, breath going shallow, muscles coiling like they’re anticipating something my mind still can’t name. He steps inside. The same man. The same calm. The same wrongness. I lift my head, heart pounding. “You didn’t answer me.” He closes the door behind him, the click final, deliberate. “You didn’t ask the right question.” I swallow. “Then ask it for me.” He studies me for a long moment, eyes dark and intent, like he’s memorizing my face all over again. Not hunger. Not cruelty. Ownership. “You asked why you don’t remember me,” he says quietly. My pulse spikes. “Yes.” “Because Robert didn’t just erase memories,” he continues. “He dismantled a life.” Cold spreads through my chest. “You were his,” I say, forcing the words out. “You keep saying that like it means something.” “It means everything,” he replies. He moves closer, stopping just out of reach. I can smell him now—clean, sharp, familiar in

VEX POVGone.That’s the word my mind keeps circling, like if I look at it from enough angles, it’ll change.It doesn’t.Brynn stands six feet away from me, breathing evenly, shoulders squared, weight balanced on the balls of her feet like she’s waiting for a command.Not a person.A weapon.Ivan’s fingers flex once at her lower back, a subtle reminder of control.“Lower your guns,” he says mildly. “She’ll interpret sudden aggression as a threat vector.”I don’t move.Neither does Kade.My men hesitate—trained, disciplined—but uncertain. They feel it too. The wrongness of her stillness. The way her eyes don’t see us.“Brynn,” I say.Her gaze shifts to me instantly.Not recognition.Target acquisition.My chest tightens.Ivan’s mouth curves. “See? Perfect alignment.”I force my voice steady. “You don’t have to do this.”She tilts her head a fraction.Processing.Ivan chuckles. “Careful, Vex. Contradiction without grounding causes instability.”I ignore him and step forward slowly, lowe

BRYNN POVVex doesn’t say a word when he pulls his phone out.He steps a few feet away, voice low, controlled—professional in the way men get when they’re holding something together with sheer force of will.“Cleanup,” he says. “Warehouse on Fifth. One body. Discreet.”A pause.“Yes. Full sweep.”He ends the call and turns back to me like nothing about the world has shifted—like there isn’t a man dead on the concrete because I finally chose myself.My stomach twists.I don’t look at Ivan again.I don’t need to.⸻The ride back to the mansion is quiet.Not awkward.Not tense.Just… heavy.Kade sits across from me, his knee angled toward mine, close enough that I feel the heat through the space between us. He doesn’t touch me—not yet—but he’s there. Present. Steady. Watching me like he’s memorizing every breath I take.Vex sits beside me, one arm stretched along the back of the seat, not caging me in, just… available.No one tells me what to do.No one asks me to explain.And that, some

BRYNN POVI don’t go back to Vex’s room.I don’t even hesitate.Kade is still standing close to me when I ask him to stay, and when he says yes, something settles inside my chest.Not reckless.Not desperate.Certain.⸻His room feels different than Vex’s.Less polished. Less controlled.More him.The door closes quietly behind us, and for a moment neither of us move. The air shifts—thick with everything we’ve never allowed ourselves to touch.Kade exhales slowly.“If we do this,” he says, voice low, steady in that dangerous way he gets when he’s holding too much inside, “it’s because you’re choosing it. Choosing us. I step into him.“I’m not afraid,” I whisper.And that’s the truth.His hand finds my waist. Mine finds his collar.The kiss is different than Vex’s.Where Vex was restraint and reverence, Kade is heat held on a knife’s edge. Months—years—of self-denial breaking open in one breath.He kisses me like he’s memorizing me.Like he’s reclaiming something he thought he’d burie