Behind me, I left a man undone, the room now thick with his humiliation.
Cassian matched my stride as we reached the hallway. "Diplomatic," he muttered with a half-smile. "By your standards."
"Diplomatic? That's generous." Derrick's voice was rough with amusement.
I adjusted my sleeves, feeling the weight of my watch against my wrist. "He heard what he needed to hear."
Outside, I inhaled deeply, letting the clean air replace the stench of Darzi's desperation as I descended the steps. The heavy doors sealed shut behind us with a satisfying thud of finality. In the Panamera, Cassian took the passenger seat while Derrick settled in the back, cracking his window.
"You realize what you just did in there?" Cassian asked.
The engine awakened beneath my touch. "It was a boundary."
"Since when do you set boundaries? Usually, you just eliminate the problem," Derrick remarked.
""You know I can' t put him in the ground yet. Not until everything's in place. But she needed to know someone would stand between her and him."
Cassian leaned back in his seat. "You did the right thing.”
" I did what was necessary," I corrected. My reasons weren’t entirely noble. I did want her away from her father and I wouldremove each of his fingers if he put a hand on her again, but more than that I wanted her closer to me where I could watch her all day and night with nothing but walls to separate us at night.
The truth was simpler and far more dangerous if I were completely honest with myself. I was borderline obsessed. What began as curiosity when she sat across from me atAzure, had evolved into something I hadn't felt in years, genuine fascination with another human being.
I was intrigued. Not by her beauty—though it was undeniable. It was how she carried herself in rooms designed to diminish her. How she'd built fortresses from whispers and survived on scraps of dignity no one thought to leave her.
I'd spent years perfecting emotional detachment. It served me well in business, in the Dominion, in every facet of life. I'd built my own corner of our empire on the ability to act without sentiment clouding my judgment. Relationships were transactional. Sex was physical release, marriage was strategy.
But now I had Selene and I wanted to peel back every layer she'd built, expose every secret she kept hidden. I wanted to own not just her body but her mind—to be the only person who understood exactly what lived beneath that perfect facade. The realization should have alarmed me.
Instead, it felt like confirmation of something I'd known instinctively from the moment I decided to make her mine.
From the back seat, Derrick cleared his throat. "Angel will approve—and God knows you need someone who won't shatter the first time you show your true nature.”
I didn't respond to his assessment.
"Nothing to say," Cassian observed, breaking into my thoughts.
"No," I replied, accelerating through a turn.
He knew better than to press further.
"We're almost home," I said after another few miles, breaking the silence as we approached the estate gates.
Cassian nodded. "She'll be waiting."
She would, wouldn’t she? From this day forward Selene would be there, in my home, surrounded by my possessions, my family, my protection. She would sleep under my roof tonight, wake there tomorrow, and begin to understand what it meant to belong to me completely.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A sliver of sunlight sliced across my desk. For hours I'd watched it creep toward me, measuring the morning in inches while documents sat untouched beneath my hands, my thoughts elsewhere entirely.
My phone buzzed with Santos' update from thirty minutes ago.
She’s safe. Minimal conversation. Refusing to take much.
I set the phone down, unsurprised. What else would I expect from a woman who'd spent years as the centerpiece in her father's collection? Darzi had displayed her like fine art—to be admired but never touched.
A manila folder lay open before me. Crime scene photos without the crime. Staff records with conspicuous gaps. Security rotations that changed without pattern. Women whose employment histories ended abruptly, as if redacted from existence. Guards hired from agencies that existed only on paper, bound by confidentiality agreements that would make government officials blanch.