She didn't say a word when he locked the bedroom door.
Didn't flinch as the click echoed through the room like a promise. Her feet ached in the heels she hadn't removed since the party. The dress clung to her skin like an unwanted memory. But it was the silence behind her that made her feel naked.
Roman didn't speak. He just watched her.
His jacket was already off. His tie discarded carelessly on the floor. The air shifted when he stepped closer — and Serene's breath hitched when his fingers brushed her zipper.
"I was soft with you," he murmured against her ear. "Gentle. Patient. You thought that meant you had a choice."
The zipper went down with a slow, deliberate sound. Her spine stiffened, but he didn't stop.
"You thought I'd let you run," he whispered, his lips now dragging along the bare skin of her back. "That I'd let you lie to me. Kill what's mine."
She tried to step away — but his hand gripped her waist, fingers digging in like claws. He pressed her against the cold wall, her dress falling in folds around her ankles.
"Beg," he growled, voice low, dangerous.
"For what?"
"For me to stop," he said. "So I can ignore it."
But she didn't. She wouldn't. Because begging never worked with monsters. It only made them hungrier.
His hands were not soft. His mouth was not slow. The man who once kissed her knuckles in the garden was gone. In his place stood the devil who watched her sleep. Who signed her soul with invisible ink the night she stepped into his house.
He didn't make love to her.
He claimed her.
Over and over, until her throat was raw and her legs trembled.
Until her tears smeared across satin sheets she no longer recognized.
Until he collapsed beside her, not in affection — but in possession.
"You're mine," he said again, slower this time, as if etching it into her bones.
She turned her head away.
And smiled.
Not because she meant it. Not because she forgave him. But because it was the last act of rebellion she had left — to smile like she hadn't broken yet.
But her body betrayed her. Her heart raced in rhythms she couldn't control. The scent of him — expensive and wrong — still clung to her skin when she finally slipped out of the bed.
She didn't sleep that night.
She just sat in the dark, knees pulled to her chest, counting every breath like it was the last piece of freedom left to her.
Roman watched her from the shadows.
And he smiled too.
Because even her silence was his now.
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