Page 36 of Vamp CEO Bit You Where?

"It feels like Owen."

"Jazz—"

"Not the same. Yes, right. Owen took my work and called it his. Sebastian has taken my life and is trying to say it's keeping me safe. But it's similar, Penny. A powerful man. Taking over my life, like I'm meant to say fuckin' thank you."

"You're allowed to be furious and grateful at once," she says. "He might have a hundred reasons. You must hear him out. Only he can give you the truth. Give him a chance."

"Yeah." My voice cracks. "Yeah."

"Where are you going?"

"Not sure."

I pull onto the shoulder, and let go. It comes up out of me ugly and loud, both hands fisted on the wheel. The tears run down my cheeks. I press my forehead to the cold rim of the wheel and ask the dark the only question left.

Does he love me—the loud, stubborn, inconvenient person—or does he love controlling me, hiding me from the world? A cage is still a cage. Especially when the lock is on the outside. I do not drive back. I stay parked on a side road until morning. If I go back, it will be for answers, not forgiveness.

22

SEBASTIAN

She left last night. I have counted every hour. I've not searched for her, because she doesn't want to be found. I can say one word to Gid and three cars will move in the search. One query to the network would make her phone betray its nearest tower. I don't send it. But, I care about her. I need her back.

I sit in darkness and use none of it. Restraint drags its claws through me. I pace, holding myself from summoning Elias, each time I stop myself by feeling the wood on my desk. I have to trust that she'll come back. Not retrieve her like she has no freedom. Morning light cuts across the ceiling, and then the door swings open. Jasmine stands with her coat still on, red eyed like she's been crying all night, and hasn’t slept. She’s decided only one thing: the truth belongs to her.

"I came for answers. Not a reunion.The Patient Relief thing," she says. "Tell me you didn't."

"I did."

"My mother's debt. That was you?"

"Yes." I rise slowly, hands where she can see them. "You were never meant to know. I was trying to help."

"Anything else." She steps in. "Don't make me list it. You list it."

I drag the admission up whole, no velvet around the teeth. "A security detail you never saw. Threat assessments run on anyone who came within reach of you. Your movements logged so I would know if a pattern formed around you. Three men who were going to be a problem, handled before they became one. A stalker who was already gone when you reached for your phone."

"Why was I the last person allowed to know?"

"Because if I told you, you might have run."

Her breath goes thin. "That's honest of you," she says. "Keep going. I want the real truth. Where does this come from, Sebastian? Because rich men don't do this, they don't watch a woman's every move."

I have never said this out loud. Not to Gid. Not in two hundred years.

"My father." The word feels strange in my mouth. "Before any of this. Before I was made what I am. He was a man who controlled everything. My mother. The staff. Me. I learned very young that to survive him was to be still. Say nothing. Watch a room and know where the danger was. I thought that was love. The managing. I thought if you cared about someone you got there first, you removed the threat before they ever had to feel afraid. Then I became this, and the instinct only got sharper. I had more tools. I never once questioned whether I should use them."

She doesn't move toward me. I'm grateful for that. If she did I would not survive it.

"That explains it," she says quietly. "It doesn't fix it."

"No."

"Paying my mother's debt was a kindness. It probably saved her from a lifetime of debt." Her voice doesn't shake. "And it wasmine to know about. I can be grateful she's now debt-free, but I'm furious at you too."

"I'm sorry."

The silence surrounds us, and her face loosens, not into forgiveness — into recognition.