Chapter 2: The Armchair and the Debt
The kiss deepened, and Elara stopped pretending she had any control left. Dante's hands slid down her back, fingers splaying across her spine like he was memorizing the architecture of her. He tasted like coffee and something darker beneath—want, raw and unapologetic, and it hollowed out the last of her resistance.
He broke away just long enough to breathe. "Say it again."
"Say what?"
"That this is a terrible idea."
Her laugh came out breathless, almost broken. "This is a spectacularly terrible idea."
"So is me walking away right now." His thumb traced her lower lip. "But I'm not going to do that. And you're not going to tell me to."
She grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him back down.
This time there was no pretense, no careful inches, no orbiting restraint—he swallowed her mouth down whole and hauled her up off the floor. Elara's legs wrapped around his waist before her brain caught up, and by then his hands were under her ass, carrying her the few steps to the armchair. The one her mother had read to her from, the one she'd sat in as a teenager, hiding from the world with a book clutched to her chest like a shield.
The leather creaked when he set her on it, hard enough to knock the wind from her lungs.
Dante didn't let her catch her breath. He caught her wrists instead, one hand cuffing both of them above her head, pinning them to the high back of the chair. The brass lamp on the desk threw his shadow across the faded floral wallpaper—large and hungry, swallowing her whole.
"Every gift has a price," he said, his voice low and rough. His free hand worked the buttons of her cardigan, popping them one by one with maddening patience. "I told you there was a catch. This is it."
"I don't—" She couldn't finish. His fingers had slipped beneath the cotton of her bra, finding her nipple and rolling it between thumb and forefinger, and her sentence shattered on a sharp inhale.
"You don't what?"
"I don't know if I—"
"You signed the contract, Elara." He dipped his head and dragged his teeth along her collarbone. "You said the vows. You took the ring."
"I know what I did."
"Then stop pretending you didn't mean it."
She wanted to argue. She wanted to spit back that she'd signed because she was desperate, because he'd cornered her, because the alternative was watching her mother's legacy rot from the inside out. But his mouth had found the hollow of her throat, and his tongue was tracing a hot line down to the swell of her breasts, and every rational thought burned up in the wake of him.
He shoved the cardigan off her shoulders. The bra followed—a cheap, cotton thing with a broken clasp, and she felt a hot flush of embarrassment when he pulled it open. But Dante made a low sound in his throat, half growl, half groan, and looked at her like she was the first woman he'd ever seen undressed.
"Fucking hell," he said.
"What?"
"Nothing." His thumb circled her nipple again, harder this time. "You're just—" He shook his head like words were failing him. "You have no idea what you look like right now."
"Probably like someone who hasn't slept in two days."
"You look like mine."
Her protest died in her throat when he bent and took her nipple into his mouth. The heat of it, the wet suction, the stroke of his tongue against that tight, sensitive peak—her entire body arched off the chair. He didn't stop. He suckled deep, pulling a sound from her that she didn't recognize as her own, and his free hand kept her wrists pinned while the other palmed her other breast, rough and demanding.
By the time he lifted his head, she was shaking.
"Please," she heard herself say.
"Please what?"
She couldn't answer. She didn't know.
Dante watched her with those storm-gray eyes, taking in her flushed face, her wrecked hair spilling out of what had been a neat updo, the rapid rise and fall of her bare chest. He looked like a man cataloging a scene he'd imagine later, alone, in the dark.
"Ask me for it," he said.
"Ask you for what?"
"For whatever you want. Anything. Say it out loud and it's yours."
She wanted to tell him to fuck off, that she wasn't going to beg for anything, that she still had some shred of dignity buried under the last forty-eight hours of freefall. But then his hand slid down her stomach to the waistband of her skirt, and she understood, with startling clarity, that dignity wasn't going to survive the next five minutes.
"Touch me," she said.
"Where?"
"You know where."
"Say it."
Bastard. She hated how much his voice alone could undo her. "Between my legs. Please."
The please broke something loose in him. He shoved her skirt up around her hips and hooked his fingers into her underwear, dragging it down her legs and off with a single, impatient motion. Then he was spreading her knees apart, forcing them wide, wider, until she was entirely open to him in the lamplight.
"God, look at you." His thumb dragged through the wet, slick heat of her, and her hips jerked. "Already this wet. Is that all for me?"
"Yes."
"Say it properly."
"Yes—for you. Fuck." She was going to kill him. She was going to kill him and then maybe thank him.
He didn't make her wait. He pushed one finger into her, slow and deep, curling it just so, and her vision whited out at the edges. Then a second. Then his mouth on her clit, hot and merciless, tongue working in flat, steady strokes while his fingers pumped in and out at a rhythm that had her gripping the arms of the chair like a woman drowning.
The leather was still warm from all the years her mother had sat there. The books on the shelves were watching. There was a picture of her mother on the desk, and Elara wanted to care, wanted to feel some flicker of guilt or shame, but then Dante twisted his fingers and bit down gently on her clit, and she came apart with a cry torn from somewhere deep in her chest.
He didn't let up. He worked her through it, mouth and fingers relentless, until she was oversensitive and twitching and smacking at his shoulders to make him stop.
"Enough," she gasped. "Enough—I can't—"
"I told you." His voice was a ruin. He rose up over her, his face wet with her, and the sight of it punched the air straight out of her lungs. "You should have told me to stop."
"You're a monster."
"I know."
He unbuckled his belt while she watched, his eyes never leaving hers. The sound of the zipper was obscene in the quiet of the office. When he pulled his cock out, hard and thick and curving up against his stomach, Elara's mouth went dry. She'd been with exactly three men in her life, and none of them had ever looked like this.
"Eyes on me," he said.
She dragged her gaze back up to his face.
"You tell me right now if you want me to stop. This is the last time I'm asking."
She should have said stop. Every instinct, every scrap of self-preservation she had left, should have been screaming at her to say the word. Instead she shook her head.
"I don't want you to stop."
Dante didn't smile. He looked like a man who'd been handed something he didn't deserve and was too far gone to question it. He dragged the head of his cock through her wetness, coating himself in her, nudging against her clit just long enough to make her whimper. Then he lined up and pushed in.
Even slow, even careful, it burned. She was slick but he was big, and her body resisted the stretch despite everything. He stopped halfway, jaw clenched, breathing hard through his nose.
"Look at you," he said again, rough. "Tight as fuck. Taking me like you were made for it."
"Shut up." She was clinging to the chair arms like they were the only solid thing in the world.
"No."
He pushed in the rest of the way. Bottomed out with a groan that vibrated through both of them, and Elara had to bite her lip to keep from screaming. The chair creaked. Somewhere behind her, a stack of paperbacks slid off the edge of the desk and hit the floor, and neither of them cared.
"Fuck," he said. Just that. Just the one word, but it came out like a prayer.
For a moment, he didn't move. He just held himself there, buried deep, letting her adjust while his thumb traced lazy circles on her hip. His forehead pressed to hers, his breath hot against her mouth. The intimacy of it was almost worse than the sex.
Then he started to move.
Slow at first, deep strokes that dragged along every nerve she had, searing and perfect. His hands gripped her thighs and spread her wider, hitting something inside her that made white spots dance across her vision. She fisted his shirt in both hands and just held on.
"You feel that?" he said.
"You're—yes, I feel it—"
"Good. Open your eyes."
She hadn't realized she'd closed them. She dragged her lids open and found his face inches away, watching her with that same predatory focus, reading every flicker of pleasure like a holy text.
"Wanted this for two years," he said. "Wanted to be inside you like this. Wanted to hear you say my name when I made you come."
"You're insane."
"Probably." He pulled almost all the way out and slammed back in, hard enough that the chair rocked on its legs. The sound she made was barely human. "Say my name anyway."
"Dante."
"Again."
"Dante."
"Again."
"Dante, please—"
He lost whatever leash he'd been holding. The strokes turned brutal, punishing, driving her into the back of the chair so hard her head bounced against the cushion. He fucked like he did everything else—methodical, precise, no wasted motion—but underneath it was something wild and starving. His palm slapped against her ass, once, twice, and she was too far gone to care about the sting. His thumb found her clit and worked it in hard little circles, and the rhythm of his hips stuttered when she clenched around him.
"Fuck—doing that on purpose?"
"Maybe."
"You're a menace." He angled her hips up and hit deeper, and it was her turn to lose coherence. "A menace who's about to come all over my cock. Say it. Tell me you're close."
"I'm—yes, yes, I'm—"
"Come for me, Elara. Now."
His voice was the thing that pushed her over. Low and commanding and wrecked, like he was falling apart just as much as she was. She clenched down hard and shattered, vision going dark at the edges, her mouth open around a scream that had no sound in it.
Dante kept moving through it, chasing his own end with ragged, brutal thrusts. His hand slid up to her throat—not squeezing, just holding, a claim more than a threat—and his eyes locked on hers.
"Inside," she managed. "I'm on the pill—you can—"
"Don't have to say it twice."
He buried himself and came with a sound that was almost pained, hips jerking, cock pulsing deep inside her. For a long moment he stayed there, sweat beading at his temples, breath sawing in and out of his chest. Then his head dropped forward onto her shoulder, and she felt the weight of him settle, heavy and warm and terrifyingly human.
Neither of them spoke.
The lamp flickered. Somewhere down the street, a car alarm went off and then stopped. The clock on the desk, a vintage thing her mother had loved, ticked past the hour.
Dante pulled out slowly, and she hissed at the loss. He stepped back just enough to look at her—flushed, drained, spread across her mother's chair with her skirt around her hips and his come starting to slip down her thigh.
He looked feral. Possessive. Lit up from the inside.
Then he did something she didn't expect. He dropped to his knees, grabbed a tissue from the box on the desk, and gently, carefully, cleaned her up.
"You don't have to—"
"I know I don't." His voice was softer now, stripped of the snarl. He disposed of the tissue, then pressed a kiss to her inner thigh, almost reverent. "But I wanted to."
She didn't know what to say to that. So she said nothing.
He stood and pulled her to her feet, righted her skirt, worked the buttons of her cardigan back into place one by one. He handled her like she was something breakable, which would have been funny if it weren't so unnerving.
"I meant what I said," he told her, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. "You're free to leave. Any time. Any day."
"And if I don't?"
Dante's mouth curved. It wasn't a smile. It was something older and hungrier, a warning and a promise wrapped in the same breath.
"Then you stay. And I keep collecting."
He picked up his jacket from the floor, shrugged it on, and crossed to the door like he hadn't just fucked her senseless in the back office of a bookstore that still smelled like her mother's perfume.
At the threshold he paused.
"Dinner at eight. Don't be late."
The bell above the front door chimed as he left. Elara stood alone in the office, wrecked and reeling, the taste of him still on her tongue and the ache of him still deep between her legs.
She looked at the photograph on the desk.
"Mom," she whispered. "I think I'm in trouble."
The clock kept ticking. The city kept humming. And somewhere out in the street, a black sedan pulled away from the curb and disappeared into the dusk.
The door clicked shut behind him, and Elara stood alone in the wreckage of her own composure. The office smelled like sex and leather and the ghost of her mother's lavender sachets. Her legs trembled beneath her skirt, and when she finally sank back into the armchair, the cushion was still warm from both their bodies.
She pressed her palm flat against her chest, feeling her heartbeat hammer against her ribs like it was trying to escape. The clock ticked. The lamp flickered. Outside, the city had swallowed Dante whole, and she was left behind to pick through the debris of what she'd just done.
Her phone buzzed in her purse. She fished it out with unsteady hands and found a text from the same unknown number as before.
"Wear something red. I want to see it on the floor later. —D.M."
She stared at the screen until the words blurred. Then she typed back, her thumbs clumsy with adrenaline.
"You're presumptuous."
The reply came within seconds.
"I'm accurate."
She didn't have a response to that. She dropped the phone back into her purse and forced herself to stand, to walk, to lock up the store and flip the sign and pretend she was a normal woman doing normal things. The evening air hit her face like a slap, cold and bracing. She walked the twelve blocks to the penthouse instead of calling Marco, needing the sting of the wind to remind her that she was still real.
The elevator ride felt different this time. The marble lobby, the security guard who nodded at her like she belonged there, the private keycard that granted her access to the top of the world—all of it felt like a movie she'd wandered into by mistake. When the doors slid open, the penthouse was dark except for a single light in the kitchen.
Dante stood at the island, sleeves rolled up, chopping vegetables with the same precision he brought to everything else. He didn't look up when she entered, but she saw the corner of his mouth twitch.
"You're late."
"Traffic."
"You walked."
She froze halfway to the island. "How do you—"
"Security cameras. I told you." He slid the chopped peppers into a bowl and finally looked at her. His gaze traveled from her face to her wrinkled cardigan to the dark smudge of mascara beneath her eyes. Something flickered across his features—amusement, maybe, or tenderness. "You look wrecked."
"Whose fault is that?"
"Yours. You kissed me first."
She wanted to argue, but he was technically correct. She settled onto a stool at the island and watched him cook, her elbows on the counter, her chin in her hands. He moved through the kitchen like he owned it, which he did, and the domesticity of it was so jarring compared to the man who'd pinned her wrists and fucked her senseless an hour ago.
"Why are you cooking?" she asked.
"Because you didn't eat breakfast."
"I ate the omelet."
"Half of it." He added oil to a pan and the vegetables sizzled. "You need to eat more."
"I'm not a child."
"No. You're my wife." He said it matter-of-factly, like it was a statement of physics. "And I take care of what's mine."
There it was again. That word. Mine. It landed differently now, after what they'd done in her mother's chair. It felt less like a threat and more like a promise, which was somehow more terrifying.
She watched him cook in silence, her fingers tracing patterns on the marble countertop. The penthouse hummed with quiet—no traffic noise, no neighbors arguing, no creaking radiators. Just the sizzle of vegetables and the occasional clink of a spoon against a pan.
"Where did you learn to cook?" she asked.
"My mother." He didn't look up from the stove. "She worked double shifts at a laundry, so I made dinner every night. Kept us from starving."
"What happened to her?"
The question hung between them. Dante's hands stilled for just a second before he resumed stirring.
"She got sick. I was fourteen. Couldn't afford the treatments." His voice was flat, neutral, the tone of a man reciting facts he'd long since filed away. "I started running errands for a man who could. Small stuff at first. Deliveries. Collections. By the time I was twenty, I owned the operation."
Elara's throat tightened. "So you became a criminal to save her."
"I became a criminal to survive. My mother was already gone by then."
The words sat heavy in the air. She wanted to reach across the island and touch his hand, but the distance between them felt impossible to cross. He'd shared something real, something raw, and she didn't know what to do with it.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly.
"Don't be." He slid the vegetables onto two plates and added seared chicken. "It was a long time ago."
He carried the plates to the dining table, a sleek glass thing that sat near the windows. The city sprawled beneath them like a bed of stars, and Elara had the dizzying sensation of being untethered from gravity.
She sat across from him and picked at her food.
"Eat properly," he said, watching her.
"I am eating."
"You're moving your chicken around the plate. That's not eating. That's foreplay with cutlery."
She laughed despite herself—a real laugh, unexpected and bright. Dante's expression softened, just slightly, and for a moment he looked almost human. Almost like a man who could be loved.
She ate. The food was good, simple and warm, and she realized how hungry she'd been. They finished the meal in comfortable silence, the kind that came from shared history or shared beds, and she wasn't sure which one applied to them.
When she was done, Dante collected the plates and stacked them in the sink. He didn't wash them, just left them there, like maybe he wasn't as put-together as he pretended to be.
"Come here," he said.
She hesitated. Then she obeyed.
He pulled her into the living room, where the windows wrapped around the room and the city pressed in on all sides. His hands found her waist and drew her close, her back against his chest, both of them facing the glass.
"Look," he murmured.
She looked. At the lights, at the buildings, at the thousands of lives happening simultaneously in windows she could see but never reach. And there, five blocks away, the tiny glow of her bookstore, dark now but still standing.
"You watched me from up here," she said.
"For two years."
"Why?"
His arm tightened around her waist. "Because you were the only thing in this city that didn't look at me like I was a monster."
Her breath caught. "I didn't know you existed."
"I know." His mouth brushed against her ear. "That was the point."
She turned in his arms, facing him, her hands coming up to rest on his chest. His heartbeat was steady beneath her palms, a metronome counting out time she didn't know she was spending.
"I'm not going to fall in love with you," she whispered.
"No?"
"No."
Dante smiled. It was the first real smile she'd seen from him, not a smirk or a darkness-edged thing, but something almost gentle.
"That's fine," he said.
He kissed her. Soft this time, almost sweet, a question instead of a demand. She answered it without thinking, her lips parting under his, her body leaning into him like a plant toward light.
"Elara."
She hummed against his mouth.
"I want you again."
"Want is not a word you get to use after you already had me less than two hours ago."
"Sure it is." His hands slid down her back, over her ass, gripping hard enough to pull a squeak from her. "Want isn't finite. I've wanted you for two years. A single round doesn't scratch that."
"One round? You're calling that one round?"
"One round. In a chair. Limited positions." His mouth found her neck. "I have a bed and a whole night ahead of me. I'd say we're just getting started."
She shoved at his chest, not hard enough to move him. "You're impossible."
"And yet you're still here."
She hated how right he was. Hated the way her body responded to his touch like it had been waiting for permission its whole life. Hated the fact that she'd signed a contract for one year of her life and somehow ended up handing him something she couldn't take back.
"Bedroom," she said.
Dante's eyes darkened. "Say please."
"Go to hell."
"Please?"
He lifted her off her feet and carried her through the penthouse like she weighed nothing at all. The bedroom was dark, the windows uncurtained, the city lights casting long shadows across the bed. He set her down on the edge of the mattress and stood between her knees.
"Strip," he said.
"You first."
He raised an eyebrow but obliged, unbuttoning his shirt slowly, deliberately, letting it fall to the floor. His chest was a map of scars—some old, some newer, all of them telling stories Elara wanted to read. The one on his forearm was the longest, raised and pale, from wrist to elbow. She reached out and traced it with her fingertip.
"What happened?"
"Knife fight. Six years ago." He caught her hand and kissed her palm. "I won."
"You're proud of that."
"I'm proud of surviving." He released her hand and stepped back. "Your turn."
She stood on shaking legs and peeled off her cardigan, then her bra. Her skirt followed, pooling at her feet, leaving her in nothing but plain cotton underwear. Dante looked at her like she was something sacred, something he had no business touching, and the intensity of it made her want to cover herself.
"Don't," he said, reading her mind. "Don't hide from me."
She didn't.
He pushed her back onto the bed and followed her down, covering her body with his, skin against skin. He was warm and heavy and smelled like soap and something darker underneath. His mouth found hers while his hands roamed—over her breasts, down her stomach, between her thighs.
He found her wet and ready, and he groaned against her throat.
"Still soaked from earlier. You've been thinking about it."
"I've been trying not to."
"Successfully?"
"No."
He shoved two fingers into her without warning. Her back arched off the mattress and a string of curses fell from her mouth.
"That's what I thought," he said.
He worked her with his fingers, rough and unrelenting, dragging sounds out of her that she'd be embarrassed about later. His thumb pressed against her clit and circled it while his fingers curled inside her, and she was climbing toward release faster than she wanted to admit.
"Not yet," he said, pulling away just as she was about to shatter.
"Bastard—"
"Patience."
He rolled off her and opened the drawer of his nightstand, and when he turned back, she saw what he was holding. Soft black rope, coiled in his palm, and her heart stuttered.
"What is that?"
"Something I bought for tonight." He held it up, letting her see. "I'm going to tie your wrists to the headboard. If you don't want that, say so now."
She should have said no. Every rational part of her brain was screaming at her to say no, to keep some control, to not hand him everything. But her mouth had other ideas.
"It won't hurt," he added. "And I'll stop if you ask me to. Say the word and it's over."
"What word?"
"Any word. Say 'stop' and I'll stop."
She looked at the rope. Then at his face, intense and watching, waiting for her decision.
"Yes," she said.
He kissed her again, harder this time, before lifting her arms above her head. The rope was soft, almost silky, and he tied her wrists with practiced efficiency, looping and crossing and pulling snug but not tight. She tested the knot and found it secure.
"This is the only time you get to control anything in this room," he said. "After this, I decide. Understand?"
"Yes."
"Good."
He pulled back and looked at her, spread out beneath him, wrists bound and breasts bare and legs trembling. Whatever he saw, it made his breath catch.
"You're so fucking beautiful like this," he said. "Helpless. Mine."
She wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him she wasn't helpless, wasn't his, would never be anyone's anything. But the words wouldn't come, and his hands were already moving, and she was already lost.
He started at her throat. Slow kisses. Teeth. The hot, wet drag of his tongue down to her collarbone, her sternum, the valley between her breasts. He took one nipple into his mouth and sucked hard, and she cried out, twisting against the rope that held her steady.
"Don't fight it," he said.
"I'm not—"
He bit down. Not hard enough to break skin, but enough to make her gasp. He soothed it with his tongue and moved to the other breast, giving it the same treatment. By the time he reached her stomach, she was writhing, soaked, desperate.
"Please," she said.
"That's the magic word." He hooked his fingers under her underwear and dragged it off, then spread her thighs and looked at her. "But I'm not done looking yet."
"You're torturing me."
"I'm admiring you." He ran his thumb along her slit, gathering wetness, circling her clit with a feather-light touch. "Any other man would've already fucked you. I'm savoring."
"Fuck you."
"You will. Eventually."
He lowered his head and put his mouth on her. Flat tongue, slow strokes, following the path his thumb had traced. She bucked against him and he pinned her hips down with one hand, holding her still while he ate her out like she was the best thing he'd ever tasted. Her wrists pulled at the rope and she moaned so loud she was sure the whole penthouse could hear it.
"You taste like everything I've been missing," he murmured against her cunt.
"Shut up and—"
He sucked her clit into his mouth and she stopped speaking in sentences entirely. His tongue flicked, circled, pressed. Two fingers slid into her and pumped in time with the rhythm of his mouth, curling just so, and she was climbing again, higher this time, the edge rushing up to meet her.
"Don't stop," she begged. "Please don't stop—"
"Not going to." His voice vibrated against her, pushing her closer. "Come for me, Elara. Let me feel it."
She did. Hard and fast and full-body, her legs locking around his head, her cunt clenching around his fingers, a scream tearing out of her chest. He didn't stop until she was shaking, oversensitive, spent.
Then he crawled up her body, kissed her with her own taste still on his lips, and settled between her thighs.
"So good," he said. "So good for me."
"Please." Her voice was wrecked. "Please just—"
"Just what?"
"Fuck me."
"Since you asked nicely."
He pushed into her with one slow stroke, and she felt every inch, every ridge, every throb. She was still sensitive from earlier and from the orgasm, and the stretch was almost unbearable in the best way possible.
He pulled almost all the way out and drove back in. Hard. The bed slammed against the wall and she made a sound that was half pain, half pleasure. He set a rhythm that was punishing from the start, no warm-up, no gentle adjustment—just the relentless, brutal thrusts of a man who had no intention of lasting long.
"You feel that?" he growled. "That's your cunt taking me. That's you squeezing me so tight I can barely breathe."
"Don't stop."
"I'm not stopping. Not until you come again. Not until you scream my name so loud the neighbors call the police."
His hips snapped against hers, again and again, and each stroke hit something deep inside that made her vision flicker. His hand came down on her hip and pulled her into him, driving deeper, and the sound of skin against skin filled the room. She'd never been fucked like this. Never been taken apart like this.
His thumb found her clit again and rubbed in tight circles and she came for the second time, less explosive but deeper, a wave that rolled through her whole body and left her gasping. Dante slammed into her twice more and then buried himself and came with a roar, his hips jerking, his fingers digging into her hips hard enough to bruise.
He collapsed onto her, breathless, sweating, human.
Neither of them moved for a long time. His weight pressed her into the mattress, but she didn't mind—it grounded her, reminded her she was still corporeal. The rope had long since ceased to feel like a constraint and had become something else—an anchor, maybe, or a tether.
Finally, he lifted his head and looked at her.
"Okay?" he asked.
"Yeah." Her voice was hoarse. "Okay."
He kissed her forehead, then reached up and untied the rope, working the knots with careful fingers. When her hands were free, he brought them down and kissed each wrist, one then the other, like he was apologizing without words.
"Come here," he said, and gathered her against him, her back to his chest, his arm draped over her waist.
She lay there, staring at the city beyond the glass, feeling his heartbeat against her spine. The earlier thought came back to her, sharp and unwelcome: This is a terrible idea. But she was too tired to care, too sated to fight, too far gone to do anything but let herself be held.
"Elara."
She hummed.
"The contract says one year." His voice was soft against her hair. "But I've already decided I'm not letting you go."
She should have protested. Should have reminded him she wasn't a possession, wasn't something he could keep. But the words felt hollow after everything they'd just done.
"Sleep," he said. "We'll figure out the rest in the morning."
She closed her eyes.
The city glittered outside. The rope lay coiled on the nightstand like a promise. And somewhere in the dark, Elara felt the last of her old life slipping away, replaced by something terrifying and new.