Chapter 8
613 Words
The moment the door clicked shut behind him, I dropped to my knees.
My legs wouldn’t hold me anymore.
I ripped the collar from my neck like it burned—but it was too late. My skin still tingled from where his lips had touched it. From where his words branded me.
I sat there on the floor, shaking, telling myself I still had a choice.
That I wasn’t already his.
That this wasn’t love.
It was obsession. Corruption. Control. And I needed to get out.
⸻
The Next Morning
I didn’t pack a bag.
I just ran.
I didn’t take the phone he gave me. Didn’t leave a note. I used cash to call a rideshare from a borrowed phone and told the driver to take me anywhere with a bus station and no cameras.
It felt like breathing for the first time in days.
Until I got to the terminal.
And saw him.
Standing next to the bus like he’d been waiting all night. Hands in his pockets. Jacket hanging open. Calm. Patient. As if I hadn’t just tried to vanish.
My heart plummeted.
“You done running?” he asked, voice smooth as sin.
“How did you—”
“You thought you were invisible?” he tilted his head. “Sweetheart, I bought the terminal.”
My mouth fell open.
“You don’t get to disappear,” he said softly. “Not from me.”
He stepped closer, slow and terrifyingly calm. “Now get in the car.”
“No.”
He arched a brow. “Wrong answer.”
I turned to run—again. A hand grabbed my wrist.
Not his.
Two of his men. Clean suits. Cold eyes.
“Let me go!”
Dominic only sighed. “You made me chase you,” he said, disappointed. “So now, you don’t get to walk.”
⸻
Twenty Minutes Later — Somewhere Outside the City
The world blurred outside the tinted windows as the car pulled up to a massive black gate surrounded by woods.
Security cameras. Fingerprint scanners.
Not a home. A fortress.
The gate opened, revealing a glass and stone estate straight out of a billionaire’s fever dream. Isolated. Beautiful. Dead quiet.
“This is where I keep the things I don’t want anyone else to touch,” Dominic murmured.
I froze. “Is that what I am to you? A thing?”
He leaned close, lips to my ear.
“No. You’re the only person I’ve ever wanted to own.”
⸻
Inside
The estate was warm. Lavish. Velvet and crystal and floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on nothing but silence and trees.
He poured a drink like we were lovers. Like I wasn’t shaking.
“I should hate you,” I whispered.
“You should,” he agreed. “And yet here you are.”
“I ran.”
“And I still caught you.” He took a sip. “Do you know what that means?”
I stared at him, hollow.
He set the glass down, walked to me, and cupped my face.
“It means you belong to me more than you thought.”
His mouth hovered over mine, but didn’t touch.
“You feel like a prisoner,” he murmured. “But deep down… you like the cage when I’m the one who locked it.”
His thumb brushed my bottom lip.
“You want to hate me. But your body’s already made its choice.”
He slid the red velvet collar from his pocket. The diamond sparkled under the chandelier.
He didn’t ask.
He fastened it around my throat himself.
And this time… I didn’t stop him.
- Writer
