Captive by My Lustful Enemy

Chapter 3

Estella Verena's POV

It had been five hours since I left home.

By now my parents must know I was gone. Men would already be combing the city, questioning drivers, checking hotels—hunting for me the way people hunt down lost things that still matter. Still: could they actually pull me from this place? Could they pry me away from a man whose heart had been forged from nothing but rage and the slow business of revenge?

I didn’t know what my mother had done to turn Killian into this. I only knew one thing for certain: if he meant to break me, I would find a way to break him first.

“You’re supposed to eat first,” a voice said. It belonged to a man close to Killian—maybe his brother. He had the easy arrogance of someone used to being obeyed. Dangerous, yes, but not nearly as terrifying as Killian. “My brother said you’ll video-call your family later, so stop moping.”

“How old are you?” I asked, hugging myself tighter. The oversized polo he’d given me did little to warm the hollow in my ribs; I’d wrapped his blanket around my legs instead, clinging to fabric like an invisible shield.

“What the f**k are you asking that for? Just eat. You talk too much.” He snapped back like a kid who’d practiced disrespect and found it satisfying.

“You’re the one talking too much.” I rolled my eyes and looked at the plate in his hands. Its contents were anonymous and steaming. “What is that?”

“What else? Food. Don’t act so damn picky if you’re not going to eat it. Be grateful we bother at all. If it were up to Kuya, we’d let you starve in here.”

My skin went cold. I pressed farther into the wall as he stepped closer. He wasn’t Killian—he was smaller, easier to underestimate—but I knew even smaller men could inflict sharp damage when they wanted to.

“What a f*****g devil,” I muttered.

“Your family’s the real devils,” he answered.

The accusation hit like a slap. I felt my mouth clench. When he leaned in, the question came out of him like a demand: “What did you do to us, Estella Verena?”

I gave him a smile that felt thin and brittle. “I don’t know.” The lie hovered for a second before I shoved it away. “But I do know this—your fear isn’t wasted. Daddy can make things happen again.”

He hadn’t expected that. His laugh was nasty. “f**k you.”

The slap came quicker than the breath in my throat; pain flared across my cheek and a hot copper taste filled my mouth. Blood welled and ran, sticky and insistent, down my chin.

“Too bold for your own good,” he said low and mean. “We’ll see how much of that courage you have left once Kuya begins to make you suffer.”

Then his fingers closed in my hair and the world jolted. I choked, and a sound left me—sharp and involuntary.

A slammed door cut through the room and Killian’s voice split the air: “What the f**k, Keigan? I told you to just leave the food in the room. What the hell did you do to her?”

Keigan looked suddenly small and paper-light when Killian grabbed him by the collar and shoved him back. Fear replaced insolence in his eyes in a single motion.

“She provoked me,” Keigan spat. “I gave her what she deserved. Why are you so pissed? We should be mad at you. It wasn’t part of the plan to put her in your room.”

Killian’s reply was cold as iron, each word a measured threat. “Are you shouting at me?”

My pulse ricocheted in my throat. I didn’t know where I belonged in that argument—was I prize, problem, or prop? I felt ridiculous and raw all at once, an actor in someone else’s play.

“I’m sorry, boss,” Keigan instantly said, his voice folding under the weight of his brother’s stare.

Something like a grin managed to push at the corner of my lips despite the sting of humiliation; even Keigan feared Killian. The thought steadied me, a small, private victory.

Killian’s eyes moved to my split lip. He shook his head minutely, the motion quick and practiced. “Get some air, Keigan. I’ll watch her.” His voice softened only a degree, but it held command.

He stepped closer and, with an almost clinical inspection, lifted my lower lip to look at the cut. The touch was cold and precise. “That needs stitches.”

“No—” I started, breathing hot with panic. “You’re making that up. This will heal. I don’t need—”

His patience thinned. He left the room and came back with a first-aid kit in his hands like a man who had performed this exact task a thousand times.

“You’re serious?” I crowed, trying to hold onto whatever small semblance of control I could. “I will not let you stitch me up. Let me bleed out instead.”

“Come here.” The single-word order stripped any pretense of negotiation.

He pulled me onto the bed and laid out the supplies with careful, deliberate movements. Tears blurred the edge of my vision as he offered me a bitter-tasting cup. “Drink this. It won’t make the cut go away, but it’ll dull it.”

“No," I said. My voice fractured.

He looked at me like a man running out of patience. “Then who do you want? Keigan? One of my men? They’ll do it worse. You’ll end up with more scars.”

The sting of helplessness burned behind my eyes. I swallowed the cup, shut my jaw, and forced myself to lie back as he prepared to stitch. Every small sound of the kit—the snap of metal, the whisper of gauze—felt enormous in the tight room.

“Why did you push him?” Killian asked, not unkindly, but with the weight of someone who knew the limits of his brother’s tolerance. “Keigan doesn’t snap for nothing.”

“You’re both so easy to provoke,” I whispered. “Fine. Just do it. Get it over with. Stitch it up. It’s nothing compared to—” My voice wavered on the last word.

“Right, princess,” he murmured the nickname like a private joke, and something illicit and dangerous and utterly unasked-for slid through me. Heat pooled where I didn’t expect it. My thighs tightened against the sheet without my permission.

He saw that. “I want you,” he said before I could breathe quietly enough to steady my pulse. “I want to f**k you.”

The needle slid. Pain flared sharp but tolerable. I bit down on the hiss of it and let the bed take my clenched fists.

“I want to tear that polo off you and slip my fingers inside. I want to know how wet you are for me, princess.” His tone was both menace and confession.

“Don’t—don’t call me that,” I said fiercely, but the words hardly held.

He pressed on. “Shh. I want to see you cry for me—not like this. Wipe those tears. This is nothing compared to what I’ll do later.”

I breathed through the stitches and kept my eyes closed until the work was done. When he finished, my lip throbbed in an even, stubborn rhythm—swollen, tender, ruined cleanly.

Exhaustion lay over me like a heavy blanket. He tucked the blanket around me and didn’t leave until I’d pretended to sleep, the kind that hid the tremor in my hands. But sleep was thin and false. I opened my eyes when I heard him move and found him still watching me. He stared at my lips the way someone studies a map they intend to navigate.

The look in his eyes wasn’t pity. It was not tenderness so much as a harsh calculation—anger tempered by hunger and interest. For a second we held that charged silence, a wire stretched between two people who could break at the slightest touch.

Then he sighed and left the room.

The moment the door clicked shut, a small, involuntary smile curved my lips despite the ache and the stink of blood in my mouth. The smile was dangerous and private. If they could use me as a pawn, I could learn to move the pieces too. I would study their fears, learn the cut points, and play the game until I won.

Now I knew I could play.

Now I knew how to use these brothers as pawns and bend the board to my design.