Serena trailed behind Knox through the plush hallways. Her head was hung low as the mortifying scene she'd inadvertently stumbled upon replayed vividly in her mind. She couldn't expel the lurid images of Killian and Seven entangled in a passionate gang bang feast. That raw, intense show burned into her consciousness no matter how hard she tried to shake it off.Serena found herself inexplicably and intensely drawn to the man leading her whose unmistakable aura of danger and smoldering desire seemed to radiate from his very being, surrounding him in an intoxicating force that commanded the air itself. Her eyes traced the contours of his broad, muscular back and his confident, predatory stride that exuded an almost feral power barely restrained. There was something about this mysterious man that both scared and tempted her, wanting his hands on her body despite her fear. Something so alluring that she followed him blindly, without question. ‘Oh lord… What games are you playing wit
A ghost of a smirk played across Knox's ruggedly handsome features. "Knox," he stated simply, betraying not a flicker of emotion. Serena dragged in another deep breath through her lungs, giving voice to the question that had consumed her from the moment she first laid eyes on this devilishly good looking man. "Are you...my husband?" The tremulous words were laced with a potent mix of trepidation and breathless anticipation. Knox shook his head slowly and deliberately, his piercing amber gaze never wavering from her face. "I am!" Confusion clouded Serena's delicate features as a torrent of new questions flooded her mind. "Why did you marry me?" she pressed, frustration mounting at his evasive, cryptic responses as the burning, insatiable need for answers raged within her like an inferno. His amber eyes were fixated on her, piercing into her very soul. Thy were like twin pools of liquid fire that threatened to drown her in their fathomless, smoldering depths. "Taken responsib
Serena was displeased. “Do not expect me to be loyal to a man who isn’t loyal. If you choose to fuck someone other than me, your wife, expect me to do the same!” The atmosphere within the room instantly turned chilly at her words. "The one thing I will never tolerate is betrayal," Knox growled, his amber eyes boring into her with an intensity that made it difficult to draw breath. "And the only result of betrayal is death. If you ever betray me, I will make it my personal mission to ensure you cease to exist in this world. But not…" he continued in a tone of soft, terrifying menace, "Not before I torture you in every way unimaginable. Until you're left a whimpering… a broken thing begging for the sweet release of death as your only mercy." Serena felt the blood draining from her face, her heart pounding a frantic staccato against her ribcage as Knox's chilling words seemed to leech the very air from the room. She opened her mouth, but no sound would emerge past the constric
Serena left the lounge after managing only a few desultory bites of her dinner. Her mind was still whirling from that intense, unsettling conversation with Knox. A potent cocktail of jealousy and confusion roiled in her gut as she dwelled on the reality that he was intimately involved with another woman - that she didn't have his fidelity or loyalty despite the marriage binding them together. She wandered the labyrinthine halls of the huge villa in a daze, trying to get her bearings in this gilded cage that was to be her new home. Serena stumbled upon an exquisite, open staircase with ornate wrought iron railings and plush marble floor leading down depths below. She descended the stairs absentmindedly but was jolted from her reverie by a familiar, angry voice that sent a jolt of surprise through her. "Let me see her, damn it!" Jenkins' raised tone echoed through the cavernous space, berating the stone-faced guards barring his path. "I need to make sure you haven’t done s
Knox returned to the secluded villa under the cloak of night, his footsteps making no sound as he moved through the dimly lit hallways like a wraith. He made his way towards the master bedroom they now shared as husband and wife.He eased open the thick oak door and slipped inside. His gaze was immediately drawn to Serena's tiny figure on the massive bed. Her body was trembling slightly while a sheen of sweat glistened on her brow. The poor girl was clearly trapped in the grips of a restless, fitful slumber. Soft whimpers fell from her parted lips, her delicate features contorted in an expression of anguish as if she were trapped in the throes of a nightmare."Daddy...please don't leave me," she murmured in a voice laced with heartbreaking vulnerability.Those few words seemed to rip at something deep inside Knox's impenetrable chest, eliciting an unexpected flash of protectiveness that he ruthlessly suppressed. He was not some doting kind of guy… he was a powerful being wh
The temperature in the room seemed to plummet as Knox’s eyes bored into the incriminating image. The air grew thick and difficult to breathe due to the icy chill that seeped from his very pores.His fists clenched tight around the photograph until it abruptly disintegrated into a fine ash that slipped through his fingers to scatter across the floor in a gray haze.Seven watched the display with undisguised amusement dancing in his pale eyes, his lips quirking ever so slightly at the corners. "That picture is misleading. It was taken from a precise angle to make it appear as though Donna was being...intimate with that stranger." He spoke up in his usual mild tones, seemingly unbothered by the tension crackling through the air.“Ouch… that stung like a bee!” Killian's grunt drew their attention. Seven’s head instantly whipped toward direction to see the latter roll himself off the blade that held him stuck to the wall. Killian’s gaze scanned the room, landing on the seething Kn
There was no warmth in Knox’s tone, no hint of the respect and almost filial affection he had once held for this man who had been a mentor and father figure to him through the years. Only an undercurrent of steely menace and a promise of violence should his demands for answers go unmet tonight.The other set of glowing amber eyes seemed to narrow almost imperceptibly, as if their owner could sense the dangerous undercurrents swirling just beneath Knox's stoic exterior, churning like a riptide beneath a deceptively calm surface. Then, after a moment's tense silence that stretched between them like a taut bowstring, a low chuckle drifted through the darkness - rich and indulgent, laced with a hint of sardonic amusement."So it seems, my boy," a deep, cultured voice responded at last, the words seeming to caress the shadows cloaking the room. As if on cue, the bedroom was abruptly flooded with light, causing Knox to narrow his eyes against the harsh glare. There, seated in a high-b
Serena jolted awake to the incessant buzzing of her phone on the nightstand. She groggily reached for it, squinting at the bright screen that seared her sleep-blurred vision. Serena's brow furrowed. Why was her manager calling so early in the morning? "Hello?" she mumbled in a voice still thick and groggy with the remnants of slumber."Oh my god, Serena! Have you seen the news?" Kate's voice was high-pitched with panic on the other end, causing Serena's stomach to clench with a tendril of dread."Seen what news?" She rubbed her eyes, trying to shake off the lingering cobwebs of sleep clouding her mind as wakefulness slowly seeped back in."There's a video circulating online of you being intimate with some strange man!" Kate babbled in her frantic rush to get them out. "It's going viral as we speak! There are also medical reports of you undergoing a virginity patch three years ago, before you and Alex met, as well as another from the night you were detained. It says that you h