CH.51

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 constriction of her throat as she was gripped by a potent fear and utter disbelief.

The silence stretched between them. Heavy and eerie while Serena's mind raced with a thousand frantic thoughts and unanswered questions.

She was in over her head, that much was painfully clear. However, she had to keep pressing, had to find a way to unravel the twisted intention surrounding Knox and the true nature of the agreement she'd signed.

Serena drew a fortifying breath and met his piercing gaze once more with a spark of defiance despite the fear still coiling in her belly. "If you won't show me the contract, then I want a divorce. I won't stay married to a man who keeps me in the dark and threatens me with..." She trailed off, swallowing hard against the lump in her throat. "With that kind of violence.”

Knox's expression didn't so much as flicker at her words. He simply leveled her with an indifferent look, his silence stretching out and becoming increasingly unnerving the longer it persisted.

"You can't divorce me!" he finally stated flatly. "The contract you signed is ironclad and unbreakable. You're bound to me until I say otherwise. And if you ever try to leave..." He let the implication hang in the air between them.

Serena felt her stomach drop, panic clawing its way up her throat as the full gravity of her situation began to sink in. This was no idle threat, no meaningless bravado or empty posturing - the lethal promise of violence simmered beneath his stoic surface like a coiled viper, ready to strike with brutal, uncompromising force at the slightest provocation.

She was well and truly trapped. She was a bird in a gilded cage… she was at the mercy of a man whose capacity for cruelty seemed to know no bounds.

Desperation rose up within her. "Why?" she demanded.

“You are mine!” Came his growled declaration.

Serena swallowed. Hard. "Were you...the one who helped me win my case? Against Alex?" She decided to change the topic of their discussion.

Knox's expression softened the barest fraction. The harsh edges of his chiseled features seemed to smooth out. He gave a curt nod of confirmation.

A dozen more questions immediately clamored for attention in Serena's whirling mind, each more pressing than the last.

What sinister machinations had he set in motion by ensuring her victory over her unfaithful sham ex-husband?

"What do you want from me?" The words finally tumbled past her lips in a breathless rush, laced with a potent mixture of trepidation and weary resignation as she steeled herself for whatever fresh hell awaited her. "What do I need to do to make you trust me? To prove my loyalty?"

"Make me feel what it’s like to be human!"

Serena blinked. She was utterly stunned and certain she must have misheard the words that had just fallen from his lips in that deep, resonant baritone.

Her mind rebelled against their implication, against the utter insanity of the demand he had just issued as casually as remarking on the weather.

"What?" The single syllable fell hushed from her lips.

Knox simply held her perplexed gaze. "Make me fall in love with you, and you'll have my trust - my loyalty. You will have all of me!!"

Serena's thoughts whirled in a jumbled, dizzying storm as she struggled to process his words, to make any sense of the madness he had just spoken.

What did he mean by ‘Make me feel what it’s like to be Human’? Was he an alien? Also, how the hell was she supposed to make a man like him - a man who radiated quiet menace and barely-restrained danger with every measured breath - fall in love with her? A man who seemed to regard her with veiled indifference at best, who had already admitted to being intimately involved with another woman in that heated phone call just moments ago?

As if reading the doubts and misgivings flickering across her expression, Knox's piercing gaze flickered briefly towards the phone he'd tucked back into the pocket of his impeccably-tailored slacks.

"The woman on the phone..." Serena began in a hushed tone, "Do you...love her?"

Knox's expression remained utterly impassive. He seemed to weigh and consider her question. However, Serena could have sworn she glimpsed a fleeting flash of some deeper emotion.

Pain? regret? Or perhaps longing - flit across his handsome features for the barest instant before it was ruthlessly shuttered away once more behind that stoic facade of indifference.

Without a single word, Knox rose fluidly to his feet, his powerful frame unfolding with an innate, predatory grace as he crossed the room towards the ornately carved door.

Serena watched him with wariness and confusion thrumming through her veins.

She was convinced he was about to simply walk out without another word, leaving her with more maddening questions than answers.

To her surprise, he paused with one hand resting on the brass doorknob then turned to face her once more. "The woman on the phone..." he began, the words precisely chosen and carefully measured. "My involvement with her is one of obligation. You are my wife while she… You are both people I cannot simply let go."

Serena frowned in confusion. She struggled to parse the meaning behind his cryptic words. Just what twisted webs was this man trying to spin around her? "What obligation do you have towards me?" she asked at last with a burning curiosity. “What obligation do you have toward her?”

Knox's gaze seemed to bore straight through her in that moment, his eyes raking over her body in a way that made Serena acutely aware of her own vulnerability.

A flush of heated self-consciousness crept up her neck and bloomed across her cheeks as his lingering stare traced the swell of her breasts straining against the fabric of her dress, the flare of her hips beneath the soft cotton material, before finally returning to her face.

Then his gaze dipped lower once more, the weight of his stare seeming to linger on the juncture between her thighs in a way that made her shift uncomfortably on the plush leather sofa.

"How's your healing progressing?" he asked, his tone deceptively casual as though inquiring about the weather rather than the intimate injuries he had so ruthlessly inflicted on her.

Serena flushed a violent crimson. Her mouth suddenly dry, struggling to find her voice through the haze of mortification. "You...you know..."

Of course he would know the full extent of the damage, the aftermath of what he'd done to her in that blind onslaught of primal lust and aggression.

Realization washed over her in crashing waves of heated embarrassment. She felt like a complete fool. The maid must have told him without a doubt.

"I...I'm healing," she managed finally in a hoarse whisper, unable to meet his piercing stare for fear of what emotion she might find swirling in those molten depths. "Please don't think of me that way, I am not a lo-"

"Breathe," Knox cut her off.

Before Serena could muster another response, he held up a hand in an imperious gesture, effectively silencing her objections yet again. "Eat your meal and get some rest," he stated, his tone brooking no argument. "If you need anything, anything at all, you need only ask. Consider this place your home now. Everything here is equally yours!"

Crossing the room once more, Knox retrieved a sleek black card from his pocket and held it out to her. "This is for you. No limits, no restrictions. Use it as you see fit."

Serena hesitated for a moment. However, she remembered her current circumstances. Her greedy stepmother and stepsister, even the man she thought she knew must have done some pranks with her inheritance.

She finally accepted the card, her fingers brushing against his in the exchange.

Serena met his gaze once more. "Thank you," Serena murmured.

Knox simply nodded.

With that, he turned and made his way towards the door.