Chapter 57

The question slipped from my lips before I had the sense to stop it.

“What did those men mean tonight? Only taking what they’d taken in the past? Do you traffic women, Lucien? Is that why you’re so afraid to do to me what you’ve done to others?”

The silence that followed was a death sentence.

I never thought I’d see Lucien terrified, but in that moment, the mask cracked. His hand fumbled, jerking as though I’d shoved a blade through his ribs. The tub of arnica in his grip went flying into the sink. It clattered and spun, a hollow, frantic sound that echoed far louder than it should have. The little bottle rolled in dizzy circles, clinking against porcelain before collapsing by the plughole, a spent thing.

Lucien bared his teeth, a snarl breaking loose as his hands clawed through his hair, dragging down over his face. He looked feral, unchained. “Don’t talk to me about that,” he snapped, voice thick with rage—and something else I couldn’t name. “It’s none of your goddamn business. Merde, ne me demandez pas de nouveau.” Do not ask me again.

The French curled like a whip in the air. My chest flinched before my body did, heat rising against my skin, not from his touch but from his fury.

Then he moved.

He grabbed me with brutal precision, hauling me to my feet as though my resistance meant nothing. My hands flew to his wrists instinctively, my nails scraping against iron skin as I tried to break free. But Lucien wasn’t letting go. His eyes bore into mine, stripping me bare, replacing every fragile moment of connection we had built with something uglier—annoyance, frustration, loathing.

“What is your name?” His voice rasped like a blade dragged over stone, slicing my composure into ribbons. The vibration of it seeped into me, conjuring not just fear but heat—treacherous, pulsing heat that made me despise myself.

The Old Nevaeh would have broken under this weight. She would have wept, begged, pleaded. But she was gone—ashes scattered in the wind. And the New Nevaeh… she knew something fundamental: some truths were not his to take. My name was not his. My name was mine.

“Janet,” I whispered. The sound felt foreign, thin, unconvincing. But if Celeste wanted to call me her friend, who was I to argue? A false name was easier to live with than the real one, easier to bury under layers of lies.

Nevaeh would be forgotten. The thought pierced me like glass, sharp and mournful. But still—I couldn’t give Lucien that last piece of me. I had given him everything else. This one shard was mine.

Lucien’s chest rose sharply, his jaw tight. His voice vibrated with barely contained fury. “Even now, you don’t break. After everything, you’re still strong enough to defy me.” He stopped pacing, spun toward me with green fire in his eyes. “Tell me! Give in, heaven. Give me your name!”

The command rattled through me, shaking something loose inside. His eyes struck me like fists, demanding submission. My body ached to surrender, to let him claim it all. My heart warred with my mind.

But my head bowed low, and my voice was firm. “Janet.”

“You are not my friend,” he snapped, venom dripping from each word. “Stop lying.”

I shook my head slowly, almost sadly. I knew that already. I didn’t want to be his friend. No, what I wanted was far more dangerous. I wanted to be his everything.

I wanted the fire in his touch, the raw honesty in the way his body claimed mine without words. I wanted him to strip bare not my clothes, but his soul.

He wasn’t the only liar here.

Lucien prowled forward, a predator of citrus and smoke, heat and hunger. The air thickened around him, and my breath hitched when his chest pressed close enough for me to feel the storm he carried inside. His voice was molten iron. “One last time, heaven. What. Is. Your. Name?”

My stomach clenched, aching with the weight of deception. My throat burned to speak the truth, but I couldn’t let it escape. So I lied.

“Katrina.”

His eyes narrowed. “Lie.”

“Sophie.”

“Lie.”

“Crystal.”

“Goddammit, stop!” The explosion came like a thunderclap. His hand lashed out, fingers tangling violently in my hair. My neck arched back, and I drowned in the violent intensity of his green gaze.

“C’est quoi ton nom?” he demanded, each word tearing through me. What is your name?

My lips trembled, heart hammering with reckless abandon. And then the word slipped out, softer than prayer, louder than confession.

“Heaven.”

The effect was immediate. His eyes slammed shut as if I had blinded him. His chest heaved, his body shuddering. For a moment, I thought he might let me go. But when his eyes opened, the storm was gone. Blankness replaced it—emptiness so complete it nearly broke me.

“I will learn who you are one day,” he said, voice calm, cold, final. “That is a promise. And my promises are law.”

For some unfathomable reason, my heart fluttered.

He had promised to keep trying. To unravel me. And in that promise lay something terrifying: the necessity of knowing me—not as an object, not as a possession, but as a woman who bled, who desired, who had already given him far more than she ever should.

Every mad, fractured piece of him wove around me, binding me tighter than his walls, tighter than his guards, tighter than the chains of his world.

What would he do when he realized the truth—that the cage he built for me was nothing compared to the one he had unknowingly built for himself?

Would he throw me away, discard me as a weakness? Or would he fall to his knees, crushed beneath the weight of my gift, when he realized I was offering him the most dangerous thing of all—myself?

I didn’t know.

And that unknowing was the very thing that made me crave him all the more.

I wanted to know. I wanted to know everything.