Chapter 6

Alex POV:

The lie Daniel told in the hallway hung over the estate, suffocating and inescapable.

She is carrying my child.

It was a shield, yes. But it was also a shackle. It bound me to him in a way that terrified me almost as much as it comforted me.

I sat in his study the next morning. The walls were lined with books that looked like they had been read, not just displayed-spines cracked, pages worn. Daniel sat behind a massive oak desk, reviewing documents with a terrifying intensity.

He didn't even glance up when I entered.

"Sit," he said.

I sat.

"You need to understand something, Alex," he said, finally lifting his eyes. They were dark, unreadable pools. "In this house, we don't just survive. We rule."

"I survived Gavyn," I said, my voice steady despite the racing of my heart. "I survived the ocean."

"Survival is for prey," Daniel countered smoothly. "Predators rule. If you are going to stay here, if you are going to be... what I claimed you are... you need to stop thinking like a victim."

He pushed a stack of files across the desk.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Dunlap financial records," he said. "Or at least, what my spies could gather. You were his wife. You ran his house. Tell me where he bleeds."

I looked at the files. I hesitated. Betraying Gavyn felt like cutting off a limb, even after everything he did. It was a reflex, a habit of loyalty ingrained over six years of conditioning.

But then I remembered the cliff. I remembered the word incubator echoing in the cold bank vault.

Something inside me snapped.

I opened the file.

"He moves money through shell companies in the Caymans," I said, pointing to a line item, my finger trembling slightly before steadying. "But his real weakness isn't money. It's pride."

Daniel leaned forward, interested.

"He over-leverages his legitimate businesses to fund the illegal ones because he wants to look clean to the public," I explained, the pieces falling into place. "He's obsessed with the image of the Dunlap dynasty. If you hit the shipping lines-the ones that look legal-you cripple his cash flow for the drugs. He won't be able to pay his suppliers without exposing himself."

Daniel smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. It was a wolfish grin that promised violence.

"Smart," he said.

He stood up and walked around the desk, moving with a predator's grace. He stopped right in front of me. The air in the room grew thick.

"Why did you stay with him?" he asked softly. "For six years. You are too smart to be blind."

I looked down at my hands. Shame burned my cheeks.

"I thought he loved me," I whispered. "I thought I was building a family."

I told him everything then. The years of failure. The pressure. The way Iliana hovered like a ghost. And finally, the truth I heard in the bank vault. That I was just a vessel. A temporary fix until the princess returned.

I expected Daniel to pity me. I braced myself for it.

Instead, he reached out and tilted my chin up. His fingers were rough, but his touch was gentle.

"He is a fool," Daniel said. His voice was low, vibrating with a suppressed rage that made me shiver. "He looked at a diamond and saw only glass."

My breath hitched.

"You are not a vessel, Alex. You are a weapon. And now, you belong to the Sosas."

He let go of my chin and walked back to his chair.

"We are going to take everything from him," he said, picking up a pen. "And you are going to help me do it."

For the first time, I didn't feel like a piece of property.

I felt like a partner.