Chapter 5

Isabela Walker POV

The world tilted dangerously as the penthouse bedroom spun around me.

Kason dragged me inside, his grip bruising, and hurled me onto the bed like a ragdoll.

He didn't stop moving. He tore through my clothes, ripping drawers out of the dresser and dumping their contents onto the floor.

"Where is it?" he shouted, kicking through a pile of silk and lace. "Where is the wire? Where is the phone?"

His paranoia was a living thing, consuming him.

He thought I was a spy for the Paynes.

He thought I was recording him.

He marched over and grabbed the front of my shirt.

With a sharp tear, the fabric ripped.

"Strip," he ordered, his eyes wild. "I need to check you."

"No!" I kicked out, my heel connecting hard with his shin.

He roared in anger and lunged at me.

His weight pinned me to the mattress, crushing the air from my lungs.

His hands were everywhere, rough and searching.

It wasn't sexual. It was an invasion.

He was checking for a wire, but he was taking everything else in the process-my dignity, my autonomy, my space.

My hand flailed blindly against the nightstand.

My fingers closed around the heavy brass base of a lamp.

I didn't think.

I swung.

*Crack.*

The lamp connected with the side of his head with a sickening thud.

Kason slumped off me, rolling onto the floor with a groan.

I scrambled backward, pressing myself into the corner of the room, clutching the lamp like a weapon.

My breath came in ragged gasps, my heart hammering against my ribs.

I had just assaulted a Made Man.

I had just assaulted the Underboss.

If he wanted to, he could kill me legally under the laws of the Outfit.

Minutes ticked by in agonizing silence.

Kason groaned and sat up.

He touched his head. His hand came away bloody.

He looked at me.

His eyes were cold. Dead. The fire of his rage had been replaced by something far worse: ice.

He stood up slowly, swaying slightly.

Without a word, he walked to the bathroom.

I heard the cabinet open.

He came back with a glass of water and a small blister pack.

He threw them onto the bed in front of me.

"Take it," he said.

I looked at the packet.

It was a morning-after pill.

And a pack of daily birth control.

"I didn't..." I stammered, my voice trembling. "We didn't..."

"I don't care who you've been with," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. "Hadley. The driver. The mailman. I don't care."

He leaned down, his face inches from mine, the scent of copper and expensive cologne filling my nose.

"But I will not have you dragging a bastard child into this house to threaten Dalia's position. You will not trap me with a pregnancy, Isabela."

Something inside me finally broke.

It wasn't a snap.

It was a disintegration.

The last tiny, foolish piece of hope that had survived the basement, the boutique, and the slap... it turned to ash.

I picked up the pill.

I swallowed it dry, feeling it scrape down my throat.

"Happy?" I asked.

"Ecstatic," he said.

He walked to the door.

"You are confined to this room. Guards will be outside. No phone. No internet. No contact with the outside world."

He slammed the door, and the heavy click of the lock sealed my fate.

I sat on the ruined bed.

I looked at the calendar on the wall.

The date was circled in red ink.

*The Payne Wedding.*

Two weeks.

I stood up and walked to the calendar.

My hands were steady now.

I ripped the page off the wall.

I tore it into tiny pieces, letting them flutter to the floor like snow.

He thought he had trapped me.

He thought he had won.

But he had made one fatal mistake.

He had forgotten that a canary born in a cage eventually learns to pick locks.

And I was done singing.