Aaria didn't sleep that night.
Not with those photographs burned into her mind.
Not with Rafael's voice—low, deliberate, claiming—still echoing through her like a vow she hadn't agreed to.
"You think I waited for you to fall into my world by accident?"
She stood in front of the mirror in his bathroom, the marble cold beneath her feet, one of his shirts clinging to her like it belonged there.
She didn't.
Not anymore.
Behind her, his penthouse glittered with silence. But in the reflection—something caught her eye.
A small blinking light.
She stepped closer.
It wasn't a reflection.
It was a camera.
Hidden in the light fixture above the vanity.
Her heart dropped.
She yanked open the cabinet drawers.
Empty.
Then the one beneath the sink.
A switch.
She pressed it.
Click.
A hidden panel slid open in the far wall.
Behind it—screens.
A dozen of them. Live feeds. All from rooms in the penthouse. Including hers.
Including the shower.
The air vanished from her lungs.
She stumbled back, bile rising in her throat. This wasn't protection. This wasn't obsession.
It was surveillance.
She whirled around—and there he was.
Rafael.
Standing in the doorway like he knew exactly what she'd find.
And maybe, in some twisted way, he wanted her to.
"How long," she whispered, trembling, "have you been watching me?"
He didn't answer.
Just stared at her like a man watching his house burn—with no regret for lighting the match.
"You don't trust me," she breathed.
"I don't trust anyone."
"You said you built this world for me."
"I did," he replied, voice like silk dipped in sin. "But I never said it would be a free one."
Aaria backed away, the pain in her chest turning to rage.
"You tracked me. Controlled me. Put cameras in my room. And you think that's love?"
"No," he said. "I think it's truth. You don't love people like me, Aaria. You survive us."
His words carved straight through her ribs.
"But I will say this—" Rafael took a step forward. "I would burn every rule. Every line. Every last thread of morality just to keep you breathing. And that… that has to be worth something."
She looked at him.
This man.
This terrifying, magnetic, beautiful man who had become her salvation and her jailer all in one breath.
"Then destroy the cameras," she said. "All of them. Now."
His eyes met hers.
And for the first time—he hesitated.
That hesitation broke her.
Without a word, she turned and walked out.
She didn't look back.