Time passed like dripping water — slow and cold.
Amethyst paced the safe room in silence, her bare feet making soft sounds against the stone floor. The backup lights had flickered back on, but they were dim, casting long shadows that danced across the walls. The monitors stayed black. Every second without noise felt like pressure building in her chest.
Luciano hadn't come back.
Her hands trembled, though she hated herself for it. She wasn't supposed to care. He was cruel. Controlling. Everything she was raised to avoid.
But when he kissed her forehead… something in her heart had crumpled.
Just as panic finally edged into her lungs, the vault door hissed.
She turned instantly, expecting a threat.
But it was him.
Luciano stepped inside, soaked in rain, blood streaked down the side of his neck — but alive.
She ran to him before she could think.
"Are you okay?" she breathed, her hands skimming his chest, his arms, checking for wounds. "What happened?"
He didn't answer. He just looked at her — as if she was the only thing in the world that wasn't falling apart.
"Say something," she whispered.
"You could've died tonight," he said, his voice low and rough.
She stilled.
"You have no idea what they would've done to you," he continued. "And all I could think about was how I didn't lock the door fast enough. How I should've told you everything from the beginning."
"Then tell me now," she said. "Tell me what this is. What I am to you."
His jaw clenched. She could see the war in him — between the man who controlled everything… and the man who just wanted something to be his.
"I don't know how to want something without destroying it," he said, quieter now. "But I want you, Amethyst."
Her breath caught.
Not because it surprised her.
Because she'd wanted to hear it far more than she ever should have.
"I hate you," she whispered.
"Good," he breathed. "Keep hating me."
And then he kissed her.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't soft.
It was months of tension, of fear, of forbidden longing — crashing all at once.
His hands tangled in her hair. Her fingers gripped the front of his shirt. His mouth was fire, demanding, hungry, as if he was trying to burn the memory of her into his skin. She didn't pull away. She couldn't.
Because for the first time since she was brought here…
She didn't feel like a prisoner.
She felt claimed.
When they finally broke apart, breathless, she stared at him — stunned, lips swollen, heart racing.
"This doesn't change anything," she whispered.
Luciano's eyes burned into hers.
"No," he said. "It changes everything."