The mansion changed.
After her second attempt to escape, Rael transformed it from a palace into a prison.
Locks were installed. Security was doubled. All exits sealed, monitored.
But what changed more than walls was the air — thick with obsession.
Rael no longer shouted. He didn't rage.
Instead, he watched.
Closely. Constantly.
He memorized her schedule. Measured her silence. Gauged her resistance.
Every glance she cast toward a window was clocked. Every drawer checked for stashed pills.
He removed the medicine cabinet. Started preparing her food himself. Supervised every delivery. Her body — what went in it, how it reacted — became his territory.
And each night, without fail, he entered her room.
---
It began with silence.
He'd sit on the edge of the bed, watching her. Waiting.
She never asked him to leave. And he never gave her the chance to.
"Do you hate me tonight?" he'd whisper against her skin.
She wouldn't reply. Sometimes, her body responded before her mind could.
Sometimes, she gave in to survive.
Other nights… she gave in because something inside her still ached for the only man who ever made her feel seen — even in the darkest ways.
Their intimacy was no longer wild. It was routine.
Twisted comfort. Desperate familiarity.
He touched her like she was glass and fire all at once. Possessing. Consuming.
"You're mine, Ananya," he would murmur into her neck. "Even when you pretend you're not."
And every time he kissed her, her heart betrayed her by racing — not just from fear, but from need.
---
By day, he tracked her. By night, he touched her.
He started keeping a diary of her body. When she bled. When she moaned. When she turned her face away.
She found it once. Read it in silence. And burned it.
He said nothing. But the next day, a new notebook appeared.
He didn't yell. He didn't need to.
His control had shifted from external to internal.
He didn't just own the house. He owned her time. Her rhythm. Her breath.
---
One night, after another wordless hour of skin and heat and gasping silence, she lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling.
"I'm not pregnant," she whispered.
"I know," he replied.
She turned toward him. "And if I never am?"
He looked at her — eyes calm, voice low.
"Then I'll keep you anyway."
"You don't want me. You want what I can give you."
Rael leaned closer, fingers stroking her temple.
"I want the version of you that breaks. And then crawls back."
She laughed. Bitter. Hollow.
"Then you already have me."
He kissed her forehead.
"I always did."
---