I wake to grey light filtering through the curtains, my body aching in places I didn't know could ache. The sheets are tangled around my legs, cool where his heat used to be, and the pillow beside me is cold. But there's a piece of paper folded on it—his handwriting, the same sharp angles as the note on the red dress. Two words: 'Stay here.'
I press the paper to my chest, his dried seed flaking against my skin from last night, a crusted trail across my belly that I should wash off but can't bring myself to yet. The smell of him is still on me. Still in me. I feel it when I shift my thighs. A dull, deep ache, like a bruise I don't want to heal.
Stay here.
I stare at the words until they blur. Stay here. It could be a command. Or a promise. Or a dismissal dressed up as care.
I know which one it probably is.
Voices drift up from downstairs—Liv's laugh, high and bright, and Elara's low murmur answering it. The front door opens and closes. Someone leaves. The house settles into a rhythm that doesn't include me.
I lie still for a long moment, the note pressed against my sternum, and then I get up anyway. I don't stay. His words don't own me. Not yet. Not if I choose otherwise.
I shower, scrubbing his seed from my skin with rough, angry strokes. The water runs pink—a little blood from where he took me hard, where I'm sore and swollen. I press my fingers to myself, wincing. I feel claimed. Marked. And I can't decide if it's what I wanted or what I'm terrified of.
I dress in jeans and a soft grey knit, practical, comfortable, nothing that invites attention. I don't want to invite attention. I want to disappear into my work.
But the case files are downstairs, and so is the coffee maker, and I can't stay in this room forever.
I take a breath and open the door.
---
The kitchen is quiet when I slip in. Liv's laughter has faded to a distant murmur from another part of the house. I fill the kettle, set it to boil, and pull out a mug—the same chipped one I use every morning. It's a habit. A small act of normalcy in a house that doesn't feel like mine.
I spread the case file across the counter: a DNA analysis from a stabbing. I've been working it for two weeks, trying to match trace under the victim's fingernails to a suspect who swears he's innocent. I pick up my notes, re-read them, and realize I've been staring at the same sequence of numbers for ten minutes without seeing them.
His seed dried on my skin.
His words on the note.
Stay here.
I close my eyes and press my palms to the counter. Focus. This is what I know. This is what I'm good at. Not being invisible. Being precise. Being useful.
The kettle clicks off. I don't move.
---
"You're up early."
I flinch. Amanda is leaning against the kitchen doorway, her hair loose, wearing a silk robe that falls open just enough to show the edge of a black bra. She smiles. It's not friendly—it's assessing. Curious.
I was expecting Kaelen. Instead I get her.
"I couldn't sleep," I lie. "Casework."
"Ah, the forensic analyst." She walks in, her bare feet silent on the tile. "Kaelen mentioned you solve murders."
"I analyze trace evidence. Sometimes it helps."
"That's not what I heard." She leans against the counter beside me, close enough that I can smell her perfume—something floral, expensive. "I heard you solve puzzles. That you're very, very good at finding things that don't want to be found."
I don't know what to say to that. I pour water into my mug, let the steam rise between us.
"Can I join you?" she asks.
I hesitate. This is the woman my husband fucks for the camera. The woman whose body he presses into while I watch. The woman who gave me a silk blouse and a red dress and a note that wasn't from her.
But she's also standing here, in my kitchen, asking to have coffee with me like we're old friends. And I'm so tired of being invisible that I say yes before I can stop myself.
"I'm making coffee. There's tea, if you want."
Her smile changes. Softens, just a fraction. "Tea would be lovely."
---
We end up at the small table by the window, mugs in hand. She talks about the shoot schedule, about a scene she has tomorrow that she's not looking forward to. "He's too intense when he's—" she pauses, picks her words carefully, "—focused."
I know what she means. I've felt that focus.
She doesn't push for details. She tells me about her cat, about an apartment she's buying in the city. She asks about my work—real questions, not polite ones. She wants to know what kind of patterns I look for, what it feels like to find the thing that cracks a case open.
I find myself talking. Describing the rush of a match, the way everything goes quiet when the data confirms what you suspected. The satisfaction of being right when no one else saw it coming.
She watches me with those sharp, knowing eyes. "You're not what I expected," she says.
"What did you expect?"
"Someone small. Quiet. Someone who let him walk all over her." She shakes her head. "You're not that. You're just... waiting."
I don't answer. I don't know how to.
---
I'm at the counter, pouring my second cup of coffee, when Amanda comes up behind me. She doesn't warn me. Her hand lands on my hip, fingers sliding around to my stomach, pulling me back against her. The heat of her body seeps through my thin clothes. Her breath is warm against my ear.
"You smell like him," she murmurs. "Like his sweat. His come. Like you were the one he was really fucking last night, not any of the rest of us."
I freeze. My hand hovers over the mug. My body betrays me—a shiver that starts at my core and runs outward, a tingle that shoots straight to my cunt. I'm already wet. I'm already flushed, a deep rose spreading from my chest to my cheeks.
I should push her away. I should tell her to stop.
I don't move.
Her fingers dig into my hip. She presses a kiss to my shoulder, her lips soft and warm. "You taste good," she whispers. "I bet you taste even better lower down."
The kitchen door swings open.
"Amanda."
Kaelen's voice cuts through the air like a blade. His voice low. Controlled. The kind of voice that doesn't need to raise to be heard.
Amanda doesn't let go of me. She turns her head, her lips still against my skin. "Kaelen. I was just getting to know your wife."
"I see that." He steps into the kitchen. His eyes are fixed on her hand on my hip, on the way she's pressed against me. "Let her go."
She does, slowly. Reluctantly. Her fingers trail down my arm as she steps back, leaving a trail of goosebumps.
I feel exposed. Caught. Like I've been doing something wrong, even though I didn't start this.
Kaelen's gaze lands on me. It rakes down my body, pauses at my chest, where my nipples are tight against the soft knit of my top. I can see it. I can feel the heat of his stare. My breath catches.
He licks his lips.
It's over for me now.
---
"She's so sexy," Amanda says, her voice a casual tease as she sips her tea. "You never told me she was that sexy, Kaelen. You hide her away like a secret, and she tastes like honey and something dark."
"Hands off, Amanda." His voice is flat, final. "She's mine."
Mine. The word hits me in the chest, a blow I didn't brace for. He said it last night, too. In the dark. In the heat. But now it's different. Now it's a claim made in front of someone else.
Amanda pouts, a dramatic press of her lower lip. "She's yours, Kaelen. But please—let me share. Just once. I won't break her."
"No fucking way, Amanda."
She sighs, setting her mug down with a loud clink. "Well, the offer is open if you ever come around." She winks at me, slow and deliberate. "My door's always open for you, little analyst."
She waves her fingers in my direction. A goodbye. Then she glides out of the kitchen, her robe fluttering behind her.
The door swings shut.
I'm alone with him.
---
The kitchen feels smaller now. Hotter. The morning light is too bright, picking out every detail of his face—the stubble on his jaw, the way his grey eyes have gone dark, the pulse ticking in his throat.
He doesn't move. He just stares at me.
"Why did you come down?" he asks. His voice is quiet, but I can hear the tension coiled underneath.
"I have work." I gesture at the case file, still spread across the counter. "I'm not here to—"
"I told you to stay."
"I don't take orders." The words come out sharp, desperate, a last scrap of defiance. "I'm not one of your crew. I'm not—"
"You are my wife." He takes a step closer. Then another. "You are my wife, and I told you to stay, and you didn't."
I grip the edge of the counter. My knuckles are white. "You left me alone in that room with your seed cooling on my skin and a note that could mean anything. What did you expect?"
"I expected you to wait." He's close now. I can smell him—the same scent that was on the pillow, that was inside me. "I expected you to trust me."
"Trust you?" A laugh escapes me, brittle and bitter. "You've given me nothing to trust. You vanish. You ignore me. You screw other women while I watch. And then you tell me to stay and expect me to—"
His hand is on my throat.
Not squeezing. Just there. A pressure that reminds me he could, that I am at his mercy. My breath stops.
"You think I don't know what I owe you?" His face is inches from mine. "You think I don't know I've been a monster?"
"You've been nothing," I whisper.
The words hit him. I see it in the flicker of his eyes, the way his jaw tightens. I see the damage I've done.
"Then let me make it right." His thumb strokes my pulse. "Stay here tonight. In our room. Not the guest room."
"Our room?" I shake my head. "You don't get to claim me just because you're jealous, Kaelen."
"I'm not jealous."
"You're jealous of Amanda. You're jealous she touched me."
He stares at me. Doesn't deny it.
And then he kisses me.
It's not gentle. It's not a request. It's a taking, hard and demanding, his mouth crushing mine until I can't breathe, until the only thing I can taste is him, salt and coffee and something primal.
I don't fight it. I can't. My body is already leaning into him, my hands coming up to grip his shirt, pulling him closer. I hate that I want this. I need it. I've been empty for so long, and he's filling me.
He breaks the kiss, his forehead against mine, his breath ragged. "You're mine," he says. "I don't care what you think you are. I don't care what your father sold you for. You are mine, and no one else touches you. Not Amanda. Not anyone."
"Then touch me," I say. "Claim me. Do something that proves it."
His eyes go dark. The animal in him wakes.
"You want me to prove it?" A slow, predatory smile. "I'll prove it, Dagmar."
He takes my hand and drags me out of the kitchen, up the stairs, toward the master bedroom I've never slept in.
I don't resist. I've been invisible for eleven years. Now he sees me—and he's going to make sure I know it.