Chapter 3

My heart hammered against my ribs, threatening to burst free.

Five years.

For five long years, this very face, this exact voice had haunted my midnight terrors.

I thought I had built an impenetrable fortress around myself, but before Christian, the walls crumbled to dust in a heartbeat.

I forced my racing pulse under control, stepped back to slip out of his reach, and pasted on a polished, rehearsed smile.

"You must have misheard, Mr. Sterling. Jax and I were just reviewing our latest shipment of reserve spirits. One of the bottles was a bit tainted."

Seamlessly steering the conversation back to work, I tried to brush it off.

Christian wasn't buying it for a second.

Jax stood beside us, utterly stunned, his mouth slightly ajar as his eyes darted between his brother and me in pure shock.

"Wait... you two know each other?"

Christian finally broke his gaze from my face, casting a frigid side-eye at Jax that dropped the temperature in the room by ten degrees.

"She’s my woman. What do you think?"

"What... what the hell?" Jax stammered, entirely lost.

"As for catering to my tastes," Christian’s gaze snapped back to me, dripping with raw, suffocating possessiveness, "I’m the only one who can handle hers."

Word for word, he threw my own statement right back in my face.

Every syllable felt like a stinging slap across Jax’s cheek—and a dagger to my chest.

The color vanished from my skin.

"Christian, what kind of sick game are you playing?"

I kept my voice low, hissing the words through clenched teeth.

He acted as though he hadn't heard me, his hand clamping around my wrist with the exact unyielding force I remembered.

"You're coming with me."

He pulled me forward, heading straight for the exit, completely ignoring his stunned younger brother.

"Christian! Hey! What the hell is going on?!"

Jax’s shout was cut off by the heavy oak doors swinging shut.

He dragged me all the way down to the underground garage and shoved me into the passenger seat of a black Bentley.

The silence inside the cabin was suffocating.

Without a word, he hit the ignition. The luxury sedan glided out of the garage and merged effortlessly into the neon-lit city traffic.

I watched the blurred skyscrapers streak past the tinted glass, my palms clammy, my fists tightly clenched.

I had spent five years running from the cage he built, believing I had finally earned my freedom.

Turns out, I had only jumped from a birdcage into an open pen.

And the master holding the leash had never changed.

"Where are you taking me?"

I finally spoke, unable to hide the faint tremor in my voice.

He didn't reply. He simply turned up the cabin heat.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the watch on his wrist. It was the exact same piece he wore five years ago.

The car eventually climbed up a winding road into an ultra-exclusive gated community nestled on the bluffs.

Security here was airtight; every mansion stood secluded like a private fortress.

He pulled into the driveway of a sleek, modernist villa and cut the engine.

"Out," he commanded.

I didn't move an inch.

"Christian, what do you want from me?"

I stared him down. "Aren’t you getting engaged? Bringing me here now... are you trying to give your darling fiancée a taste of what I went through five years ago?"

My tone was coated in venom.

At that, his shoulders visibly stiffened. He turned his head, his dark eyes boring into mine in the shadows of the car.

"Chloe," he rasped, his voice deep and gritty. "Five years, and you still know exactly where to plunge the knife."

"I didn't think you had a heart to pierce," I mocked.

Christian clicked his seatbelt off and leaned across the console.

I reflexively shrank back, but all he did was unlatch my door.

"Get out," his voice softened ever so slightly. "Someone's waiting for you."

Hesitating, I stepped onto the pavement and followed him inside.

The foyer was brightly lit, designed in the same stark, minimalist palette that matched his cold persona.

In the center of the expansive living room, a slender little boy in a tailored blazer sat cross-legged on the plush rug, laser-focused on assembling an intricate Lego model.

At the sound of footsteps, he looked up.

In that split second, the air was ripped straight from my lungs.

That face was a carbon copy of Christian’s, yet the curve of his eyes held every trace of mine.

My son.

A child whose name I didn't even know.

Seeing me, he didn't show typical childhood curiosity or excitement. He merely offered a flat, indifferent glance before lowering his head to snap another plastic block into place.

That chilling detachment, so unnatural for a boy his age, drove straight into my chest like an icicle.

"His name is Nate," Christian's voice resonated from behind me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his chest.

"Short for Nathan. Because I never stopped thinking of you."