Page 76 of Goldflame

It feels like my mother is watching over me, returning to me the one I thought I had lost forever. The one who might have cared for me in his own quiet way all along.

I’m still sorting through the tangled mess of my feelings, still trying to understand what this all means for us, for Julian, for the future. But for now, I let myself be held, finding a moment of peace in Adrian’s arms—the first real peace I’ve known in forever.

For now, it’s enough.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

JULIAN

I’m in my office while Valentine drones on about business. I lean back in my office chair and stare at the empty room on my monitor, the void where she should be more stark and hollow than I expected. Aurelia’s absence claws at me even though I’m the one who created it by sending her away.

Thirty days. That’s all Lorenzo gets. The fucker had the nerve to ask for three months—three fucking months. I wanted two weeks, enough time for her to get a taste of someone else’s control before bringing her back to where she belongs. We settled on one month, and only because I realized she needs that time to see how much better she has it here. With me.

My jaw ticks as I remember Lorenzo’s eyes when we discussed terms, the hint of satisfaction.

“I have to ask,” I’d said, finishing my second glass of whiskey. “Why her?”

He had smiled—a slow, deliberate curving of his lips that made my skin crawl. “You really need to ask?” Hisaccent had thickened, Italian vowels dripping with need. “She is… special. I’ve watched her for some time. Such spirit. I enjoy breaking things of beauty. And I’m particularly skilled at it.”

He said it with such conviction that I can only imagine what he has planned for Aurelia.

Valentine’s voice drags me back to the present. “—about thirty percent drop in supply since Victoria’s operation fell apart. The Castellano’s claim to have some influence and are willing to step in, but they want double the percentage Victoria was getting.”

I blink, forcing myself to focus. Valentine stands on the other side of the desk, tablet in hand, scrolling through figures and charts. His expression is detached, like he hasn’t spent weeks watching me keep his daughter prisoner.

“They don’t get double,” I say mindlessly. “Renegotiate.”

My thoughts keep circling back to the empty room on the screen, to Aurelia in Lorenzo’s hands. What is he doing to her right now? The question burns through me like acid, eating away at my focus.

Valentine keeps talking and I only catch fragments. “—Whitman family could—” and “—need to maintain control of the eastern distribution—” and “—still looking into Carter’s operation?—”

His voice is a meaningless white noise against the roar in my head. I imagine Aurelia seeing what it’s truly like in the Consortium, experiencing firsthand what the other men are capable of. Men like Lorenzo, with his too-perfect hair and practiced charm. Men withappetites that make me look downright virtuous in comparison.

She’ll understand soon. When she comes back—when I bring her back—she’ll see that I was protecting her all along. That the cage I built was lined with silk, not barbed wire like theirs.

Part of me feels sick at the thought of her with him and my fingernails dig crescents into my palms. But the other part, the calculating part that’s becoming more like Adrian every day, knows this is necessary. She needs some humiliation at another man’s hands. She needs to be punished for what she did. And she needs perspective to understand her place in this world.

To understand that it’s with me.

I sink deeper into my chair. On the monitor, the bed where I fucked her and made her mine again, is perfectly made. The bathroom door is still slightly ajar.

Missing her feels like withdrawal, my body craving what it knows it can’t have.

But she’ll come back aa a new woman, ready to submit.

She’ll come back and fall into my arms, her fear giving way to gratitude. It’ll be like waking up from a bad dream and realizing the nightmare was real. Maybe she’ll cry, those tears I’ve always imagined breaking through her perfect self-control. She’ll beg to stay here, with me.

It’s what I’ve wanted all along.

In my mind, it happens the moment I open the door. She’s on her knees before I can say a word, her eyes wideand desperate. “Julian,” she whispers, voice cracked but full of that fire I’ve always loved. “You were right.”

And just like that, she’s mine again.

She tells me everything, confesses until she can’t breathe. How Lorenzo used her body, how he twisted her mind until she didn’t know who she was anymore.

She’ll be so broken; she’ll beg for forgiveness. “I’m sorry I killed Adrian. It was wrong. Please forgive me.”

I’ll have to punish her but this time, it’s different. More intense. She’s left so many scars on my heart that it’s only right I leave some on her flawless skin. But she craves the pain.

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