Page 115 of The Silent War
Bastion’s and Luca’s hand stayed resting against my thighs, perfectly still.
“She’s not allowed to leave the lock-in house. She is naked and fucked in front of the whole dynasty Then she is collared.”
Luca’s jaw flexed.
“She gets tattooed before she even signs her name. And when the wedding is over, if she passes, she’s trained like an animal. Every instinct stripped out. Every emotion repatterned. Her old life extinct.”
My throat tightened. "And that’s before the dynasty protocol starts."
I paused long enough, so they could feel it.
“So what does she get?” I tilted my head. “What doesher familyget?”
Because I’d been raised in dynasty circles. I knew the exchange rate. I knew the dance of value and cost and marriage as merger.
“If everything’s erased and everything’s controlled,” I asked calmly, “what does the bride get in return?”
Bastion’s eyes burned into mine.
“Security.”
“That’s not enough.”
“Power,” Luca said.
“Power you still control.”
“Legacy,” Bastion offered.
“Yours.”
“And loyalty,” Luca finished.
“To whom?” I asked. “To the dynasty? To her husband? Or to the version of herself you’ve written over?”
“To us,” Bastion said. There was no hesitation in it. “Tous.Not the dynasty. Not the family. Not the law.”
He leaned forward, forearms resting on the table. “She gives us everything. And in return, we burn the world for her.”
The silence that followed Bastion’s words felt scorched at the edges.
Luca shifted his fingers moved from my thigh to my hand, lifting it gently, like it was something precious. Like I was somethingfragile.Not because I was weak, but because the truth unsettled me in a way he understood.
“They’re not designed to hurt you,” he said, voice low. “Our rituals.”
I looked at him, but he was staring at my hand in his—running his thumb slowly over the curve of my knuckle, memorizing it.
“They’re not chains,” he added. “They’re anchors.”
I didn’t answer.
“That collar you asked about? It’s not about control. Not the way you think.” He paused, as if searching for the right language to make it sound less like a cage. “It’s aboutrecognition.”
That word caught me off guard. “Recognition?”
He nodded. “In our world, everything gets taken. Land. Names. Lovers. Legacies. There’s always someone waiting to strip you bare and call it business.”
His thumb moved slower now. “So when we find someone—someoneours—we don’t let them vanish into the noise.”
