Chapter 87

**Hadassah POV**

“What happened here?” the guard asks objectively.
“I wanted to use his station like I did the last time to watch the surveillance feed of my mother,” I explain, tears leaking as I wipe them away with trembling fingers. “Torin said it was okay to watch but make no contact, and Derek was helping me with that. This time, he said, it would cost a little extra for the show.”
He presses into his ear, activating whatever communication network he’s linked to. He turns his back on me, and by the sound of his deferential tone and terse responses. He’s talking to Torin. The guard informs him of what happened and relays my side of the story with word-for-word accuracy, taking into account his own testimony of what he saw and heard when he entered.
Shortly, he turns around and motions me over.
“He wants to see you.”
He escorts me himself to his sea-facing master suite boasting floor-to-ceiling windows that open out onto striking panoramas. A sumptuous interior with opulent furnishings well suited for a billionaire bastard. The guard stops at the door and allows me to pass through alone. I cast a wary glance over my shoulder and by the time I look forward. Torin materializes before me and he holds my face, his eyes frantic as he inspects every inch of me.
“You okay?”
“I can easily fight off a guy like that without even looking,” I say, punctuating the sentence with a tremulous breath. “After this many fractures, a lot of places still hurt.”
“Should I call the physician?”
I shake my head grimly. “Unseen places,” I say dazedly. The best lie was aligning it with the truth. “It took me back to the last moment I was alone with your brother. And no fracture or broken bone can compete with that pain—not even Santos’s torture sessions.”
He recedes and nods carefully. “You never talk about that.”
I concede a heavy shrug. “Not much to talk about. He asked questions that I didn’t know the answer to. Orian stands as the focus of his vengeance, yet it is I who am the source of his torment.”
“That’s petrifying and… poetic.”
I shake my head and my eyes stray to the white and crimson dress laid delicately on the bed. Next to a pristine custom tailored white suit. His and Hers.
He follows my line of sight. “I was waiting for you to conclude your time with your mother. Even if you couldn’t speak.”
I smile softly, injecting tenderness. “It means the world just to see her.”
His eyes lock on a random spot on the ground with an expression of vague concentration.
“Torin?”
“Apologies,” he says with an uneasy smile and he meets my gaze, a flicker of suspicion in his narrowed eyes. “It’s just Derek. He’s no saint, no man in service to me is. However, he’s a docile guy, a spineless pushover. It’s why I like him, he’s susceptible to influence and easily swayed. I’ve known him a long time. More importantly, he knows me. And he knows what I have done to those who have… transgressed my trust. Or tempted my ire. Something must've emboldened him to feel that he could attack you—some certainty he felt that he would make him think he’d reap no consequences.”
My doe-eye facade, fool-proof, as I yield a deep shrug. “You know him, but you never knew what was in his mind.”
He slips his hands in the pockets of his pants and nods with dawning comprehension. “Beneath the mask of trust, treachery smiles with cold, deceitful eyes,” he says, gazing into my own, his veiled quote ambiguously aimed at me.
“Trust,” I murmur the word amorously like a whisper of sweet nothing. “Such a fragile thing.”
He smiles ominously and takes out his hand to gesture at the dress. “We should get ready.”
He remains where he is and I glide toward the canopy bed, bearing the weight of his gaze. The white dress is a corset style with a regal red embroidery with a herringbone cut. He watches me studiously, hyper aware of every idle movement. I face him as I strip off my clothes with excruciating slowness. He tries to keep his gaze level with my eyes but a muscle pulses in his strained jaw before he liberates his eyes to explore the length of my naked body, left in only a pair of underwear. I try on the dress, slipping on the skin-tight dress that is my exact measurements, but I need help binding the corset. On cue, Torin moves to stand behind me without request. His nimble fingers begin working efficiently, weaving the laces through the eyelets lacing with expert ease.
“Should I be jealous that you know how to do that so well?”
“What is bound in my past demands no concern from you.” He plants a delicate kiss at the median between my shoulder blades. And I loathe how it sends a searing spark to skitter down my spine. “As if any mere woman could compare to the beauty of your body, soul and my favorite. Your mind.”
A sudden and rough tug renders the corset snug against my body, drawing my waist into an elegant curve. I inhale a jagged breath, placing a hand on my stomach to steady myself as I stumble a small step.
“My mind is your favorite part of my body?”
“A beauty deserving to be marveled. Your wit and cunning that got you as far as you have.”
“Wit, yes. Cunning? I’m not so sure about that.”
“Of course you must be.”
Another rough tug and the boning claws, pressing against my ribs, and my breaths become shallower, but still I stand straighter. Each successive pull, the garment tightens, the sensation like a coiling serpent wrapping around me.
“To enlist the aid of those informants that helped you and Calum convict those corporate criminals. You don’t survive in that line of work without knowing how to talk your way from the edge of a knife. Or the path of a bullet. You even expressed how you infiltrated gangs and other criminal organizations in order to destroy them from the inside. That requires a proficient skill in… deception.”
“Not that difficult, Torin,” I say with my voice edged with malice. “Men are easy to manipulate.”
A violent tug wrings out a sharp gasp and makes me slam my hand on the wooden post of the canopy bed. “Torin!” He does it again with the same punishing force. “*Torin,*” I moan with a plea resounding in my voice.
“That is the only tone and pitch I want to hear when you use my name.”
The pressure intensifies, each tug a command for my body to conform to the demand of every pull. My breaths shorten as both hands are now braced on the wooden post, each inhale labored than the last as a strangled cry escapes me.
“Men are easy to manipulate?” he repeats questioningly.
“You and your brother are no mere men,” I retort between half-gasping sentences. “Difference between you and others is I dangled my life—my life is already in your hands. I risked the lives of those I cared about before. You think I'd do it again?”
The last knot is tied, securing the corset in place. I spot my reflection in a distant mirror to see my hunched over silhouette has transformed, cinched at the waist, exaggerating the graceful lines of my figure. I straighten and I turn around—he lurches and my back thuds against the post and still he seals the space between us.
“Is that the only reason?”
“Haven’t I shown you?” I throw back.
“Perhaps I need a reminder.”
I coil my finger in the loop of his pants and I tug him closer until I catch his lips with my own, forced to feel the echoes of forbidden want thrumming beneath the skin. His arms rope around me and he fills his hand with my ass and gives it a tight squeeze that makes both cheeks twitch. He breaks away abruptly and his breath skims my forehead before his lips lightly brush the skin.
“Please, pretty please. I need you to tell me.” His words like a prayer murmurs against my flesh. “I want to hear you say it.”
“Say what,” I say quietly.
“Do you trust me?”
A thoughtful pause.
“As much as you trust me,” I answer.
He pulls something from his pocket and inserts it inside my ear faster than I can react.
“Earpiece, a communication line on a private link to me,” he informs as he starts unbuttoning his shirt. “That way we can keep tabs on you when we infiltrate the sea palatium. So make sure you wear your hair down.”