Chapter 125
LEVI
I gripped the steering wheel tighter, heat crawling up the back of my neck.
“If you were smart,” I said through clenched teeth, “you’d realize what a huge risk you took. Not only could it have cost you your payment, but you could’ve ended up in debt.”
“Debt?” Isabella echoed, her voice sharp with disbelief.
“Yes.” I turned to her, my voice rising. “If he’d seen through you—if my father had so much as sniffed out a lie—this whole arrangement would’ve gone up in flames. The company. The engagement. Everything.”
“But he didn’t, did he?” she shot back, not missing a beat. “Maybe that scares you more.”
Her words sliced straight through me. Because she was right.
It did scare me.
And I still didn’t know why.
“Yes. Debt,” I snapped again, slamming the car door shut as if that would hold back the boiling tension inside me. “You call me a fool, but if this falls apart, who the hell do you think will cover the cost of everything I’ve spent? You weren’t planning to walk away from this without consequences, were you?”
She turned her head slowly, expression unreadable, as if deciding whether to dignify my words with a response or let them rot in the air between us.
I didn’t give her the chance.
“The money means nothing to me,” I hissed. “But I’d never let it go. Giving it to a beggar would be more satisfying.”
The words landed like a slap. I saw it—the flicker in her eyes. The shift from disbelief to something deeper. Something darker. The air inside the car thickened, turned icy.
Isabella sat stiffly, her back straight, her hands clenched in her lap. Then she lifted her chin, her voice low but steady.
“If it all falls apart,” she said, “I’ll work until I repay every penny. I don’t accept favors from you.”
There were no tears. No begging. Just quiet, raw determination.
I should’ve stopped. But I didn’t.
Something inside me—rage, fear, maybe pride—kept pushing.
“You?” I scoffed. “Repay the money? Even if you worked triple shifts for the rest of your life, you’d never be able to cover what you owe.”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty—it was suffocating.
She didn’t reply. Didn’t even look at me. But I saw it in her posture—rigid, coiled. I had wounded her deeper than I meant to.
Something twisted in my chest. Guilt? Maybe. But I couldn’t name it. My insides were knotted, my thoughts unraveled. I didn’t know what I was angry at anymore—her, my father, myself. Maybe all of it.
A suspicion gnawed at the edge of my mind like a leech. She was hiding something. I didn’t know what, but I could feel it in my bones. And no matter how I tried to shake it, it wouldn’t leave me alone.
“Has a cat stolen your voice?” I asked bitterly, my voice full of venom I barely recognized.
She turned to me slowly. Her eyes cold. Her lips trembling, not from fear—but fury.
“I’m done with this,” she said. “I don’t want to work with you anymore. And I promise—I’ll repay every cent.”
I blinked. Stunned by her resolve.
“You’re joking,” I said. “You think I’ll beg you to stay? You really don’t understand what you signed when you agreed to that contract.”
Her brows pulled together. “What do you mean?”
“You can’t break it unless I say you can.”
That broke her.
She scoffed, unbuckled her seatbelt, and flung the door open. Her movements were wild—reckless.
“Where the hell are you going?” I barked, throwing open my own door.
She didn’t answer.
She ran.
Straight into the woods bordering the estate. Her dress whipped around her legs, moonlight catching the pale gold hem, turning her into some ghostly vision vanishing into the dark.
“There are bears in there!” I shouted after her, trying to jolt her back to reason. “Isabella! Stop!”
She didn’t.
I slammed the door shut and sprinted after her.
The cold air lashed at my face, and branches clawed at my sleeves as I plunged into the trees. Each step cracked twigs beneath my shoes, my breath ragged. I didn’t know why I was running. I just knew I had to catch her.
It wasn’t just about control anymore. It was about something I couldn’t name.
Something primal.
Something like fear.
This was still my father’s estate—vast, wooded, and patrolled. If a guard mistook her for an intruder… God.
“Isabella!” I yelled. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?!”
But then—suddenly—I stopped cold.
There, just ahead, in a small clearing lit by the moon, something gripped me.
A memory.
No—not a memory. A presence.
My breath hitched. My feet refused to move. The trees around me blurred.
I knew this place.
I didn’t know how—but I knew it.
It was like stepping into a forgotten dream. A room hidden in the attic of my mind, its door now swinging open.
Then, pain lanced through my skull. Sharp. Blinding.
I stumbled, catching myself against a tree.
A voice. A whisper.
“Levi…”
Not Isabella’s.
Someone else.
A woman. Another night. This same clearing.
Hands on my face. A kiss—frantic, forbidden. The scent of wildflowers crushed beneath us. Her laughter. Her voice cracking as she whispered my name like a secret.
Who was she?
I gasped, hand pressed to my forehead, heart pounding like a drum.
Behind me, I heard branches snap—Isabella. She emerged into the clearing, chest heaving, her eyes wide, startled by the sight of me doubled over.
She didn’t know what she’d triggered.
But I did.
There was something about her.
Something I hadn’t seen.
Something that scared the living hell out of me.
And then she dropped to her knees in front of me—unexpected, fierce, defiant—and whispered in a voice that made my blood burn:
“Punish me, Master.”
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