Just like I planned.
Except somewhere between her walking into Hell and passing out in my bed, the plan changed. Now I don't just want to ruin her.
I want to keep her.
"You're thinking about it," Vincent observes. "Keeping her."
"It would be cruel."
"Since when has that stopped you?"
"This is different. She doesn't know who I am. What I did."
"And if she finds out?"
I think about it.
About the moment she realizes the man she's submitted to, begged for, called Sir, is the one who destroyed her life. "She'd try to kill me."
"Or thank you."
I look at him sharply.
Vincent shrugs. "Look at what that trauma created. A woman perfectly suited for you. Maybe she'd see it as fate."
"Or maybe she'd see it as the ultimate violation."
"Only one way to find out."
But I won't.
I can't.
The plan is three nights of destruction, then I send her back to her life.
She'll never know the truth, and I'll have had my taste of corrupting the judge's legacy.
That's the plan.
I return to check on her one more time before dawn.
She's whimpering in her sleep, not from nightmares but from need, her thighs pressed together, my name on her lips.
"Cassius..."
She doesn't even know she's saying it.
Doesn't know she's calling for her parents' killer in her sleep.
I trace the marks I've left on her skin, and she arches into my touch even unconscious.
So responsive. So perfectly broken.
Three nights.
I have three nights to destroy her so completely she'll never recover, then send her away before she learns the truth.
Before I do something unforgivable.
