Victoria came downstairs the next morning and found them both in the kitchen.

Elena was at the island with coffee she had not touched. The thick residual heat of the night before was still inside her—Marcus had taken her in the study after the conversation with Victoria, wrists pinned, marks renewed, the claim pressed back into her body like a confirmation that the unedited truth spoken in the living room had changed nothing about the ownership. The lower bruises under her sweater ached in a deep continuous line. Marcus stood at the counter with his own mug, the dominance still absolute in the set of his shoulders, the cracks from...