LARA'S POV
The smell of antiseptic and dying flowers clings to the back of my throat, a sickly-sweet perfume that does little to mask the scent of my father's slow decay.
I stand by his massive bed, my fingers curled into tight fists at my sides, my nails biting into my palms. The steady, weak hiss of his oxygen machine is the soundtrack to my imprisonment.
Bradley Vik-cross, the man who built an empire on blood and lies, looks like a ghost propped up on silk pillows. His skin is papery, translucent, mapping out the blue veins beneath. But his eyes—those cold, calculating eyes—are still sharp. They pin me to the spot.
"The obsidian Syndicate dogs are getting bold, Lara," he rasps, his voice a dry whisper. "They would slit your throat just to watch me bleed out faster. They are animals. You cannot trust their smiles, their deals… nothing."
Here we go again. The same script, the same fear-mongering monologue. I feel the familiar, hot coil of frustration twist in my gut. He's been drilling this into my head since I was old enough to understand what an "enemy" was.
"I know, Father," I say, my voice flat, a carefully neutral mask. I pour a glass of water from the crystal pitcher on his bedside table, the clink of ice the only sound that dares to interrupt him. I hold it out. My hand is steady. I've learned to make it steady.
He ignores the glass, his gaze intensifying, trying to peel back my skin and see the thoughts I keep locked away. "This world… it is not for you. It is a cesspool. Your brothers… they are built for it. Their hands are already stained. But you…" He finally takes the water, his hand trembling slightly. "You are meant for the boardroom. For the legitimate world. Vik-cross Co. is your legacy, your sanctuary. You must stay in the light."
The light. What a fucking joke. The "light" is just a prettier, more polished cage. It's a prison of quarterly reports and charity galas, while Adam and Ronnie get to play in the mud and the blood that actually fuels our fortune. They get the power; I get the porcelain doll display case.
The rage simmers under my skin, a silent, screaming thing. I want to smash the water glass against the wall. I want to scream that I'm not some fragile thing to be kept on a shelf.
That I'm smarter than Adam, more cunning than Ronnie. That this "sanctuary" feels like a slow, suffocating death.
But I don't.
I just give him the answer he wants to hear. The one that keeps the walls of my gilded cage from closing in any further. The one that keeps me the good, obedient daughter.
"I know, Father," I repeat, the words tasting like ash.
He seems to sag against the pillows, the effort of his warning exhausting him. The lecture is over. For now. I lean forward, pressing a dutiful kiss to his clammy forehead.
"Rest," I tell him, and it's a command as much as a suggestion.
I don't look back as I leave the room, pulling the heavy door shut behind me. The moment I'm in the hall, the mask cracks.
I take a deep, shuddering breath, trying to replace the smell of sickness with the sterile, air-conditioned air of the mansion.
And that's when I hear it.
A muffled gasp. A low, masculine groan. The rhythmic, unmistakable creak of the antique bedframe from behind Ronnie's door, just down the hall.
Oh, for fuck's sake.
I freeze, my body going rigid. It's Medley. It's always Medley.My best friend and my brother, forever tangled in what they call passion and what I call a distracting, messy complication.
Always fucking.
I can picture it perfectly. Medley's wild, fiery hair splayed across Ronnie's dark sheets, her impulsive laughter now turned into breathless moans. Ronnie, the ice-cold strategist, finally losing his meticulous control, grunting like an animal.
A hot, sharp spike of… something… lances through me. It's not jealousy. It's not disgust. It's a raw, aching want. A furious envy for their freedom. The freedom to be loud, to be messy, to be felt.To feel something—anything—that isn't this numb, polished emptiness.
My own skin feels too tight.
The silence my father demands of me is a scream trapped in my bones, while they are so fucking loud with their life, their desire, their noise.
I press the heels of my hands against my closed eyelids, seeing stars. The vulgar truth of it coils in my mind. "He's probably fucking her brains out against the headboard right now. And she's loving every brutal, mindless second of it."
"Always at it," I mutter to the empty, opulent hallway, the words dripping with a bitterness so deep it could corrode the gold-leaf trim.
I push away from the wall, my heels clicking sharply on the marble floor—a sound as cold and lonely as I feel. I walk toward my room, my sanctuary that feels more and more like a tomb. The sounds from Ronnie's room fade, but the ache they ignited doesn't.
It just burns, a quiet, desperate fire waiting for its own kind of hell to feed it.
– – –
The heavy silence of my room is broken by a soft knock before the door swings open. Medley slips inside, smelling of my brother's expensive sandalwood soap and her own citrus shampoo.
Her fiery red hair is damp, clinging to her neck and shoulders, and she's changed into a simple silk camisole and shorts. The picture of post-coital freshness.
I don't look up from my phone, scrolling through mindless headlines I'm not reading.
"So," she says, her voice a little hoarse, a tell-tale sign of her recent activities. She flops onto the plush velvet chair in the corner, tucking her feet under her. "I take it you heard the… uh… afternoon performance."
I finally lift my gaze, letting a dry, unamused smirk touch my lips. "Hear it? Medley, the whole west wing heard it. I'm surprised the Picasso in the foyer didn't start applauding."
She grins, utterly unashamed. "What can I say? Your brother is… inspired."
"He's something, alright," I mutter, tossing my phone onto the duvet. It's a six-figure piece of technology on a bed that costs more than a sports car, and all I feel is restless. "Sounded like he was trying to rebuild the entire syndicate from the ground up using just the headboard."
Medley lets out a loud, genuine laugh, the sound echoing in my too-quiet room. "God, you're bitchy when you're pent up. You should try it. It's a great stress reliever."
Pent up.
The phrase hits a little too close to the bone. The frustrated energy from earlier is still humming under my skin, a live wire looking for a ground. The memory of their noise, the raw, unapologetic life of it, makes my own controlled existence feel like a beautifully preserved corpse.
"I'm not pent up," I lie, my voice cool. "I'm just… bored."
"Exactly!" she exclaims, leaning forward, her green eyes alight with a scheme. "Which is why you need to get out of this mausoleum. Come to XS with me tonight. A few of the girls are going. It'll be fun."
My stomach clenches. A club. Loud music, flashing lights, a sea of strangers. The exact opposite of my father's whispered warnings. 'They are animals, Lara. You cannot trust their smiles.'
I shake my head, the automatic response. "I can't. I have an early meeting with the board tomorrow. The quarterly projections…"
"Fuck the quarterly projections!" Medley interrupts, waving a dismissive hand. "It's just numbers on a screen. This is real life, Lara! You're 23, not 63. You live in Vegas, for Christ's sake. You can't spend your life locked away like a virgin sacrifice."
Her words are a jagged little pill. "Virgin sacrifice."
Well aside from the virgin part she was right in the money.
Being kept pure and untouched for the altar of the Vik-cross legacy.
'She's not wrong. I'm a goddamn trophy on a shelf, collecting dust while everyone else gets to live. What's the point of all this money, this power, if I can't even feel the bass of a shitty club track vibrating through my bones? If I can't feel a stranger's hands on me, reminding me I'm actually alive and not just another pretty, polished thing in this house.'
"It's not just the meeting," I say, my excuse weaker now. "The traffic on the Strip will be a nightmare. It'll take an hour just to valet the Lambo."
Medley sees the crack in my armor and drives a wedge right through it. She gets up and sits on the edge of my bed, her expression turning serious. "Lara, look at you. You're in a custom Alexander Wang dress at 5 PM on a Tuesday, with nowhere to go. Your father is… sick. Your brothers are off playing king and consigliere. This family is a pressure cooker, and you're just sitting in it, letting the steam build. You need to let go. Just for a few hours. Take a risk."
Take a risk.
The words are a key, turning a lock deep inside me. That coiled thing in my gut unfurls, a serpent of rebellion raising its head.
The memory of my father's frail, demanding voice clashes with the memory of Medley's passionate cries. One is a chain; the other is a siren's call.
I look at my reflection in the dark screen of my phone. A pale, beautiful ghost. I don't want to be a ghost.
I let out a long, slow breath, the fight draining out of me, replaced by a thrilling, terrifying sense of surrender.
"Fine," I say, the word feeling foreign and dangerous on my tongue. "Fine. Let's go."
Medley's face splits into a triumphant grin. "Yes! That's my girl! We're taking the Aventador. I'm driving."