Leila paced the edge of the garden, her bare fingers curled into fists. Dominic had been gone for two days without a single word. No text. No note. No instructions. Only tighter surveillance, silent guards, and closed doors.
She wasn't his prisoner anymore , not exactly. But she wasn't free either. And the not-knowing, the waiting, was turning her nerves into threads.
That morning, she'd wandered into the east corridor and caught sight of someone she hadn't seen before , a housemaid, young, maybe twenty, retreating quickly from the wine cellar. Her wrist was bruised, purple and finger-shaped.
Leila had rushed forward. "Hey, are you okay?"
The girl flinched, eyes darting to the security camera above. "I'm fine. I just… dropped a bottle."
But Leila saw the truth. The silence. The fear.
Later that afternoon, she was walking past the study when she heard Dominic's voice, sharp and clipped.
"I don't care how much he's offering. You don't negotiate with filth like that. If he steps foot near the border again, he won't leave breathing. Make sure that's clear."
A pause. Then quieter: "And tell Rourke to stop letting the staff speak freely around her. I don't want her tangled in things she doesn't understand."
Leila froze.
Speak freely?
Tangling?
She backed away before the door could open, her blood boiling.
He hadn't just abandoned her.
He was protecting her,by shutting her out. By treating her like something delicate. Or worse, something dangerous.
By the time he found her later that evening, sitting by the fire, fists clenched and jaw tight, she was done holding back.
He stood in the doorway, shadows behind him. Unreadable as ever.
"You've been avoiding me," she said.
"No, I've been busy," he said, walking away to his study.
Leila stormed down the hallway, her bare feet slapping against polished floors, heart pounding in her ears. The moment the door to Dominic's study came into view, she pushed it open without knocking.
He stood at the fireplace, sleeves rolled to his elbows, a drink in his hand, like he'd been expecting her.
"I haven't been avoiding you," he said calmly.
"But you have been watching me," she shot back.
A flicker passed through his eyes,dark, unreadable,but he said nothing.
"You're always watching. Always controlling. Like I'm some experiment you're waiting to break."
His jaw clenched, but he stayed silent.
"That night I kissed you, I thought…" She faltered, voice shaking. "I thought maybe for once, this wasn't just punishment. That maybe I wasn't just your captive."
"You're not."
"Then what am I, Dominic?" she cried. "Your pet? Your debt? Your obsession?"
He crossed the room slowly, his presence suffocating. "You're mine."
"God, listen to yourself," she snapped, stepping back. "You don't even hear how insane you sound."
"I hear just fine."
"No, you don't," she said, voice cracking. "You keep hiding behind this cold, twisted sense of control,like if you keep the whole world under your boot, maybe it won't crush you instead."
His expression darkened. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"But I do!" she screamed. "Caleb told me. About where you came from. What you went through."
A shadow flickered in Dominic's eyes, something dangerous and wounded.
"I'm sorry for what happened to you," she continued, softer but no less fierce. "But just because you came from a messed up place doesn't give you the right to mess up everyone else!"
He stared at her, unmoving. Tense. Coiled like a beast beneath skin.
"You act like pain is a chain that binds everyone to you. But it's not. It's not love. It's not power. It's just fear."
The silence that followed stretched like a blade between them.
Leila's voice broke now. "And I'm tired of being afraid of you."
Dominic didn't speak. He looked like something inside him had cracked,but refused to spill.
Leila turned toward the door, her body trembling. "I didn't come here to fix you. But I also didn't come here to be broken."
She walked out before he could stop her.
But for the first time, she left behind silence.
And Dominic Raine… let her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The morning after the fight, Dominic was gone.
No goodbye. No slammed door. No explanation.
Just… gone.
Leila woke to the quiet buzz of the estate, the distant clatter of dishes, the chirp of birds echoing through the garden. She waited for the sound of his boots in the hallway, for the low murmur of his voice through the walls. But nothing came.
Not that day.
Or the next.
By the third day, the silence became a storm inside her.
At first, she told herself she didn't care. That he deserved it. That maybe he'd finally realized he couldn't control everything,and ran. But that was a lie. A weak one.
Because late at night, she found herself walking past his bedroom door, pausing without reason. She noticed the scent of his cologne fading from the sheets. The lack of his presence like an ache in the walls themselves.
On the fourth day, she questioned one of the staff.
"Where is he?"
Rourke, the ever-silent guard, didn't meet her eyes. "Business."
That was all she got. Business.
But Leila wasn't stupid. She could see the tension in the staff. The way phones were answered in hushed tones. The way Caleb paced more often now, avoiding her eyes. Something was happening. And Dominic,wherever he was,had taken more than her breath with him.
He'd taken the gravity of the house. The pulse.
By the sixth day, Leila was raw.
She hated herself for missing him.
She hated him for leaving without a word.
And most of all, she hated how easily he had gotten under her skin, how his absence burned almost as much as his presence did.
On the seventh night, she sat on the edge of her bed, staring out at the moonlit garden.
"He disappears," she whispered to herself, bitter. "Like a damn ghost when things don't go his way."
But deep down, something whispered back.
He didn't leave because you were wrong.
He left because you were right.
And that, more than anything else, made her chest ache
The knock on her door was so soft, she almost missed it.
Leila didn't answer,didn't move from where she lay curled on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, staring at the dying fire in the hearth. The air in the mansion felt colder without Dominic's presence. Emptier.
The door creaked open anyway.
She turned her head just slightly and saw Caleb step in, his usual smirk absent. His expression was unreadable, which, on him, was worse than anger.
"Hey," she muttered, voice rough.
He closed the door behind him. For a moment, he just stood there, arms crossed, watching her. Then he exhaled sharply.
"I'm not here to comfort you," he said.
Leila blinked. "Didn't ask you to."
"I know." He walked closer, stopped a few feet away. "But I also didn't think you'd be the one to hit below the belt."
She sat up slowly. "Is this about what I said to Dominic?"
"What do you think?" Caleb's tone was sharper now, laced with something deeper,disappointment. "You cut him open, Leila. On purpose. And then you just stood there and watched him bleed."
"I didn't…." She stopped herself. "I didn't mean to hurt him."
"Yes, you did," Caleb said, voice steady. "You were angry. You wanted to make him feel small. And you did."
Leila looked away, jaw clenched. "I told the truth."
"Maybe. But the truth isn't always a weapon, and you used it like one."
Silence stretched between them. Caleb finally moved, sinking into the armchair across from her. He ran a hand through his hair.
"You know what pisses me off?" he said quietly. "I watched that man crawl out of hell with nothing but rage and instinct. And for the first time in years, I saw something soften in him. Something… human. And it was because of you."
Her heart twisted.
"But now?" Caleb leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "He's out there somewhere with that pain festering. Alone. Because the one person he trusted to look past the monster saw him as nothing more than a broken boy playing God."
Leila's voice cracked. "I didn't mean it like that."
"Doesn't matter how you meant it. He heard it."
Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them away. "Why are you telling me this?"
Caleb stood again, slower this time. "Because you still matter to him. Whether he wants to admit it or not. And you need to decide,are you going to keep running from what this is, or are you going to face it?"
She didn't answer.
He paused at the door, glancing over his shoulder. "He'll come back. But if you want him to stay… you'd better figure out how to meet him halfway."
Then he was gone, leaving her alone with the weight of her guilt,and the burning truth in his words.