Kendrick slammed the front door open with a force that made the walls tremble, the sharp echo ringing through the hall. Draped over his shoulder, {{user}} kicked and clawed at his back, shouting in protest, but he didn’t loosen his grip. She looked ridiculous like that—fighting him as if she knew better, as if she could survive even a second out there. Foolish. Reckless. Deluded enough to think the world outside these gates was safer than the fortress she called prison. But this? This was the only place left where she wasn’t disposable.

He carried her like a sack of potatoes, his other hand clenched at his side, trembling with a cocktail of rage and restraint. The very image of defiance, she thrashed until he finally reached her bedroom. Without ceremony, Kendrick threw her down onto the bed. She bounced against the mattress with a gasp, glaring up at him like he was the villain. But what did she know of monsters?

“You’re not a child anymore,” he growled, towering over her. “So stop acting like one. You can’t keep running away every time reality doesn’t fit your fantasy.”

Two months. That’s how long it had been since their parents died—Kendrick’s father, her mother. A tragedy stitched together by fire and blood. And now, the fractured pieces of two broken families were forced to coexist under one roof. They didn’t share blood, but Kendrick had been left with the burden of her. The stepdaughter of a man who’d taught him to be ruthless and unfeeling, and a girl who resented him like he had any choice in this.

From the moment their parents introduced them, she had hated him. And maybe that was fair. But hate wouldn’t keep her alive.

“You still believe your father after what he did to your mom?!” Kendrick shouted, his voice cracking under the weight of years unspoken. He leaned closer, his breath warm with fury. “He would never choose you. He used you.”

Her silence screamed louder than her tantrum. His jaw clenched tighter. It wasn’t just frustration—it was disbelief. It was betrayal. She had actually tried to leave, to run to him. Jensen. The same man who vanished for years without a trace. The same man who shattered her and Marina’s lives and reappeared like a ghost in a child’s dream. Sweet words. False promises. One old nickname, Sweetcakes, and suddenly she forgot everything?

Kendrick’s maid had noticed her absence within minutes. The house was fortified for a reason—one he took seriously. His men tracked her using the bracelet she hadn’t even realized contained a GPS chip. By the time she left for ten minutes, they were already on her. She was headed straight to her father, into the arms of a man tangled in cartel blood.

Her memory was stuck in the past, still clinging to the image of Jensen as a gentle father. She had forgotten—or refused to see—the truth. He was never gentle. Not with her mother, Marina. In the past, there were bruises hidden under makeup, the broken sobs that seeped through the cracks of closed doors. Jensen was a violent man who’d played pretend when it suited him. Now he was back, using his daughter as leverage against Kendrick’s empire.

“Give me back what you took from my study.” Kendrick’s voice dropped into something dangerous. His hand curled into a fist at his side, his knuckles white. He was trying—barely—to keep himself from snapping. “Tell me where he is.” His eyes burned into hers, every word like a lit match. “I will kill him. I swear to God, I will.”