Twisted Veil of Devotion

Part 14

ZANE POV

The door shut behind me with a heavy sound, and the room felt smaller than usual. I loosened my tie and tossed it onto the chair, then poured myself a drink. The whiskey burned, but not enough to dull the irritation swirling in my chest.

Stella.

Her defiance clung to me like smoke. Every word. Every look.

"I'm not afraid of you."

She said it like a challenge.

She should have been terrified. Anyone else would have been.

But Stella wasn't like anyone else.

When I first met her, there had been softness to her. Not weakness, exactly. More like innocence. She felt everything deeply and tried to hide it, even though she was terrible at hiding anything.

Now there was steel under it.

Fear was still there — I could see it in the tiny tremor in her hands — but it didn't control her anymore. She studied everything. Calculated. Waited. Like someone who had learned to survive.

That training... wherever it came from, it had changed her.

Part of me admired it.

Part of me wanted to crush it.

I leaned on the bar, staring into the fire.

What happened to you, Stella?

She wasn't bending. Not like the others had. Fear usually brought people to their knees. With Stella, it just sharpened her.

And that made her dangerous.

But it also made her mine even more.

I finished the drink in one swallow and set the glass aside.

She could resist. She could hate me. She could fight.

In the end, she would still belong to me.

And when she finally understood that, I would make sure she never walked away.

Because Stella Thompson was mine.

And nothing — not her strength, not her training, not her stubborn fire — would change that.

RYAN POV

My house didn't feel like my house anymore.

Agents moved everywhere. Computers open. Radios crackling. The air felt heavy, like the whole place had forgotten how to breathe.

Stella's parents sat quietly on the couch. Her father's fingers were tightly laced together. Her mother kept clutching a tissue that had already been destroyed by tears. Esmeralda stood behind them, red-eyed, trying not to fall apart.

All of their pain landed on me.

And I deserved it.

Her father finally spoke.

"We'll head home today. The FBI promised protection there."

I nodded. "It's the right move. And I promise you... I will bring her back."

Her mother pressed the tissue to her lips. Esmeralda stared at me.

"You'd better," she whispered. "She's family."

My throat tightened. "I know. I won't stop."

I turned to Agent Keller.

"Tell me you have something."