I didn't hear the click.
I felt it.
It was the kind of silence that changes shape — the kind that presses against your neck with invisible fingers and whispers, You're being watched.
The moment I stepped into my bedroom and saw the small red blink above the archway, something inside me twisted.
It was a barely visible dot. No sound. No movement. But there it was — a heartbeat in the ceiling. Not mine. Not his.
A camera.
I didn't scream. That's the old me. The version of Pheobe Thorne who cared what her father thought. Who respected privacy in the illusion of freedom. That girl was buried somewhere under the rubble of Jackson's betrayal, right next to my naïve belief in loyalty and love.
This girl?
This girl smiled at the camera and stripped off her shoes like I was about to give the White House surveillance team a show.
"Interesting placement," I muttered, speaking aloud just in case anyone was listening. "But you missed the closet. And under the bed. Those are my best angles."
No response, obviously. Just me, my sarcasm, and the glow of oppression dressed up as protection.
I found him in the west hall an hour later.
He wasn't lounging or relaxing — because Killian Cross didn't do anything as casual as lounging. He stood at attention like he'd been born upright, like someone had poured concrete down his spine and sculpted a jaw out of raw threat.
His eyes locked on mine before I said a word. That dead-cold blue. Arctic, clinical, merciless. He held a tablet in one hand, thumb dragging across a blueprint of the mansion. Security overlays, field grids, motion tracking.
All of me.
"I count four," I said coolly. "One in the hallway, two in the foyer, one in my bedroom. Are we aiming for five stars on TripAdvisor surveillance now?"
Killian didn't even blink.
"Six," he said. "You missed the one in your private study."
I tilted my head. "You put one in my bathroom too?"
"No. But I thought about it."
My breath caught.
He wasn't bluffing. That was the thing about Killian — he didn't say things he didn't mean. He didn't joke. He didn't lighten the moment with charm or disarm me with wit.
He simply existed like a storm waiting to decide if it would pass overhead… or destroy the village.
"Do I get a safe word, Grim?" I asked, stalking closer, voice low. "Or do you just expect me to moan into the microphone?"
Killian's gaze dipped — just for a heartbeat — to my lips.
He didn't answer.
And that was the most dangerous part.
Later that night, I opened my phone — the new one they'd given me after the "incident."
It was white. Sleek. Clean. Which was ironic, considering it was the most sterilized, bugged, pre-approved, and watched device on the planet.
They stripped it down to nothing but messages, emergency contacts, and preset call routing.
I couldn't download apps. Couldn't call Jackson. Couldn't even check the news. The Presidential PR team believed knowledge was a toxin — and I was already overdosed.
So, naturally, I began typing lies.
To: Eva.
I found a key hidden in the basement floorboards. Marked "OATHBREAKER." Should I use it?
I waited ten seconds.
No response.
To: Eva.
There's someone on the roof. A man in tactical gear. He waved at me and vanished into the night fog.
Waited again.
Nothing.
But then… the hallway camera outside my bedroom whirred.
Just a soft motor sound.
But I heard it.
My lips curled. "Gotcha."
The next morning, I went further.
I typed:
To: Eva.
The gun my father gave me still works. Just fired it into the mirror. Feels like poetry.
No reply.
This time, I counted seconds. When it hit thirty, my door opened.
Killian.
He didn't say a word. Just stood in the doorway, filling it like a wall with eyes.
"Was that one fast enough for you?" I asked sweetly. "Or should I have added blood to sell it?"
He walked in and reached for my phone.
I didn't resist. That would've been too easy.
He scrolled. Paused.
And then said, "You think this is a game."
"No," I said. "You think you're in control."
He tossed the phone back on the bed. "And what do you think?"
I leaned in until we were almost nose to nose. "I think you're scared."
He didn't flinch. But his pulse betrayed him. Just a twitch at his throat. Barely visible. But I saw it.
"Scared of what?" he asked.
I smiled. "Of what happens when the leash breaks."
That night, I wore red silk.
Not because I felt sexy — I didn't. I felt like an animal circling the bars of its cage, rehearsing for a performance that might end in blood.
But because red is the color of war.
I walked slowly past the hallway where I knew the main camera was angled just slightly too high to catch my full silhouette. So I stopped in the light. Turned. Let the robe slide down one shoulder. Let the strap fall.
I counted ten seconds.
Then twenty.
Thirty.
Nothing.
No footfalls. No door creaks. No sharp inhale of a man realizing the girl he was meant to protect was also the one who would ruin him.
Maybe he really didn't care.
Maybe that made him worse.
The next day, two guards arrived.
Not Secret Service. Not even federal.
Private. Unnamed. Silent.
One of them handed me a card. No words. Just slid it into my palm like it was poison wrapped in politeness.
THE PROTOCOL IS ACTIVE.
LEVEL THREE RESTRICTIONS APPLIED.
AUTHORIZATION: E.T.
E.T.
Elias Thorne.
My father.
"You have five new boundaries," Killian said when I confronted him in the east wing.
"Do I look like a dog?" I snapped.
"No," he said. "Dogs are loyal."
That one hurt.
Worse than it should have.
He pointed to a floor map of the estate. Areas marked in red — my new forbidden zones. They included the west garden, my father's war room, and — shocker — the garage.
"Afraid I'll hotwire the Bentley?" I hissed.
"Afraid you'll survive," Killian said quietly.
That shut me up.
Because deep down, I didn't want to. Not really.
It was two nights later when I discovered the second set of cameras.
They weren't in my room. Not in the halls. Not even in the study.
They were hidden inside a mirror.
One I thought was decorative.
And they weren't standard surveillance.
They were Killian's.
I stared into that lens and whispered, "What do you want from me?"
I didn't expect a response.
But in the morning, on my breakfast tray — buried under a napkin next to a black coffee I never drank — was a folded note.
Six words.
"To know what leash you cut."
That afternoon, I sent another message.
To: Eva.
I think I found his weak spot. He watches, but he doesn't blink. Doesn't touch. Doesn't speak. But the leash? I think he's the one wearing it now.
As if on cue — Killian entered my room again.
"Walk," he said.
"Excuse me?"
"You said you wanted freedom. Let's take a walk."
Outside?
No way this was protocol.
No way this was sanctioned.
But I followed.
And as we passed through the back terrace into the hidden garden — a place I hadn't seen in weeks — he said four words I didn't expect.
"You're not a prisoner."
I stopped walking.
He didn't.
"You've installed cameras," I said.
"For your safety."
"You've read my messages."
"To protect you."
"You've locked me in this house, restricted my every move, and silenced my voice."
He turned.
"For a prisoner," he said, "you scream loud."
I stepped toward him.
"So that's what this is? Volume control?"
"No," he said. "It's survival."
"Yours or mine?"
His silence gave me my answer.
Both.
I don't remember who moved first.
But I remember standing close — chest to chest — breath tangled between us. I saw his fingers twitch like they wanted to touch but didn't know how.
He didn't kiss me.
He didn't touch me.
But for the first time since this all started, I felt it.
Crack.
The leash had snapped.
And the man they called Grim?
Was no longer just watching.
He was unraveling.
And I was the one pulling the thread.
The Kiss Dare — I corner him. "Kiss me or kill me," I whisper. He walks away — but not fast enough.