The moment Liam confessed, the penthouse's emergency lights flared crimson. A metallic hiss rolled through the vents—gas.
Jace lunged for his tablet. "He's overriding the systems!"
Ethan didn't hesitate. He backhanded Liam hard enough to crack his head against the floor. "Where is he?"
Liam spat blood, grinning. "You've been breathing him in for hours."
The truth detonated like a bomb: The whiskey on Liam's breath wasn't alcohol. It was Victor's signature scent—engineered pheromones, seeping into the air, into me. My skin prickled, heat pooling low in my belly. Jace's scanner beeped wildly. "Her neural activity is spiking—the nanotech's activating!"
Amir hauled Liam up by his broken arm. "Reverse it."
Liam's laugh was a broken thing. "Too late. She's already craving him."
Ethan's fist connected again, but I barely heard the impact. Because the memories were flooding in now, unstoppable:
Victor's hand fisting in my hair, dragging me through smoke. "You think they'll still want you after what you've done?" A gun pressed into my palm. "Shoot Amir, or I burn them all alive."
I gasped, clawing at my throat. "I didn't—I didn't want to—"
Amir was suddenly in front of me, his obsidian eyes holding mine. "Breathe." His scarred hands—burned saving me—framed my face. "You didn't pull the trigger. I did."
The revelation shattered me.
Because the bullet meant for Amir's heart had gone wide, grazing his ribs instead—because I fought back.
The memory twisted again: Victor's lips on mine, tasting of poison and promise. "You'll forget this. But your body won't."
A moan escaped me, my hips rocking against nothing. The nanotech was alive in my veins, turning every nerve ending into a live wire.
Ethan snarled, shoving Amir aside. "She needs an override. Now."
Jace's fingers flew over his tablet. "I can trigger an adrenaline surge to disrupt the signal, but—"
"But what?" Ethan demanded.
Jace flushed. "It requires extreme physical stimulus."
Liam coughed out a laugh. "He means fuck her harder than Victor ever could."
Ethan's expression darkened. He ripped the scanner from Jace's hands and threw it against the wall. "Everyone out."
No one moved.
Amir's jaw tightened. "We don't leave her alone."
"Out!" Ethan roared, his voice shaking the glass walls.
They left—all but Amir. He stepped closer, his voice low. "You're not the only one he rewired." Then he did something unimaginable: he knelt, pressing his forehead to my knee. "I remember the fire. All of it."
Ethan's grip on my waist turned possessive. "Amir—"
"She needs to know." Amir's gaze burned into mine. "When Victor forced you to shoot me, you turned the gun on yourself instead." His hand slid up my thigh, over the scar no one had explained—the one I'd made. "You pulled the trigger. The bullet went through your leg and into my ribs. That's why the scars match."
The room tilted.
Because that was the memory Victor had buried deepest: my finger on the trigger, my scream as the gun fired—not at Amir, but at my own thigh, the bullet tearing through flesh to strike him behind me.
A sacrifice, not a betrayal.
Ethan's breath hitched. "Alex—"
The lights died.
Victor's voice oozed from the walls: "Touching, really. But did you honestly think I'd let you rewrite my masterpiece?"
Then the real horror began.
The nanotech erupted under my skin, sending white-hot pleasure searing through me. I arched off the bed, a scream tearing from my throat as my body convulsed—not in pain, but in orgasm, brutal and unwanted.
Victor's laugh curled around us. "You see, Ethan? Even now, she comes for me."
Ethan's roar of fury shook the room. He yanked me upright, his mouth crashing onto mine, his hands everywhere. "You want an override?" he growled against my lips. "I'll burn his programming out of you."
Then he took me—no gentleness, no pretense—his thrusts so deep I felt him in my bones. Amir didn't leave. He watched, his dark eyes tracking every jerk of my body, every gasp Ethan tore from my throat.
And when Ethan finally bit my shoulder, drawing blood as he spilled inside me, the nanotech shrieked in my veins—and went silent.
Victor's voice cut off mid-laugh.
The lights flickered back on.
Amir exhaled roughly. "It worked."
Ethan didn't let go of me. "For now."
Then the penthouse alarms screamed.
Jace's voice crackled over the intercom: "He's inside."