I Belong To My Three Forbidden Masters

Chapter 53: Chapter 53

Lysander’s pov

I ran the whole way back from the lecture hall, my lungs burning, the icy sting of Drake’s disappointment chasing me across campus like a phantom.

I didn’t take the shuttle.

I just ran until my sneakers hit the driveway of our house, my chest heaving as I burst through the front doors and took the grand staircase two steps at a time.

I needed to lock myself in my room and retreat to the one place on this godforsaken property where the eyes of the world couldn’t reach me.

I slammed my bedroom door shut, leaning my back against the dark wood, my head throbbing with a dull, persistent ache.

The room was quiet, but my mind was screaming. A circus. That was what Drake had called my life. A cheap, pathetic distraction.

I couldn’t blame him, in my head I had blamed him for exposing me but I realize now that he had no intention of exposing me to the world.

But the way he had spoken to me earlier struck me as odd, it was like he couldn’t wait to get away from me.

Instinctively, my hand flew to my collar, my fingers reaching beneath the neck of my shirt to grab for comfort. But my hand met bare skin.

I froze.

The silver chain was gone.

Oh no, Darius would be so mad.

I could still hear his authoritative voice echoing in my head from the day he fastened it around my neck:

"Wear this at all times, Lysander."

I had taken it off before bed two nights ago, resting it right beside my lamp. Now, the glass top of the nightstand was completely empty.

"Where is it?" I muttered to myself, dropping to my knees to sweep my hands frantically under the bed frame. My fingers scraped against bare hardwood, pulling up dust bunnies and an old sketchbook, but no silver.

I felt the frustration bubble up my throat, I hated looking for things.

First the video on campus, then Drake’s brutal dismissal in the lecture hall, and now I couldn’t even keep track of the one physical thing Darius had given me to keep me safe.

I stood up too fast, lightheadedness rushing through my skull. I rested my forehead against the cool plaster of the wall, taking slow breaths to keep the panic from swallowing me whole.

When I opened my eyes, I was staring directly up at the ceiling.

Right near the center of the room, the plastic casing of the smoke detector sat flush against the drywall. It was standard issue, identical to the ones in every other bedroom of the house. But as the afternoon light caught the edge of the plastic, something flickered.

A tiny, pinpoint glint of glass.

I froze. The room went unnaturally quiet, the sound of my own ragged breathing ringing loud in my ears.

I dragged my desk chair across the rug, the metal legs screeching against the floorboards, and stepped up onto the seat. I reached up, twisting the smoke detector counterclockwise. It unlatched with a sharp plastic click.

I pulled it down, flipping it over in my trembling hands. Wired straight into the internal battery port was a micro-lens no larger than the head of a pin, attached to a sleek, black wireless receiver card. A tiny, steady red light pulsed on the circuit board.

Recording.

My blood ran cold and air left my lungs as I gasped, my fingers locking around the plastic until the housing cracked under my grip. I ripped the device out of the ceiling, tearing the thin copper wires free, and dropped back down to the floor.

It wasn’t a standard security setup. This wasn’t the estate’s perimeter system.

Darius.

My stepfather’s face flashed in my mind, his obsessed control over every single metric of the Thorne household. Darius didn’t trust anyone. He measured everything and he had put a lens directly over my bed.

A horrific, nauseating realization began to take root in my chest, spreading like poison. If there was one here...

I scrambled to my feet, the chair clattering to the floor behind me as I moved frantically through the room. Panic took complete control, driving my hands as I tore through my belongings like a madman.

I ran into the adjoining bathroom, flipping on the overhead lights. I grabbed a chair from the vanity, dragged it over to the ventilation grate near the ceiling, and peered inside. Tucked behind the metal slats, angled precisely toward the shower stall, was another black box. Another tiny glass eye, gleaming in the fluorescent light.

"No, no, no..." I whimpered, reaching into the vent and yanking the casing loose. The plastic snapped, the receiver dangling by a blue wire before I ripped it free entirely.

I stepped down, my knees buckling slightly under my weight. I stumbled back toward the bedroom, my hands shaking so violently I could barely keep hold of the two devices. I looked at the full-length mirror mounted on the closet door. I stepped up to it, pressing my face against the glass, shielding the ambient light with my hands.

Behind the dark tint of the upper frame, mounted directly into the wood backing, sat a third lens. Aimed right at the center of the room.

A choked sound escaped my throat. I grabbed a heavy metal desk lamp and swung the base into the top corner of the frame. The mirror shattered with a deafening crack, spiderwebbing across the glass and sending sharp shards cascading onto the rug. I dug my fingers into the frame behind the broken glass, tearing the small, square camera module from its housing.

Three.

Driven by a dark, frantic instinct, I threw open the closet doors, shoving my hung clothes wildly to the sides. Deep in the back corner, mounted high above the top shelf where the winter coats hung, was the fourth. It was angled downward, pointing directly toward the floor space where I often sat.

I pulled it down, the wire snapping with a dull pop.

There were a total of four cameras from different angles.

I slid down the front of the closet door, my back scraping against the wood until my rear hit the floorboards. I pulled my knees tightly against my chest, clutching the cluster of plastic in my lap. My knuckles were white, stained with tiny flecks of blood from the shattered mirror, but I couldn’t feel the sting.

I was completely numb.

The silence of the room settled over me like a heavy burial shroud. My mind raced backward, tracing through months, years of living in this room. Every private moment and night I’d sat on the edge of my bed crying. Every time I’d changed my clothes, every stream I’d run, every quiet moment I thought I was alone.

The real horror hit me, striking straight through my chest like a lead pipe.

Darius had access to these feeds and had monitored them.

Which meant Darius had watched the night Gideon walked into my room. He had seen Gideon corner me, heard my voice telling him to stop, watched Gideon put his hands on me, force me down, and assault me within these four walls.

Darius had sat at his desk, looking at a high-definition monitor displaying my agony in real time and he had done nothing.

He hadn’t called out or sent security. He hadn’t walked down the hall to pull his son off me. He had simply sat back and watched, treating my trauma as just another data point to be recorded, filed, and stored away for future leverage.

A dry, bitter sob caught in my throat, but no tears came. My eyes were burning, wide and unblinking, fixed on the red indicator light of the smoke-detector camera still flickering weakly in my lap.

I wasn’t just surrounded by enemies on campus. I wasn’t just dealing with a leaked video and Drake’s cold, crushing disappointment.

I was living inside a cage built by the very person who claimed to be my guardian, a man who gave me silver to protect me from monsters, while placing cameras to watch the monsters in his own house destroy me.

I stared at the pile of broken electronics, my fingers tightening around the jagged edges until the plastic bit deep into my palm.

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