I Belong To My Three Forbidden Masters

Chapter 54: Chapter 54

Lysander’s pov

The stairs blurred beneath my feet as I took them two at a time, the jagged pile of plastic, wires, and smashed circuit boards heavy in my hands.

My knuckles were bloodied from the shattered mirror, but the pain was distant, completely swallowed by the roaring fire in my chest.

Every step echoed like thunder through the silent estate, stripping away the lingering numbness until all that remained was pure, blinding rage.

I didn’t knock. I slammed my palm against the doors of Darius’s private study, shoving them wide open so hard the bronze handles cracked against the drywall.

He was sitting behind his massive oak desk, the soft glow of a desk lamp illuminating his silvered temples. He didn’t startle. He simply set his gold fountain pen down on a leather ledger, slowly lifting his cold, grey eyes to meet mine.

"Lysander," he said softly, "You’re disrupting my work."

"You monstrous bastard!" I screamed, stepping into the center of the room. I raised my arms and hurled the cluster of smashed cameras directly at his desk.

"I trusted you!"

The plastic and wires crashed across the polished wood, scattering shattered glass, torn circuit boards, and broken lenses over his pristine documents. One of the camera housings bounced off the mahogany and clattered against his leather shoes.

Darius didn’t flinch or blink. He looked down at the broken lens resting against his shoe, then raised his eyes back to me, an insufferably calm, almost disappointed expression settling over his face.

"I take it you found my security measures," he said dryly.

"Security measures?" My voice cracked, a hysterical, bitter laugh tearing from my throat. "You put cameras in my bathroom, Darius! In my closet! Over my bed! You’ve been spying on me!"

"I have been monitoring my property," he corrected, leaning back in his high-backed leather chair and lacing his fingers together over his stomach. "Every square inch of this estate is under surveillance, Lysander. You are a reckless, emotional boy living under my roof. I require oversight."

"I am a human being!" I yelled, stepping closer to the desk, my hands trembling violently as I pointed at the broken pile between us. "You watched me! You watched everything I did in that room for years!"

Shame coated my words when I realized he had been watching me put on a show for strangers on the internet.

Darius sat up slowly, resting his forearms on the edge of the desk. "I have watched since the day you moved into this house," he said, his tone as casual as if he were discussing the weather. "I know when you sleep. I know when you cry. I know every little secret you think you hide so cleverly behind that locked door."

The air left my lungs in a sharp, agonizing gasp. My knees felt weak, the sheer scale of his violation crushing down on me. But then, the darkest memory tore through my mind, and my vision swam with heat.

"You saw Gideon," I whispered, the words tasting like ash on my tongue. My voice shook when I remembered the horrific night. "You have the feed from every angle. Which means you saw the night Gideon came into my room. You saw him corner me. You heard me beg him to stop. You watched him put his hands on me and force me down—"

"I saw," he interrupted smoothly, his face a completely unreadable mask.

The admission hit me like a physical blow to the sternum. I stumbled back a half-step, my jaw dropping. "You watched your own son assault me... and you did nothing? You didn’t stop him?"

"Why would I stop him?" He asked, tilting his head slightly, a cold, clinical curiosity in his eyes. "Gideon is weak. Driven by stupid, animalistic impulses. Watching him attempt to claim you only proved how pathetic he is and watching you endure it proved something far more valuable to me."

"You’re sick," I choked out, tears of pure fury finally spilling over my lashes, burning down my cheeks. "You’re a monster."

"I am a realist," Darius said, his voice dropping into something dark and suffocatingly heavy. He stood up slowly, rounding the edge of the desk. He didn’t rush. He walked toward me with a terrifying poise of an apex predator that knew its prey had nowhere left to run. "I let Gideon reveal his nature because it gave me leverage over him. Just like your little adult livestreams gave me leverage over you."

My heart hammered frantically against my ribs. I backed away, but Darius kept advancing, his polished shoes stepping over the shattered glass on the rug.

"And my necklace?" I stammered, my hand flying back to my bare throat, my fingers grasping at thin air. "Where is my necklace? You gave it to me! You swore it was silver to protect me from vampires!"

He stopped a few feet in front of me. A slow, terrifying smile tugged at the corner of his thin lips, a smile entirely devoid of warmth or humanity.

"Oh, Lysander," he purred softly, shaking his head with mock pity. "Did you really believe that little lie?"

He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a delicate, glinting object. He held it up between his thumb and forefinger. The silver chain caught the light of the study lamp, dangling above the floorboards.

"It was never meant to protect you from monsters," Darius whispered, his grey eyes locking onto mine with a terrifying, possessive intensity. "It was coated in concentrated silver nitrate and iron-root. A localized repellent. I put it around your neck for one reason, and one reason only: to keep Drake Balthazar away from you."

A violent shiver ran down my spine. The room seemed to tilt on its axis.

"Drake?" I breathed, my mind spinning out of control. "What does Professor Drake have to do with—"

"Balthazar has been sniffing around you since the day you stepped onto his campus," Darius said, his voice turning cold and venomous. "He smelled what you were before you even knew it yourself. That chain was a barrier. A subtle, poisonous ward to ensure he couldn’t get close enough to touch you, to claim you, or to take what belongs to me."

Darius stepped closer, reaching out a long, pale hand. He caught a strand of my dark hair, tucking it gently behind my ear with a touch that made my skin crawl.

"The necklace was never protection, Lysander," Darius murmured, leaning down so his breath brushed my ear. "It was a leash. I didn’t want the vampires having you... because I intend to keep you for myself."

I gasped, shoving his hand away with all the strength I had left, tearing myself out of his reach. I backed toward the heavy mahogany doors, my chest heaving, my heart hammering like a trapped bird against a cage.

He simply stood there in the soft light of his study, holding my silver chain, watching me with that terrible, unblinking composure.

I looked at him, and for the first time in my life, the full, suffocating truth of my reality settled over me like a tomb.

My mother had married a monster.

Gideon was a predator who had violated me. Darius was a sociopath who had engineered my entire life into a gilded cage, watching my trauma for entertainment and leverage. And Drake, well Drake was not the lesser evil.

There was no rescue coming. There was no hero.

I was trapped in a world filled with monsters who wanted to tear me apart.

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