Chapter 108: Angel Turned Devil

Selene’s POV

I woke up in chains, tied to a chair.

Where the hell was Aiden?

He was nowhere in sight, and he was the one who had put me here.

I was confused for a second, couldn’t fathom what was happening. One minute we were kissing and all over each other, and the next I was in chains. It didn’t match. None of it made sense, and I needed answers ... fast.

"Aiden! Aiden!" I shouted his name repeatedly.

There was a fireplace directly in front of me. He had positioned me to face it, and I was already drenched in sweat, the heat pressing into my skin like a punishment I hadn’t earned yet.

Aiden finally walked in with a laptop in his hand.

"Can you explain what the meaning of all this is?" I asked him.

He said nothing.

"What is this, Aiden? Remove this thing from me." My voice cracked into a yell.

Still nothing.

He opened the laptop and checked something on the screen ... I couldn’t see what. Then he looked up at me, and his entire energy had shifted. The warmth was gone. He spoke to me like I was sitting across a boardroom table.

"Welcome, Selene Ironheart."

My stomach dropped.

"What’s all this? Talk to me, Aiden. Is this what this whole relationship was about?" I pushed.

It looked like he had a lot to say but didn’t know how to start. He kept opening his mouth and closing it again, like the words kept retreating back down his throat.

"I’m very sorry, first of all, for the circumstances in which we find ourselves," he finally said.

"Sorry for what exactly? Sorry for liking me, or sorry for all of this?" I gestured as best I could with my wrists bound. "Why won’t you get these chains off me? Did you spike my drink?"

"There was never any relationship between us," he said flatly. "We were only ever operating on a professional basis."

The words hit me like cold water.

"So you never liked me." I yanked at the chains, trying to pull free. They didn’t budge. "Then why am I here?"

"You’re here because you’re going to give me the secret behind your invention ... the one submitted to Winterwood Manufacturing. We can’t penetrate their system from the outside." He said it like it was the most reasonable thing in the world.

I felt tears burn the back of my eyes before I could stop them.

"I knew I shouldn’t have trusted anyone," I said, my voice dropping low. "But your charm worked on me. Clap for yourself. You did a good job."

He stepped closer. "We can make this simple and easy, Selene. Just tell me how to operate your machine, give me the blueprint behind it, and I’ll let you go. This isn’t even a proper kidnapping ... you’re just restrained."

The second he got close enough, something snapped inside me. Disgust. Pure, white-hot disgust. I spat directly in his face.

And just like that, things got real.

He smiled ... actually smiled ... while wiping the spit off his cheek. "I’ll admit, you’re a good person. Probably even someone I could see myself marrying. But duty comes first."

"Who are you, Aiden?" I stared at him. "Is your name even Aiden?"

Something shifted in his expression right then. His face rearranged itself into something colder, something I hadn’t seen before ... the face beneath the face. The devil wearing the mask of the man I thought I knew.

My softness had been used as a weapon against me. My kindness had walked me right into chains.

"My real name is Reid Crowe," he said. "I work for an undercover company whose identity I’m not at liberty to disclose. We take ownership of certain assets ... innovations that individuals won’t be able to scale alone. We want to help you, Selene. Let us take this to a global level."

I gasped.

"How the fuck did you get access to that conference? How did you even know who I was?"

"We have our ways. Your name appeared on our radar as an emerging inventor. Let us assist you in something bigger than yourself." He said it like he was doing me a favor.

I cried harder. That one broke something in me.

My instincts had been screaming at me from the beginning. Something had felt off ... a quiet, persistent voice in the back of my head that I kept choosing to ignore. And now I was paying for it in chains, in sweat, in tears.

"So you had to make me fall for you just to get to me?"

"No," he said. "I had to position you. That’s strategy. It works every time."

I shook my head slowly. I wasn’t sure there were any genuinely trustworthy people left in the world.

Ms. Ashlyn had been the one to tell me to give him a chance. She had no idea she had sent me straight into a trap.

"I can’t believe you would do this to me," I said.

He didn’t answer.

"Just tell me the secret of your machine!" he snapped, his calm finally cracking. "I don’t want to hurt you. Just give me what I need."

"I don’t have any secret. If Winterwood’s manufacturing team didn’t give you anything, then there’s nothing left to share." I held his gaze. "Because I gave them everything."

"That’s a lie. The blueprint ... the mindset behind the design, how to operate it. Give me that and we walk away from this."

I studied him for a long moment, trying to find even a trace of the man I thought I’d known. The one who had confessed feelings to me. The one who had looked at me like I mattered.

"Did you really like me, Aiden ... Reid, whatever your name is?"

"Don’t take any of that to heart," he said coolly. "It’s a strategy. It works every time."

So I was just another target. Another mark on a list.

I made myself a promise right then ... if I survived this, I was done. I wasn’t trusting anyone again. Not like that.

"There’s nothing to tell you," I said. "There’s nothing."

He reached behind him and pulled out a whip.

"I don’t want to hurt you, Selene. You’re leaving me no choice."

I stared at it. I couldn’t believe this was real. That things had moved this fast, twisted this sharp. That I had stood in this same room and agreed to give this man a chance.

"Okay." I exhaled. "Okay, I’ll tell you. Put it down and come closer ... I don’t want anyone else to hear this."

He set the whip down without hesitation. His eyes lit up. He wanted this too badly to be careful.

He leaned in close.

I pointed, urging him closer, closer ... then I launched at his ear like I had nothing left to lose.

I bit down hard and I didn’t let go.

He screamed. I held on. I had no idea this side of me existed. Love had been sitting so heavy on my brain for so long that I hadn’t been able to think straight ... but I was thinking straight now.

When I finally released him, he stumbled back, clutching the side of his head. His left ear was bleeding.

I sat back in the chair, chest heaving, and waited.

He picked up the whip.

And he used it.

The pain was immediate and total. With my wrists chained and my body restrained, I had nowhere to absorb it ... it just ripped straight through me. I screamed.

"Tell me the secret!" he roared.

I couldn’t speak. The pain had swallowed every word I had.

Ms. Ashlyn didn’t know where I was. Nobody did. I had come here on my own, willingly, to tell this man how I felt about him ... to finally say yes. I hadn’t expected any of this.

I had duties back at the chambers. Work. A life.

None of that felt real right now. Only this did. Only the chains and the heat and the blood on his ear and the welt rising on my skin.

Because the man standing in front of me had been an angel once.

And somewhere between the conference and these chains, he had shown me exactly what he really was.