Page 48

She’d died alone.

She’d died helping people.

And I’d never gotten the chance to tell her I was sorry.

The theater completed my transformation while I was still searching. The wound in my stomach became a scar that never fully healed. The guilt became a chain. And the bargain Evangeline had made became the curse that bound me to the House until the last heir returned.

When Zinnia walked through the red door a hundred years later, I recognized her immediately.

And I chose to betray her again.

Because that’s what the Devil does.

Now . . .

When I opened my eyes, I was back in my room, the ring still in my hand.

The House had kept me here for lifetimes. Decades. Maybe longer. Time didn’t work the same way inside these walls, and I’d stopped counting years ago.

But I remembered her.

The moment our souls connected on the stage while I fucked her, I kept going anyway.

That was the choice that mattered. Not the recognition itself, but what I did after I knew. I pushed deeper, kept fucking her, kept binding her to the House and its hunger while understanding exactly who I was betraying. The same woman. The same promises I’d made in that narrow room: to get us out, to choose her, to build something real.

I’d lied then.

I was lying now.

The ritual completed. The mark appeared beneath her ribs. The House fed on the witnessed spectacle, and the contract sealed itself tighter around both of us. She didn’t remember me yet, but her body had. Her body had known mine as it always had, and I’d used that recognition to trap her even deeper.

The ring on my finger burned.

The House’s curse, the Devil’s chain, the price of every person I’d brought through its doors. Evangeline had bound me to this place with a bargain I couldn’t break and a hunger I couldn’t refuse. Bring her people. Repeat the betrayal. Keep the cycle turning.

But Zinnia was different.

Zinnia was the last heir, the bloodline that could end this, and I’d just used her own desire against her to accelerate the House’s claim. The leverage I’d wanted was there. The debt was real. The House would reward me for delivering her, and I could finally walk away.

Except I didn’t want to walk away anymore.

That terrified me more than anything the House could do.

Because if I loved her again, I’d have to choose.

And I’d already proven what I chose when the stakes were high enough.

If I could finally break the curse that kept me trapped here.

As I closed my hand around the ring, the metal bit into my palm.

The stage ritual had worked. The mark was spreading. In two days, the House would force her into the second ritual, the one that would bind her permanently.

Unless I stopped it.

Unless I told her the truth.

Unless I chose her instead of my freedom.