SEVEN NIGHTS WITH MY STEPFATHER novel Chapter 3

3 /30

Cassian didn’t repeat himself. He simply waited, patient as winter, camera dangling from his neck like it belonged there. When I didn’t move, he reached past me, unbuttoned my coat himself, and slid it off my shoulders. His fingers brushed the bare skin at my throat (just a graze), but it burned like a brand. He hung the coat on a hook by the door, the same hook that used to hold my pink puffy jacket when I was twelve, and then he turned.

“Come,” he said. “I’ll show you what’s changed.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He just started walking, expecting me to follow.

And God help me, I did.

The lake house I remembered had been warm, cluttered with Mom’s throw pillows and my old crayon drawings taped to the fridge. This version felt like a gallery designed by someone who hated softness. The walls were bare except for enormous black-and-white photographs in severe black frames. A woman’s spine arched over a leather bench. A man’s hand wrapped around a slender throat. A close-up of lips parted on a silent scream. All artfully lit, all anonymous, all unmistakably erotic.

I stopped in front of one (close-cropped shot of a woman on her knees, wrists bound behind her back, head thrown back in obvious surrender). My stomach flipped.

“You… took these?” I asked, barely above a whisper.

“Every one.” His voice came from right behind me, close enough that I felt the warmth of his chest against my shoulder blade. “Keep walking.”

He led me through the open living room (now all dark leather and steel), past the kitchen that used to smell like cinnamon and now smelled faintly of coffee and something metallic, up the wide staircase that creaked exactly the way it always had. My old bedroom was on the second floor, third door on the left. I braced myself for memories when he opened it.

It wasn’t my room anymore.

The twin bed and boy-band posters were gone. In their place stood a massive four-poster bed made of black iron, draped in white linen so crisp it looked lethal. A single red ribbon was tied around one of the posts, the ends trailing to the floor like spilled blood. There was a velvet chaise by the window, a mirrored tray with a crystal decanter of something amber, and on the far wall, another photograph (this one of a woman suspended in red rope, body twisted into an impossible, graceful arc).

I swallowed hard. “This isn’t where I used to sleep.”

“No,” he said, stepping inside behind me. “This is where you will sleep for the next seven nights.”

He crossed to the dresser, opened a drawer, and pulled out something soft and black. A silk sleep mask. He set it on the duvet like a promise.

“You look exhausted,” he continued. “Shower if you want. Everything you need is in the bathroom. Tomorrow morning, after breakfast, I’ll explain your tasks. The rules. What I expect. Tonight you rest.”

He said it gently, almost kindly, but the gentleness felt like a trap.

I opened my mouth to argue (to demand answers now), but he was already moving toward the door.

“Cassian—”

“Tomorrow, Ivy.” He paused in the doorway, hand on the knob. “One more thing. There’s no cell service here. I had the tower disabled years ago. The wifi password changes every hour and only I know it. You’re completely cut off until the eighth morning. No one to call. No one to save you. Just us.”

He closed the door softly behind him.

I stood there for a long time, staring at the closed door, then spun around and dug my phone out of my bag. No bars. I held it up, walked to the window, waved it like an idiot. Nothing. I tried the smart TV (parental lock). The landline in the hall had been removed. He hadn’t been kidding. I was on an island with the one man my mother swore would destroy me, and no way to reach the outside world.