Page 202 of Bound By Her

Adria watched him. His eyes didn’t hold the pity that people normally expressed when she shared that she had been abused as a child.

“Para um bom entendedor, meia palavra basta,” she whispered.

“What?”

“It’s a saying my mother used to use. It means to a good understander, half a word is enough.”

Bryson Winters, why do you have to understand so much?

“That nickname. The one your father used—” he said.

Princess.

“It’s what they used to call me,” she said, eager to change the subject.

His lips pressed together. “I remember.”

He was quiet for a long while, and Adria played with the ice cream soup forming in her bowl.

“If I had known what the nickname meant,” he started to say, but Adria held up a hand, cutting him off.

“No one knew.”

“No one will call you that again,” he said.

And she was shocked by the certainty in his eyes.

“Bryson, you can’t promi?—”

“No one!” he said more forcefully.

It was an impossible thing for him to promise, but it still felt good to hear.

“And the other photo?” Bryson asked.

“Loretta,” she said, feeling that pain in her chest again.

“She was a childhood friend of my mother’s,” Adria explained.

“She brought me into the world of BDSM. She taught me everything I know about the lifestyle. Showed me that there was more to my father’s world than killing and taking. Showed me I could do more. Be more.”

It should have been hard to talk about. But Adria was surprised at the ease in which the words fell out. Like a soothing balm to a wound.

“Jonathan wasn’t happy, of course. He hoped I would follow in my father’s footsteps. Then I would be easier to control.”

She paused, glancing at Bryson.

He didn’t speak. Just watched her. His expression open, quiet, older than his years. Normally, she thought of him as impulsive, still rough around the edges. But in this moment, she saw something else.

She saw the man he could become.

One year ago, she would’ve bet her fortune that Bryson Winters would go down in history as the worst leader the Nine families had ever known. Reckless. Defiant. Uncontrollable.

But now—here, like this—she saw it.

He was nothing like his father.

He understood people. He cared. He burned hot, but it wasn’t aimless fire—it was focused. Strategic.

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