Page 234 of Bound By Her

It was a gun.

The barrel pressing just beneath the edge of Jonathan’s jacket. Perfectly aimed. Deadly close.

“What the hell is going on here?” she hissed, stepping forward to block the line of sight from nearby guests.

The man didn’t look at her. His voice cold and terrifying, but it was unmistakably Bryson’s.

“I was just telling our friend here,” Bryson said, “that he is no longer welcome to address you by that name.”

Jonathan blinked, his voice pure velvet. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure.”

Adria felt her pulse spike. Jonathan hadn’t recognized him. The clothes, the mask, Bryson was unrecognizable. Except to her.

Bryson leaned closer, gun still firmly pressed to Jonathan’s chest.

“But I know you, J.” His tone dropped lower, almost awhisper. “I know about your evening walks along 14th. About the back room. About the special favors you receive.”

Jonathan paled.

Adria watched the blood drain from his face.

Bryson stepped in even closer, then, after a tense beat, slowly tucked the gun away.

“How about we take this conversation somewhere private?” he said, his voice deadly soft. “We can have a little talk. Just you and me.”

Jonathan swallowed hard, and his throat bobbed as he nodded.

The two turning to leave, and Adria followed. She wasn’t about to let Bryson loose at another function.

Faces blurred by her as they weaved through the crowd.

“Tell your bodyguards to wait here,” Bryson said to Jonathan.

Jonathan gave the two men behind them the signal to wait, and Adria did the same for hers before following the pair through a side door.

As Adria turned to close it behind them, she locked eyes with a brown-eyed girl with vibrant red hair. Eyes boring into her, Adria blinked in confusion, before closing the mysterious face out.

Bryson led them to the boardroom. The same room where she had coerced him into wearing his tracking bracelet all those months ago.

Placing a large white envelope on the wooden table, Bryson took a careful step back, mask on, his eyes never leaving Jonathan.

The dimly lit room was filled with a heavy silence, broken only by the distant hum of voices outside. Jonathan’s figure cast a long shadow, and he hovered at the far end of the room, closest to the door.

Adria crept to the table, hand trailing across thepaper envelope. She tried her best to hide the shake in her hands as she gingerly untied the string and opened the parcel. Her intuition screaming.

Somehow she knew what she would find.

Her breath caught in her throat as she dumped a cascade of photographs onto the table. Each image was meticulously labeled with dates and times, the ink now slightly smudged. The weight of the moment pressed heavily upon her, causing her skin to prickle with a mix of anger and disgust.

Adria stared at the sea of faces captured in those haunting images. Innocent eyes staring back at her, frozen in time, their silent pleas for justice echoing in her ears.

So many photos.

So many innocent eyes.

“The Triune doesn’t take kindly to pedos, Jonathan,” she said, tossing one of the photos to his end of the table.

Adria watched intently as he extended his hand. His fingers hovered hesitantly before delicately picking up the image.

---