Page 115 of Sunrise

Sophie was right, this man seems to have vanished into thin air. I can find plenty about him before his court case, and very little after it. He’s got a degree in biochemistry, worked for a pharmaceutical company until he was arrested and went to jail forwhat he did to Sophie, and there’s no record of him being married, or owning property. It’s all very basic shit. The only photos I can find of him are headshots from his former employment, and his mugshots. One thing I can say is, this man was big and the guy who freaked Sophie out the other night at the club was smaller.

He could have hit the gym. Dieted.

Or they could be two completely different people.

I can’t run a facial recognition program to compare because he’s in a mask at the club, or his head is down.

“Ready?” Sophie asks from my doorway.

I minimize the search window so she can’t see what I’m up to.

“Yeah.” Pushing back in my chair, I drain the last half of my energy drink and toss it in the trash. “Let me grab my suit jacket.”

“Actually…” She fidgets with her fingers. “Do you mind doing me a big favor?”

“Absolutely.” I’d do anything for her, she knows that.

“Can you strip out of your shirt and wear a collar and leash?”

The favor isn’t big. “No problem.”

I decode her request as a need to keep me close and have control tonight because she’s feeling fragile and vulnerable. Fine by me. “Do you want to pick it out or should I?”

“Me.”

I smile. “Okay, baby.”

Unbuttoning my shirt, a calmness settles in my bones. My brain has been frazzled for days, weekseven, and for some ungodly reason, this is the moment my fight or flight has decided to float.

The Monarch Club is very much my safe space, too.

Knowing the root of Sophie’s fear gives me confidence that I can take care of her moving forward. Between Knox and I, she’ll never been tormented again.

Peeling my shirt off, I hang it across the back of my chair and walk around my desk to meet her at the door. “After you, Mistress.”

She grabs my hand and leads the way. Dressed in a full latex body suit and heels, her hair is pulled back into another tight ponytail, and a fresh coat of blood red lipstick colors her mouth. It makes me think back to when she first started as a Domme at the club. Ryker gave her a chance because she was so quick to learn about kinks and aftercare—which we now understand was because she was already deep into the lifestyle—but I wasn’t enthralled by her like most members were back then. She was too fake. First the wig, then the hair dye, and those colored contacts always threw me off. Guilt niggles my gut because I’d assumed she was a try hard back then, and now I’ve learned it was a disguise to keep the bad guy from finding her.

Over the years, she’s grown out of her disguise and back into the woman she was before. Unknowingly, we got to see her heal. And in those subtle shifts of her short hair growing out, the wigs being tossed in the trash, her contacts disappearing, and her laughter growing louder and more frequent, I fell in love with her a million times.

We’ve all provided Sophie a place for her returnto herself. There isn’t a greater honor than that.

“Those gears are grinding, Vault,” she teases, squeezing my hand. Her fingers are ice cold. “What are you thinking about?”

“How much you’ve changed since you started at the Monarch Club.”

We enter room twelve.

“Change is good, right?” She plucks a studded collar from the wall, along with a short, metal leash.

“Change is incredible.” I stay still so she can buckle the collar around my neck. “You’ve returned to yourself here.”

Sophie stills for a moment. “Yes…I suppose I did.”

“I’m very proud of you.” I lean forward to kiss her forehead.

Her cheeks turn pink. “Thank you.”

This woman is so strong and brave. “I love you more knowing you this way.”

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