No one speaks. Kael keeps his distance all the way back to Pont-Ciel. Catalina's head is throbbing.

He killed his mother. The Third had a promise to Cirillo.  Catalina was a candidate for remarriage to Cirillo. Her father has business in Kael's city and he "had no choice."

Catalina can't breathe.

The second they step back inside the penthouse, where Samara is watching TV and having cheese and wine in designer sweatpants, a cropped top, and a huge fur coat. Upon spotting them, her eyes widen and she gasps. "Oh my God, I knew it. Who stared at Catalina too long? Who did we kill?"

Polo goes straight to her. With barely-there restraint, he says, "We're going home."

If Catalina weren't so busy catching her breath, she'd have balked at his chilling voice.

Samara bites off another piece of cheese and downs her wine quickly before Polo whisks her away. "Toodles!"

Catalina puts her hands on the counter, dizzy.

"Boss," Chuck calls hesitantly. "Jae and I will do some rounds and check on Merlot."

When they're alone, in the quiet of their home, Catalina asks, "How much did you give my father?"

Kael doesn't answer.

She turns around to look at him.

Catalina expects his face to be closed. Controlled. Detached. The same expression on his face when he was talking to Cirillo Mirkov.

But Kael's eyebrows are furrowed. He stands, more so than when he apologized to her, uncertain. His eyes...pleading and tormented.

Catalina thought this was an alliance. An arranged marriage for their so-called peace. How stupid of her to think that her greedy father would ask for nothing in return.

"How much did you give my father?" Catalina asks again. "How much did you give him, Kael?"

He steps closer. "Catalina—"

Catalina moves back and shouts, "How much did you give him?! How much was I worth?!"

Kael closes his eyes. A few seconds pass. When he opens them again, Catalina thinks he looks, for the first time in his life, defeated. And that he finally accepts the fact.

Like he's been preparing for this a long time ago.

"I need you to listen to me."

"Finally giving me some of your secrets, husband?" Catalina bites, gritting her teeth. "Maybe I should just leave and walk away right now."

If it were possible, she sees him wince. "Listen to me, Catalina."

Her breaths come out short.

Was everything a lie? Was she just really a pawn in this game for power, a chess piece for Kael's reign? Was she really supposed to end up like Samara, like his mother, like Selene?

"Catalina." Kael's voice is firm, and beyond the ringing in her ears, she thinks she hears something else under his assertive and dominating voice.

Panic. Agitation. Dread. All three foreign to the ruler of San Helena.

And yet...

"Kael," she whispers, her chest rising and falling rapidly. "Did you buy me?"

"I did not."

"Then what was I worth?!"

He shuts his eyes.

Catalina takes a deep, shaky breath. In her quietest voice, for the first time, she gives him the order: "Start from the beginning."

"You will not walk away."

"I decide, Kael!" Catalina screams. "I decide. Start talking. Now."

Kael takes a deep breath. In the silence of their home, Catalina thinks he's preparing himself for the sound of her footsteps when she walks away.

Still, with a hard voice, he says, "I saw you at Cirillo's wedding."

Whatever she thought was coming out of his mouth, it wasn't that. It was five years ago, and Catalina was just one of the two hundred attendees at that wedding, fading in the background behind her father and Aires.

"Your hair was like a halo," he continues, stating this like it's a fact. "And you were in white. Everyone was in white. But you..." He sighs, closing his eyes briefly, as if the image is printed in his head. "You were in a simple, long-sleeved, white dress."

Catalina remembers. It was her mother's.

Cirillo and Selene's wedding was an all-white affair. She remembers thinking that was strange.

"And then I saw you look at Selene. Everyone else was having the time of their lives at her wedding, congratulating Cirillo. But you looked at Selene, and I saw regret in your eyes. Compassion."

Catalina stares at him. "And then?"

He takes a deep breath. "And then you had me," Kael says quietly. "I bought your apartment when you ran. I had my people around you. I had Polo invest in San Helena Grace Medical. I knew about your surgeries, your dollhouse fixation, your hospital shifts, when you were on-call or not.  I knew when you were staying in or out."

Oh my God.

"I wanted to wait until I was the Fourth to propose a marriage between our families," he murmurs, his jaw tensing. "One where you knew that I arranged it myself."

Catalina's head is swimming. "And why didn't you?"

"Selene and her son went missing. Cirillo needed heirs. Salvi saw an opportunity for an alliance and to expand his business," Kael says, still holding her gaze. Unwavering. "He wanted to offer you to him."

Catalina feels her stomach twist at the horror. "What?"

His jaw tenses. "I talked to Salvi. Because he did not want direct ties with the Third, he refused me. He said I could join the auction."

Auction.

Her father was selling her to multiple people. And the Mirkovs, next to the Kincaids, had the most money.

It was a done deal.

"Maybe we shouldn't have taken up the Third on his offer, after all. And I'd have Catalina waiting at home for me instead."

Catalina turns her head away, blinking rapidly, and sits down on the island.

"Cata—"

"And then?" she whispers, horrified.

Kael exhales. "I was careless when I went to speak to your father. The Third found out. He found out about everything. He wanted you."

Catalina's hands start to shake.

Oh, God. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.

"He wanted to know why I was so taken with you," Kael chokes out. "For the first time in twenty years, he saw a weakness. He wanted you because I wanted you, and promised Samara to Crius instead. For Cirillo."

Catalina's breath is stuck in her throat.

"Though she was a whore, they agreed. She had information against us and they wanted to use it. She was valuable in that way, and Crius prioritizes secrets and knowlege," Kael says. "But the Third was confident in her loyalty—no matter what happened to her. So he promised her to Cirillo. To the Mirkovs."

That's why Samara was taken. She wasn't abducted. She was given.

"In exchange for me," Catalina whispers. "For the Third."

"I wasn't going to let him anywhere near you," Kael says darkly. "So we had a small window of time before Samara was turned over and before the Third came for you. And I had to—"

He stops. Looks at her.

"Kill him," Catalina finishes simply, her mouth dry. "You killed the Third."

Kael doesn't say anything for a moment.

"Oh, God," she whispers.

"Samara sent him to hell," he says. "But I wanted to. Polo wanted to. But before that, the Third was frantic—she was given to Cirillo ahead of time, and we found her after two days. I informed Cirillo that the Third is dead and his promise no longer holds."

Catalina feels her eyes begin to sting.

The things that Kael has done...this darkness he carries. Conspiring in killing his father and rising to power just to keep the Third's monstrous hands away from her.

"We had the funeral. I became the Fourth. Crius was hospitalized—he was no use to Cirillo anymore, and he needed to rise to power, too," he says. "And then I went after Salvi. He was already having the auction, desperate for an alliance with the other families before I came for him for refusing me the first time."

Catalina takes a shaky breath, her nails digging into her skin. She's afraid to ask, but she does, anyway. "What did you do?"

"For you? Whatever it took," he answers. "He was selling Francesca, too. That made for two alliances against me. He was bidding both of your virginities."

She grabs the bin and throws up.

Kael stills. "Catalina?"

"Finish," she gets out through the disgusting taste of her mouth, eyes burning.

"Diego Lunet, Warren Croce, Ramesh Arsenau, Tiago Ditka, and Thomas MacQuoid," he lists. "Heir or leader, I didn't care. Then I stuck my gun at your father's forehead."

The Croces almost took her. The nightclub raid by the Lunets. The coup in Polperro—where the Ditkas live. The dirty, vengeful looks the Ditkas and Arsenaus gave her at Cirillo's party. The MacQuoid attack.

"You can pay for what the Fourth did to our family."

"Eye for an eye."

"He wanted something of mine."

Every single puzzle piece was sliding into place. All those names and faces—gone from the Kincaid book of POIs.

For her.

"He asked me what I wanted," Kael continues quietly, staring at her. "I told him you."

Catalina holds his gaze.

"I told him you for me, and Francesca out of the market."

"But the alliance...and you threatened..."

He pins her with his gaze. "The alliance was the exchange. And I knew you would do everything to keep your sister away from me."

Catalina thinks back to the first time she found out Kael was the Fourth. His threats to marry Francesca if she didn't agree. Their wedding. Their first night together.

All this wasted time being scared of the man who killed his own father and everyone who wanted to hurt and take her and her sister.

"And how much did you give him?" Catalina whispers.

He shakes his head once. "I told him he could say yes or leave the Di Angelos to me. There was nothing he could do—the Third was gone, so he began talking about wedding preparations. For his accommodation, I gave him the alliance and business in Pont-Ciel."

Aires knew. That's why he was so sure Kael wasn't going to hurt her.

Catalina takes this all in. She swipes a finger on her cheek, and through her teeth, gets out, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You wouldn't have believed me."

"And after we got married?"

He takes a deep breath, looking away once. "I wanted you to change your mind about me and our marriage on your own. Not because of this. You would've been more scared than you already were."

Catalina pauses. Lets the silence of their home envelope them and his words.

"Catalina, I would do terrible, terrible things for you."

"You didn't even know me."

"Even from a distance, from the moment you looked at Selene, I knew you enough. Watching you made torturous days with the Third worth it. Most of the time, you were all I held onto—it felt like grasping onto my last shred of humanity. I spent five years in silence—not touching you, not speaking to you, not looking into your eyes. But it was enough," Kael says, absolute. "It was enough until it wasn't anymore.

"Talking to you in the hospital...kissing you in the car...sliding my ring on your finger and making you mine at our wedding—I felt like I could finally breathe," Kael murmurs, the words sounding foreign, like it's the first time he admitted this out loud. "That I knew the Third wasn't going to get to you—Cirillo or Diego Lunet or anyone else. Catalina, I'm sorry. I'm not a good man, my demons are not yours to feed, and this life isn't made for you—you in your pure white and morals and passion for saving lives. My devotion to you, Catalina, is not something I understand nor is it something I need. The Third dangled Samara in front of Polo for years—he used every chance he got to use her against him. She is his weakness." Softly, he finishes, "You are mine."

Catalina stares at him.

The Fourth admitting this to her is submission.

Surrender.

Defeat.

Then, she asks one simple question: "Why?"

"Because only two things will have me. Death and you."

*

In their room, after she brushed her teeth and got rid of the bile in her mouth, Kael kneels in front of her as she sits on the bed, gently removing the gun from her thigh.

He stays there and looks up at her after he puts the weapon aside. "I will sleep downstairs if that's what you need."

Catalina's head bows as she opens her palm. Slowly and unsure, Kael slips his rough, calloused hand in hers.

All she heard tonight was that Kael is a man who gets what he wants, whatever it takes. There's nothing he won't do and there's nowhere he won't go for Catalina. He doesn't like it, he doesn't want it, but he's resigned himself to it. Like he knows there is no going back.

He didn't need to save Frankie from her father, either. He did, anyway.

"You never wanted to marry anyone else," Catalina finally whispers, raising her chin to look at him. "You never wanted anyone else, never touched anyone else in those five years."

Kael simply stares at her, and gives her hand one, hard squeeze.

All those times she thought him to be unfaithful...that he looked for pleasure elsewhere, that he was physically involved with Merlot—

"You had me," Kael says again. Simply. Resignedly. "You have me."

Catalina's breath passes through her lips when he presses her back against the bed and kisses her.

Savagely. Famished. Like he's cracking. He shoves his tongue inside her mouth and tastes her.

His weight crushes her against the mattress as her fingers find his hair and nape.

Catalina gasps when she feels Kael's fingers tremble against her face.

He has steady fingers. Sure, unwavering fingers that do not hesitate to pull the trigger or slash a body apart.

But now...now, they tremble and touch her like they don't deserve to. They feel like relief—like he can finally let go of those secrets, like he's bared himself open to her with nothing to hide.

And then Kael whispers against her mouth, eyes on hers, "You own me, Catalina."

Her husband hikes her dress up and spreads her legs apart, getting rid of her underwear.

And then his head is in between her thighs, and Catalina chokes on a moan, arching her back.

Oh, it feels like heaven to be tasted by hell.

He takes a long lick of her from her hole to her clit, and her hands shoot out to grip his hair as he moans against her wetness, eating her out like a man starved.

Kael grips her hip with one hand and squeezes her breasts with the other, all the while licking, tasting, pleasuring her.

Catalina only knows his name. Can only breathe it out as he devours her. Kael's eyes stay on hers as he holds her hips down to still her and keep her legs apart with one hand, the other going to fuck her wet hole. He sucks her clit into his sinful mouth, humming against her, and that and his fingers are almost too much to bear. She fists the bedsheet with her right hand and pushes his head further into her heat with the other. "Oh, fuck, Kael—!"

"You're so fucking tight," her husband whispers, his control barely hanging by a thread. "Taste so fucking good."

She feels like melting away after she rides out her high, but Kael kisses her again hard, and then kisses her forehead, and unbuttons his pants, leaning back against the headboard.

Catalina wastes no time. She also looks up at him when she opens her mouth. Kael holds her hair back with one hand and uses the other to stroke her face, gaze locked on hers, his lips shiny from her wetness.

She does it maddeningly slow until his cock hits the back of her throat.

"Catalina," he breathes. Gasps.

Sounds like heaven for her name to be spoken by hell.

Kael watches her through half-lidded eyes, stroking her face as his breathing quickens.

He never takes his eyes off hers. Like he's revering her as much as she him.

Kael bucks his hips forward, grunting her name over and over as her mouth wraps around him. She takes him in her mouth, bobs her head up and down, and sucks him, licks around his tip and his length, and he reaches out to touch her where she's aching for him and still so incredibly wet.

"Fuck, you're soaking my hand," he groans, fingering her while she sucks him earnestly.

"Catalina," he says again with a groan, hands tightening on her hair, like he doesn't know whether to push her away and take his pleasure in his hands or not.

Surrender his control or not.

She looks at him, and he decides.

For the first time, Kael gives himself to her, eyes closing, moaning her name like a prayer, while he pushes her head against his pelvis and his hot cum shoots down her throat.

When she's swallowed the mouthful, Kael tips her chin up, kisses her, and holds himself above her. His eyes are resolute. Full of worshipful adoration. An echo reverberates through her heart at his face, like he knows this is terrifying and wonderful at the same time.

Catalina must look the same, because Kael positions himself at her entrance and pushes in.

"Catalina."

Kael's face pulls together in restraint as her nails dig into his shoulders, the breath stuck in her throat at the size and girth of his cock stretching her open, filling her with him raw.

"You're so tight," he whispers in her ear, kissing her cheek, her neck, her lips, her forehead. "Taking me so well, baby. Feel good?"

"Yes," Catalina breathes out, scratching her nails down his back. "Kael, Kael, Kael..."

His head bends down to suck her nipple into his mouth while he slowly moves in and out, allowing her to get used to him and adjusting to his rhythm. "Fuck, Catalina, fuck, you feel so good, you're so fucking tight and wet."

Catalina's head lolls back as he continues thrusting into her slowly, incoherent noises and his name rolling out of her tongue.

He's so deep inside her her toes are curling. Catalina moans while Kael grunts, exhaling shakily, his beautiful, brown eyes clear with burning, urgent need—lust and worship and desperation.

Devotion. He bends down and kisses her. Sweetly and slowly.

Catalina's eyes close. At some other time, she might be horrified by the tears escaping her, but she's so awashed with emotion she can't find it in her to care. The physical pleasure is too much it destroyed the wall that keeps her emotions at bay.

Kael kisses those away. "Okay?" he whispers, his own eyes glassy.

She nods. "Okay. Feels good," she whispers.

Then Kael speeds up his thrusts, and the feeling of his hardness fucking her while he looks into her eyes has Catalina's legs locking themselves around his body and begging, "More, please, so close, please, faster, Kael—"

"Look up, Catalina," he whispers against her lips. Orders. "Look at us. Look at me fucking you, making love to you, jaan. Look at me owning you like you own me."

Oh, fuck. Watching their bodies tangled together in the mirror above their bed triggers a sudden orgasm so strong her legs around him shake, her hips rocking upwards as he buries himself to the hilt inside her, thrusting relentlessly, and she comes again with a shout of his name.

"You're mine, you're mine, you're fucking mine," he says, grabbing her hands and pinning them above her head, intertwining their fingers together, and begins to pound into her, using her body to chase his own pleasure. "Fuck, Catalina, I'm gonna fucking cum, let me fill you up—"

He spills all over her with a loud groan and her name falling from his lips, coating her walls with his cum. The feeling is so hot, so good, that Catalina pulls him down and kisses him.

He crushes her to him, burying his damp face into the curve of her neck.

Catalina hugs him just as tightly, knowing what he's feeling: stripped. Laid bare. Open.

They stay like that for a long time, just holding each other, savoring the aftershocks. Then when Kael catches his breath, he looks down, pulls out with a hand on his cock, and watches his cum spill down from the middle of her legs to the sheets. Then Kael uses the tip of his cock to spread his cum all over her pussy.

"Oh my God, Kael," she gasps, covering her face with her hands at the absolute dirtiness and lustfulness of that act. Catalina is embarrassed to admit that aroused her again.

Kael gathers her in his arms and hugs her, then thrusts his cock back inside her heat. "All yours, Catalina. I'm all yours."

*

Later, when they've changed the sheets and showered, with Kael rubbing and rinsing her body gently as if he didn't just completely wreck her, she lies down on his chest, and he wraps his arms around her.

Catalina closes her eyes at his heartbeat in her ear.

"Cirillo wasn't lying," he says. "About my mother."

Listen if he tells me, let it go if he doesn't. Love him all the same.

"It was arranged," he continues quietly while he strokes her hair and her naked back. "And she didn't want to get pregnant. She knew the Third was going to raise her son to be like him, so she took birth control pills in secret."

In other words: his mother didn't want the Fourth.

"But he found the bottle," Kael muses. "And he never forgave her for it."

Catalina closes her eyes, nosing his neck and looking up at him. Kael is staring blankly ahead, absentmindedly running the tips of his fingers down her spine.

"The Third saw me as the Fourth. My mother saw me as a little boy," he says. "So when I wasn't with him, she tried to give me a childhood."

She tightens her hold on him and asks, "What was her name?"

"Rania," Kael answers. "Rania Riaz."

Simply, she states, "You loved her."

Her husband doesn't answer. "When I was ten, the Third decided I needed to learn how to use a gun. He brought in one of his men, gagged and covered in a sack, and said death was the consequence for his actions," he murmurs, turning his head towards her hair, like he's trying to hide from the memory. "He gave me a gun and told me to do it."

Catalina tries to imagine a little boy trying to hold such a dangerous weapon and winces. A gun should never fit between those tiny fingers, it should never have been near him in the first place.

"I couldn't," Kael whispers. "So he pointed his gun at me. He said if I don't do it, he'll kill me. It's me or him, he said."

Every word that comes out of his mouth is another crack in Catalina's heart. She tries to mourn for the little boy who only wanted to play with his toys and with his mother, who was at his father's gunpoint and forced to kill.

"He needed the Fourth," Catalina mutters. "He wasn't going to kill you."

"He threatened to rape my mother repeatedly until she could pop out another heir."

Oh, Kael.

"So I shot him," Kael says. "And I didn't know it was my mother until they dragged away the body and the sack slipped."

Oh, Kael.

The trauma must have broken him. Oh, God.

"I vowed to myself to kill him," Kael tells her. "And I vowed I would never let him use someone I care about like that ever again. So I vowed I would care about no one."

Catalina traces the scar on his throat with her finger. "You failed."

"I did," Kael whispers. "I kept it until I saw you at a wedding five years ago. I thought I could be like him—uncaring. Merciless. Detached. Live and do for the empire and the empire alone."

She rises up on her elbows and puts a hand on his face, his stubble scratching her palm. Kael leans into her touch, his eyes glassy. She tells him, "You are nothing like the Third."

Then he pulls her closer and kisses her. "You told me the mafia comes first. But Catalina, you rule me. Even before my reign began."

*

#ReignTheFourthWP