Chapter 12
Camille didn't scream at first.
Not when the elevator doors sealed behind the guards.
Not even when she was dragged past the penthouse threshold and thrown into the mirrored room—the one she once controlled, the one where Vanessa had trembled.
But she screamed when Negan entered.
Not because of what he did.
Because of what he didn't.
He said nothing.
He simply stared.
His silence was the sharpest cruelty of all.
Camille crawled back on her hands, bumping into glass, her bags already confiscated, her lip trembling as she finally broke.
"You don't understand," she sobbed. "She's turning you—she's poisoning everything we built—"
Negan's head tilted slightly. "We?"
"You were mine first," she whispered. "Before she ever—before you ever touched her, I was the one who got into your mind. Who shaped you."
Negan knelt slowly in front of her.
"And now?" he murmured, brushing a tear off her cheek. "Now you bore me."
She slapped him.
Or tried.
His hand caught her wrist mid-air, crushingly tight.
Then the other guard pulled her back, and Negan stood up, dusting invisible ash from his pants like she wasn't even a person.
"Leave her here," he said. "Let her watch."
Camille screamed as the mirrored walls turned on. All the surveillance. All the angles. All of Vanessa.
Vanessa hadn't slept.
But she had learned to pretend.
In the morning light, she slipped from Negan's bed and walked barefoot through the suite. Wearing nothing but one of his button-down shirts, she looked the part of the beloved. The cherished.
But her eyes were calculating now.
She poured herself black coffee and walked to the surveillance console, pretending she didn't notice the hidden camera in the corner shift to follow her. She didn't need to turn it on—Negan would be watching.
Instead, she wrote.
A list. On a hotel notepad.
Things He Cannot Stand
Loss of control
Disobedience without apology
Mockery
Being watched by others
Physical rejection
Silence during climax
Unanswered questions
She circled the last one.
Then she slowly opened her legs on the couch, just wide enough for the camera to catch, and didn't touch herself.
She sat there. Eyes on the camera.
Waiting.
Ten minutes later, Negan walked in.
"You like games now," he said, voice unreadable.
Vanessa looked over her shoulder. "No," she said simply. "I just like winning."
He didn't strike her.
He didn't touch her.
He sat beside her on the couch and leaned close enough to scent her.
"I could destroy you," he whispered.
She looked him dead in the eye. "Then why haven't you?"
He smiled.
"You think this is the top of the game, don't you?"
"Not yet," she whispered.
Negan leaned in and kissed her neck, slow and possessive.
But for the first time, she felt it: hesitation. A crack. He was wondering if she meant it. If she loved him.
Vanessa moaned softly and wrapped her arms around his neck.
But she never said his name.
Never gave him everything.
Miles was building a plan.
After Negan let him leave, Miles didn't go home. He went straight to the courthouse, accessed sealed archives under a false identity, and began to build a timeline.
Negan Simmons wasn't just obsessed.
He was a pattern.
He saw Vanessa as the final piece of a puzzle that had cost several women their minds, bodies, and names.
But Miles had an edge now.
He had R. Camille's mysterious contact. A former fixer. The one who had covered things up for Negan years ago. Paid to disappear now.
But not entirely gone.
Miles found him in a private club in Manhattan.
"You owe Camille," Miles said. "She's going to die if you don't help."
R took a long sip of bourbon and stared.
"I never owed Camille," he replied. "But I do hate Simmons."
Back in the penthouse, Vanessa was showering.
And Negan was watching.
But something changed in him.
He stared at the droplets on her back, the softness of her sighs, and instead of lust, he felt a flicker of something darker.
Possession wasn't enough.
He wanted her to choose him. To become the woman he made her.
He wanted her to forget what she'd been before.
Vanessa felt it, even from behind the glass.
So she started to sing.
A lullaby her mother used to hum. One Negan would never understand.
A piece of her he couldn't own.
Later that night, he tied her wrists to the bedposts with black silk.
Not roughly.
Almost reverently.
"Tell me you need me," he whispered, kneeling between her legs.
Vanessa stared at him—lips parted, body ready—and said nothing.
He entered her without warning.
Slow. Then hard.
It was pleasure lined with threat. Every thrust a question. Every kiss a demand.
And still—she said nothing.
It drove him insane.
He bent over her, panting, voice shaking with something like rage.
"Say my name—say you're mine—"
Vanessa pulled him deeper with her legs.
And smiled.
"No," she whispered.
Negan roared.
He flipped her over and took her from behind, tearing at her hair, voice breaking into guttural sounds—but even through the overwhelming, brutal heat, she laughed.
Not loud.
Just enough to cut him.
Afterward, Vanessa lay beside him, eyes closed.
And whispered:
"You're not the only monster in this bed."
Negan didn't sleep at all that night.