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publish date:
2026-07-05 18:04:15
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37 Times You Called My Name •024
MIA POV The call came at 3:47 a.m., shattering the fragile peace we had built over the past week. I was half-asleep in the guest room when my phone rang. The number was from the private facility. I answered with a groggy voice that turned to ice the moment the nurse spoke.“Miss Thompson, your mother is gone. Security footage shows two men took her thirty minutes ago. They had hospital IDs. We’ve called the police.”The world tilted. I stumbled out of bed and into the living room, where Ryder was already awake, laptop open, working through another sleepless night. One look at my face and he was on his feet.“They took her,” I choked out. “Kidnapped her from the facility.”Ryder’s expression hardened into something lethal. He took the phone from my shaking hands, speaking rapidly to the nurse while pulling up security contacts on his laptop. Within minutes he had the head of his private security team on speaker.“Find her,” he ordered, voice like steel. “Every camera in the city. Ever
37 Times You Called My Name •023
MIA POVThe new facility was quieter than the city hospital, but the beeping machines still sounded like accusations. I spent most of my days there now, sitting beside my mother’s bed while she drifted in and out of consciousness. The foundation’s private care had stabilized her heart markers slightly, but the doctor’s warning from yesterday still echoed in my head: any additional emotional stress could reverse the progress. That stress had a name. Ryder Vaughn.I hadn’t slept in his bed for nine days. The distance I asked for was both a relief and a slow torture. Every night I lay in the guest room of the penthouse listening to him move around the main space, knowing he was respecting my boundaries while hating every second of it. The romance that had once consumed us had slowed to careful, loaded glances and brief touches when we passed each other in the kitchen. No more desperate sex. No more counting. Just the heavy awareness of what we were sacrificing.This morning my mother was
37 Times You Called My Name •022
MIA POVThe press conference bought us time, but peace was never meant to last in Ryder’s world. Or mine. Three days after we stood together on that rooftop and laid our broken history bare, the real cost arrived in the form of a single phone call from the hospital at 2:17 a.m.I answered it in the dark of the penthouse bedroom, Ryder’s arm still draped across my waist. The doctor’s voice was careful, professional, and devastating.“Miss Thompson, your mother’s condition has taken a serious turn. The stress from the recent media coverage appears to have triggered complications. We need you here immediately.”The words landed like ice water. I sat up so fast the sheet pooled around my hips. Ryder woke instantly, sensing the shift.“What happened?” he asked, already reaching for his clothes.I repeated the doctor’s words in a numb voice. The media storm we created to fight the blackmail had circled back and hurt the one person I was trying to protect. The point was brutally clear: our l
37 Times You Called My Name •021
MIA POV The final video changed everything between us, but it also clarified one brutal point: Ryder Vaughn had never loved me. He had collected me. From the very beginning, I was a possession he refused to lose, and every act of cruelty, every obsessive move, every tender touch in the present served the same purpose — keeping me trapped in his world forever.I played the video alone in the penthouse bathroom the next morning while Ryder was in the shower. The footage was old, grainy, but unmistakable. It was from a school board meeting weeks before the arena incident. Ryder, seventeen and already radiating that dangerous charisma, sat with his father, arguing heatedly. The audio was clear enough to destroy me.“She’s writing about me,” teenage Ryder said. “Dirty shit. Fantasies. I can use it. Make her obsessed. Break her down so no one else wants her. Then she’ll be mine. Completely.”His father laughed. “Smart. Control the girl early. Lock her in before she realizes what she is.”T
37 Times You Called My Name •020
MIA POV The silence after Ryder read the message stretched like a wire pulled tight enough to snap. I slid off the kitchen counter, legs shaky from the angry sex we had just finished, his cum still leaking down my thigh. The shirt I wore — his shirt — suddenly felt like a brand against my skin. I backed away until the island separated us. “Tell me it’s not true,” I repeated, voice barely above a whisper. “The pregnancy scare. The abortion clinic payment. Five years ago. Tell me you didn’t do that.” Ryder’s face had gone pale, but his eyes stayed locked on mine. No denial. No excuses. Just that raw, obsessive intensity that had always been his weapon. “It was after the hallway incident,” he said finally, voice low. “You left town so fast. I had the PI follow you. He reported you went to a clinic. You were scared. Alone. I paid to make sure you had the best care and confidentiality. I thought… I thought it might have been mine. From the way you wrote about me. I couldn’t let you go
37 Times You Called My Name •019
MIA POV The calm after the storm never lasted long with Ryder Vaughn. I learned that the hard way the following morning when I woke up alone in his massive bed. The sheets still smelled like him — ice, citrus, and that dark masculine scent that had become my addiction. I reached for my phone on the nightstand, expecting another threat. Instead I found a note in his handwriting. *Had to handle one last loose end. Stay in the penthouse. I’ll be back by noon. You’re safe. — R* Safe. The word felt like a lie wrapped in silk. I showered quickly, pulling on one of his shirts and a pair of leggings from the closet he had stocked for me. Every piece of clothing in there carried the same message: you belong here now. No escape. No independence. Just his. I made coffee and tried to work from my laptop at the kitchen island, but my mind kept drifting. The sex from last night still lingered in my body — the way he had taken me slow and deep, whispering that I was his while I fell apart ar
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