The headboard slammed against the wall in a savage, relentless rhythm—thud, thud, thud—each impact driving him deeper, harder, until Grace’s entire world narrowed to the thick, burning stretch of her father’s cock splitting her open. Apollo had her pinned face-down, one iron hand clamped around both her wrists above her head, the other knotted in her hair, wrenching her neck back so far her spine bowed like a drawn bowstring.

“Daddy—Daddy—please—” The word tore out of her raw throat on every brutal thrust, no longer a plea but a broken hymn. She was drunk on him, half-conscious, tears and mascara streaking the sheets, yet every cell in her body screamed yes, more, ruin me. This wasn’t sex. This was annihilation, and she had never felt so alive.

He leaned down, chest slick against her back, and growled directly into her ear, voice gravel and smoke. “You are mine. You were mine the day you were born. No boy will ever touch what belongs to me again.” His hips snapped forward with vicious force—slap-slap-slap—the wet, filthy sound of her soaked pussy swallowing him whole echoing off the walls. “Say it.”

“I’m yours,” she sobbed, the confession ripping out of her like a soul leaving the body. “Only yours—Daddy—always yours—”

Apollo’s mind fractured.

She is my daughter.

She is my property.

The two truths collided inside his skull, but the second one won. He had watched her grow from afar—photos, reports, stolen glimpses—always knowing one day she would come back to him. Ethan had been an insect crawling on what was his. This—this savage claiming—was justice.

He released her wrists only to flip her onto her back, shoving her thighs apart so wide her muscles screamed. The city lights through the penthouse window painted silver across her tear-stained face, her swollen lips, the livid bruises already blooming on her hips. He drove back in without mercy, bottoming about her cervix with every thrust, and she shrieked—high, desperate, animal.

“Look at me,” he snarled.

Her eyes fluttered open, glassy and lost. When their gazes locked, something ancient and unholy passed between them. Recognition. Belonging. She felt it like a brand on her soul: this man was the missing piece she had spent her whole life aching for. The taboo of it only made her burn hotter.

“Daddy,” she whispered, reverent, “you feel like home.”

The words snapped the last thread of his restraint. He fucked her like he wanted to punish her for existing, for daring to grow up beautiful and broken and his. His hand clamped around her throat—not squeezing, just owning—thumb pressing the frantic pulse that beat for him alone.

“Come,” he ordered, voice deadly calm. “Come on, your father’s cock like the filthy little princess you are.”

The orgasm detonated through her like a bomb. Grace’s back arched off the bed, a silent scream tearing her mouth open before raw sound poured out—long, shattered, “Daddyyyy—” Her walls clamped down so hard he hissed, milking him in violent spasms as she squirted messily over his cock and the sheets. Tears streamed sideways into her hair; her whole body shook with the force of finally, finally being seen, wanted, destroyed by the one man who was never supposed to like her.

He followed with a guttural roar, burying himself to the hilt and flooding her with heat—thick, endless pulses that felt like a brand inside her womb. Mine. Mine. Mine.

After, she crumbled. The high shattered, leaving only wreckage. Sobs tore out of her chest—ugly, wrenching, the sound of every wall she’d ever built collapsing at once. She curled into a ball, trembling, arms wrapped around herself as the emptiness rushed back in tenfold. He had filled her, and now the absence of him felt like dying.

Apollo stared down at the devastation he’d wrought—his daughter—his perfect, broken girl—shaking with sobs on sheets soaked with them both. Something cold and paternal twisted in his gut alongside the darker hunger. If he stayed, he would hold her. If he held her, he would never let go. And she wasn’t ready to know the truth. Not yet.

He pressed one last kiss to the bite mark he’d left on her throat—purple, unmistakable, a collar of bruises—and dressed in silence. Before he left, he draped his suit jacket over her shivering body. It smelled like him. It was the only comfort he allowed himself to give.

The elevator ride to the private office was a descent into hell. He washed the scent of her off his skin in the marble bathroom, but it clung anyway—sweet, musky, damning. When he finally met his own eyes in the mirror, the monster stared back: silver temples, cold features, mouth still swollen from her taste.

He pressed the intercom. “Ms. Lau.”

“Sir?”

“Grace Reed is not to leave the city. Cancel her cards if you have to. Freeze her accounts. Whatever it takes.” A pause. “And prepare an employment contract. Executive position. Effective immediately.”

He ended the call and leaned against the desk, fingers digging into the wood until his knuckles went white.

The broken engagement had been a gift, and tonight had been fate aligning. She thought she was running from Ethan. She had only run straight into the cage he’d been building for her since the day she was born.

Apollo smiled—slow, predatory, paternal.

Daddy was home now.

And he was never going to let her go.