Page 8

The tray in my hands barely makes a sound as I open the door.

The lights are low in her room—just a single lamp flickering near the bed—and for a moment, she doesn’t move.

She sits upright, knees drawn to her chest, back straight despite the exhaustion that must be bleeding into every inch of her.

Her eyes flick toward me the second I cross the threshold, but she doesn’t speak. Doesn’t lash out. Doesn’t run.

She’s learning.

Still, that fire in her hasn’t dimmed. It’s there, behind the guarded set of her jaw and the way her hands fist into the blanket at her side. A defense. A warning. Even as she trembles, even as her breaths come too shallow, too quiet, she refuses to look afraid.

I like that. The struggle. The resistance. The way she tries so hard to pretend that she hasn’t already begun to lose.

I set the tray down on the table near the armchair without speaking. The scent of roasted chicken and herbs fills the room, subtle but rich. The kind of food no prisoner expects. She doesn’t move toward it. Doesn’t so much as glance at it. She’s not ready to accept what this place is. Or what I am.

I step closer.

She looks small here. Curled into herself, drowning in the black shirt I gave her, her hair tangled, her mouth pressed into a line that betrays how hard she’s trying not to shake. But her eyes—those defiant, furious eyes—they never leave mine.

There’s something in them that dares me to get closer.

I do.

I stop a foot from the bed. Just close enough that she has to tilt her chin up to meet my gaze.

Her pulse thrums visibly at the base of her throat.

She’s trembling now, but she hides it well.

Every part of her screams defiance, but her body betrays her.

The fear is there. Buried deep, carefully caged.

“You haven’t eaten,” I say.

Silence.

I reach for the chair beside the bed and pull it closer, the legs scraping faintly against the floor.

She flinches at the sound but doesn’t speak.

I sit down slowly, letting the tension settle thick between us.

I lean back just slightly, studying her.

Not like a man studies a woman—but like a hunter watches something wild, just barely cornered.

I wait.

Finally, in a voice so tight I almost don’t catch it, she speaks.

“Why?” Her fingers flex in her lap, knotting the hem of her shirt. “Why are you doing this?”

I don’t answer.

I let the silence stretch, let her sit in it. Feel it. Let her imagine a hundred answers, each worse than the last. The stillness makes her shift slightly, the first crack in her composure. Her legs uncurl, but she stays rooted. Her body wants to move. She doesn’t let it.

Only then do I speak—low, steady, measured.

“Your father took something from me.”

Her breath catches. She leans forward slightly, eyes narrowing, searching my face like she might find a lie tucked between the lines.

I wonder how many lies she’s been told. How many half-truths dressed as love.

I wonder if she knows just how much her father never gave a damn about her beyond her usefulness.

“Something I can never get back,” I add. “So I’m doing the same.”

She blinks. Once. Then again. “You think I’m… what? A replacement?”

“No,” I say. “You’re the reminder. The weight. Every breath you take here is a ledger mark. Every hour you survive under my roof is another page torn from what your father built.”

She stares at me like I’m a monster. Maybe I am., but I don’t care. I’ve stopped asking myself whether I crossed the line. That question died with Maxim.

“He loves you,” I say, watching her flinch again. “Not in the way you need, but enough that this hurts him. That’s what I want.”

She opens her mouth, then closes it. Her throat works. I can see her trying to swallow the fear, the anger. She wants to scream at me. I almost wish she would. It would be easier than this brittle silence between us. Easier than her quiet war.

“So this is revenge,” she says, voice rasping. “That’s all this is.”

I don’t deny it, but I don’t confirm it either.

I lean in slightly, elbows on my knees, my voice dropping lower. “You’re here because he made a choice. Now you live with it.”

Her lips part, breath trembling out of her. For a second, I think she might cry. She doesn’t. She blinks it back, jaw tightening until it’s almost painful to watch. She won’t break.

Not yet.

That only makes me want to push harder. Just to see how far she can bend before she shatters.

“Tell me,” I murmur, “how long do you think you’ll last?”

“I’ll outlast you,” she snaps, eyes blazing.

It makes me smile. Not because she’s wrong, because she believes she’s right.

“You think strength means screaming at doors,” I say. “It doesn’t. Strength is silence. It’s enduring. Quietly. Day after day.”

She doesn’t answer, but her fingers curl tighter around her shirt, and that’s all I need.

I rise slowly, towering above her once again. For a moment, I don’t move. I just watch the way she tilts her head back to hold my gaze, proud even now. Her shoulders are set like armor. Her fear is hidden, locked away.

“If you want the food, eat it,” I say, nodding toward the tray. “If you want answers, earn them.”

Her head lifts sharply. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means you stay. You watch. You learn who your father really is. Then, when you understand what I’ve done, you can decide if I’m the villain—or if he is.”

She stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. Something in her eyes shifts. Maybe doubt. Maybe something colder. I can’t tell yet. I’ll find out.

I’ve made my point. I’ve delivered the food. Spun the knife of truth just deep enough to leave her bleeding without breaking skin.

Something in her expression roots me to the floor, keeps my hands at my sides, keeps my attention locked on the tremble in her jaw, the way her spine stays straight despite how desperately her body wants to curl away from me.

She hasn’t eaten. Not even looked at the tray. She doesn’t trust it.

Her eyes are locked on mine now, and there’s an anger burning in her gaze that makes me shiver.

“What are you going to do with me?”

The words are barely a whisper. Thin and brittle, like she’s afraid of the answer. She asks anyway. Brave little thing.

I don’t answer immediately. I study her instead—closely, deliberately—watching the way her fingers tighten in the blanket, how her chest lifts slightly with each shallow breath, how the muscle in her throat works as she swallows the rising panic she can’t quite hide.

She’s bracing for pain. For chains. For something violent.

That’s what makes the truth so satisfying.

I move closer, letting the weight of my silence press against her like a storm on the horizon.

I want her to feel it before I speak. To feel the pause stretching too long, to feel her pulse spike, her mind race through all the worst possibilities.

Pain. Violation. Death. These are the truths women like her have been taught to expect from men like me.

She doesn’t expect what I say next. “You will be my bride.”

She goes utterly still. No breath. No blink. As if the words themselves struck her like a slap.

I wait.

Her lips part slowly, her body visibly caught between disbelief and horror. There’s no scream, no rejection—just a stunned silence, thick as blood, stretching between us like a blade.

Her breath catches. Then comes in a slow, uneven draw. Her hands drop from the blanket like she’s forgotten how to hold on to anything at all.

I could laugh.

She wasn’t expecting that. Good. She was ready for cruelty. For captivity. For punishment. But this? Not so much.

She doesn’t understand it yet. What it means. What I mean.

“Is this some kind of joke?” she says eventually, voice hoarse. “You kidnap me, terrorize me, and now you want to—marry me?”

“Want is the wrong word,” I say, calm as ever. “This isn’t about want. It’s about what must be done.”

“Why?” she demands, louder now. The fear is still there, but it’s laced with something else—anger, maybe.

That stubborn, proud streak that keeps her fire burning even as everything she knows crumbles around her.

“Why would you do that? Why would you want me as your—” She practically chokes on the word. “—bride?”

I move slowly, deliberately. My hand finds the back of the chair again. I grip it lightly, leaning forward just enough that my presence crowds her, my shadow draping across her like a second skin.

“It’s what your father would never allow. What he cannot stop now. It’s the one thing he never gave you—freedom wrapped in a collar. My collar.”

Her face twists. “You think this is freedom?”

“No,” I say. “I think it’s what you need to see him for what he really is.”

She’s shaking her head before I finish, breath quickening, panic bleeding back in. “This is insane. You can’t—you can’t just force someone—”

“Can’t I?” My voice is quiet, but sharp. “You’re already here. Wearing my clothes. Sleeping under my roof. Every move you make, every breath you take, is under my rule. Why not seal it with vows?”

Her silence is telling. She knows I’m right.

This is already a prison; all I’m doing is giving it a name.

“I won’t do it,” she says, but even that sounds weaker now. Not because she’s giving in. Not yet. Some part of her knows there’s no door left to slam, no lock she can break, no guard she can outrun. Her father sold her off with his sins, and I collected the debt.

“You don’t have a choice,” I murmur.

Her eyes flash. “I always have a choice.”

I lean in just slightly, enough that I can feel the heat of her skin radiating between us. “Then choose wisely.”

She opens her mouth again—maybe to fight, maybe to spit something cruel—but the words don’t come. She doesn’t look away. And that, more than anything, tells me what I need to know.

She’s still in this. Still fighting.

I enjoy that far more than I should.

Her jaw clenches, her knuckles whitening as her hands dig into the mattress beside her. I watch the thoughts swirl behind her eyes, fast and chaotic—rage, panic, disbelief—all tightening the muscles in her face until she looks like she might shatter from the tension alone.

Her chin lifts instead. Just a fraction, but it’s there—a sliver of defiance she doesn’t even realize she’s giving me. I’ve seen that look before. On men who thought they were untouchable. On liars moments before they bled.

“You think binding me to you will break me,” she says, the words sharp but low, as if she’s measuring the danger of every syllable. “It won’t.”

I step in, closing the space between us until I can see every flicker of emotion in her eyes, every tremble she tries to hide. I lower my voice until it’s just for her, intimate and cruel.

“No, Alina. Binding you to me will change you.”

Her throat works against a swallow. She doesn’t retreat, but I feel the way her breath stutters, how her body tenses like she’s bracing for impact. She wants to believe she still has control. That there’s still a version of herself she can cling to.

The truth is already working its way into her bones.