Page 117

I can’t tell you how long I sit there, curled on the cold wooden floor with my arms wrapped around my knees, my body wracked with silent sobs. Time feels warped, stretched thin by dread and helplessness.

A soft knock breaks through the fog. The door opens, and two women enter without a word, silent shadows in floral dresses.

One carries a garment bag, the other a silver tray laid with makeup, perfume, and hairpins.

Their faces are unreadable, evidently trained for this.

For obedience. For dressing up girls like me for men like him.

I don’t move. I don’t look at them. But they come anyway.

One kneels beside me and gently takes my arm. Her touch is surprisingly careful, as if she knows that if she grips too hard, I’ll fall apart.

“I don’t want this,” I whisper, my voice hoarse and broken. “Please… I don’t want this.”

They don’t respond. They just help me up, guiding me toward the vanity like I’m sleepwalking. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, red-rimmed eyes, swollen lips, tangled hair, and I barely recognise the girl staring back.

A girl who whispered forever into the mouth of the man she loves… only to be dragged away like a sacrifice.

One of women begins brushing out my hair while the other dabs at my face with a sponge, trying to cover the devastation.

But I can’t stop crying. The tears won’t stop.

Every time they wipe them away, new ones fall, blurring the powder, ruining the foundation.

My shoulders tremble, my chest tightens with every breath I try to take.

The woman doing my makeup lets out a soft sigh and turns slightly toward the other, murmuring under her breath in Italian, “Povera ragazza… non riesco nemmeno a truccarla. Non smette di piangere.” Poor girl… I can’t even do her makeup. She won’t stop crying.

I hear it. I understand enough.

But I don’t look up. I can’t. My hands are clenched in my lap, white-knuckled, nails digging into my palms to stop the shaking. The other woman offers a quiet reply I can’t make out, and they both fall silent again... only the soft sound of a brush moving through my hair filling the room.

I want to scream. I want to run. I want to beg them for help. But I do nothing. Instead, I sit here and cry while they try to make me beautiful for a nightmare I can’t wake up from.

The woman doing my makeup keeps working—foundation, powder, blush—as if she can paint over pain.

Hot tears spill down my cheeks again, blurring the fresh layer of makeup she just finished applying. I lift a trembling hand, my voice breaking.

“Enough,” I whisper. “Please… just stop.”

The women freeze, brushes mid-air. I force myself to look up at the one holding the sponge, her expression soft but unreadable.

“I don’t want to look pretty for him,” I say, voice thick with rage and grief. “I want him to see me exactly like this. I want that bastard to remember the devastation in my eyes every time he thinks about this day. I want him to see what he ruined.”

My throat tightens as silence settles heavy in the room. Neither of them moves. And maybe they understand… because they don’t try again.

They just let me sit there, shaking, broken, and still covered in the ruins of everything he’s about to steal.

And maybe that’s the cruellest part. Because there’s no comfort here. No hope.

Only silence… and the slow, deliberate preparation for the worst day of my life.

The dress is slipped over my shoulders. White silk, delicate lace, like a lie draped in beauty. My hands shake so hard I can barely fasten the clasps. My body may be dressed like a bride, but I’ve never felt more like a prisoner.

I press my palm to my stomach, to the place where new life quietly grows… a fragile secret that belongs only to Ares and me. A small, unseen piece of him that I will guard with everything I have...until the day we’re free to be together again.

And we will.

We have to. I have to believe that, because it’s the only hope I have left to hold onto. The only thing keeping me from falling apart completely.

I glance down, my hand resting protectively over the flat plane of my stomach.

Ares knows now. I can still see the moment his eyes dropped to that spot, the silence that fell between us before he looked back up with something raw and unshakable in his gaze.

Like the earth had shifted beneath him… and in the wreckage, he’d found a new reason to fight. A new reason to survive.

A piece of him...of us growing quietly inside me while the rest of our world burns.

It doesn’t show yet, not really… but how long until it does? How long can I keep it hidden until Nicolai figures it out? I need to see a doctor. I need someone to tell me everything’s okay, that this baby is okay. That I haven’t already failed before I even had the chance to protect it properly.

Ares vowed, we’d be back with him. That he would find a way to rescue us from this hell.

Whether he has a plan or not, I don’t know.

But right now, he’s tied to a chair, beaten and bleeding, and in less than thirty minutes he’ll be forced to watch as I’m handed to his enemy like I’m some prize to be claimed.

Tears sting again, but I blink them back.

He’ll come.

He promised.

And until he does… I’ll carry this life, the one we made together and protect it with every breath I have left or die trying.

The two women doing my hair and make-up leave, and the room falls silent.

I sit alone, my hands clasped tightly in my lap, still trembling from the credence of everything they’ve forced me into.

The dress clings to my skin like ice, suffocating in its beauty, and every breath feels shallower than the last. The soft tick of a distant clock is the only sound as I stare at the floor, willing the tears to stop.

But they don’t. And then, the lock clicks and my head jerks up.

The door opens, and one of Nicolai’s men steps in, dressed in black, his eyes cold and flat. “It’s time,” he says.

My stomach lurches. A wave of nausea rises so violently I nearly double over.

Fear coils in my gut like poison, spreading outward, tightening my chest, making my vision blur.

My legs barely respond when I try to stand.

They shake so violently beneath me I almost collapse right there.

The man grabs my arm to steady me, and I flinch at his touch, but he doesn’t let go.

I’m not walked...I’m dragged out. Through corridors I don’t recognise. Deeper into the mansion. Every step echoes like a countdown.

And then we reach it.

A room lit by candles and shadows. A makeshift altar stands at the front, draped in white cloth and white roses, like this is something sacred. But nothing about this is holy. It’s not a wedding. It’s a fucking funeral.

Nicolai stands waiting, smug in a tailored suit, eyes glittering with victory. A priest stands beside him, expression unreadable. Scattered around are a few silent observers—strangers to me. Except for one.

There’s a woman. She’s older, regal, reserved. Her hands clasped in front of her, her lips pressed into a sharp line. That must be Nicolai’s mother. She’s watching me like she already sees me as her son's possession.

And then, I see Luca.

I freeze. My breath stutters.

He’s barely recognisable. One eye is missing, the socket hollow and swollen. His hand...no, his stump ... hangs limply by his side, missing fingers. The sight makes me gasp.

Jesus. Ares did that to him.

And then I see him.

At the far end of the room, forced to his knees. His arms are bound behind his back with coarse rope, his ankles shackled by heavy chains. His head is bowed... but only for a second.

He lifts it. And our eyes meet. The pain in his gaze knocks the breath from my lungs.

His face is bloodied, a fresh stream trickling down the side of his temple, his cheekbone split. But it’s not the injuries that break me, it’s the look in his eyes. I’ve never seen such despair in his eyes, not until now.

He’s looking at me like I’m being ripped out of him in real time.

I stagger. My knees buckle. Tears stream freely down my face, and my lip trembles as I try to breathe through it...but I can’t.

I can’t do this.

“Come, Stellina ,” Nicolai calls out, his voice cutting through the room like a blade. His smile is sharp and triumphant, his hand extended like he’s doing me a favour. “Don’t keep our guests waiting.”

I don’t move.

My feet are heavy. Every instinct inside me screams to run to Ares, to throw myself at him and beg him to get us out of this mess.

But I force myself to take a step forward. Then another. The distance between us stretches like a noose around my throat.

I don’t look at Nicolai. I don’t look at the priest. I only look at Ares.

I stand there, shaking, broken, and ruined in a dress that doesn’t belong to me. The priest begins the ceremony in Italian, voice low, solemn, like this is a real union.

My eyes never leave Ares. And his never leave me.

When those dreaded words come... “Jordyn Windslow… do you take Nicolai Moretti as your husband?” ...the world as I know it stops turning.

This is it.

Ares’s head shakes slowly, blood dripping from his chin.

Tears stream down my cheeks as my lips part.

I exhale slowly, and as I stand there, drowning in my own silence, I know, the two words that leave my lips next will shatter the man I love… and sever the last piece of me that’s still his.

“Jordyn…” Ares chokes out, his voice strained, like it’s being torn from somewhere deep inside him. He shakes his head slowly, blood dripping from his chin, eyes locked on mine with soul-shattering intensity. “Non farlo… ti prego.” Don’t do this… please.

My lips part, the words trembling on my tongue, and across the room, Ares fights in the hold of the men that is holding him down as I whisper...

“I—”

To Be Continued...