The slap didn't come with a sound.
It came with silence—sharper, colder, more devastating than a scream.
Dominic didn't touch her, not physically. But the weight of his gaze, after he caught her snooping was more brutal than any bruise. Elena stood frozen in his office, trembling under that ice-blue stare.
"I told you what happens when you disobey," he said, voice flat and deliberate.
"I didn't take anything," she whispered.
"But you looked," he said. "That's worse."
He crossed to the drawer and locked it with a solid 'click', then turned back to her.
"Strip."
The word landed like a whip.
Her breath caught in her throat. "W-What?"
"You want to act like you're free?" he asked, walking toward her with that smooth, terrifying calm. "Then let's test your limits."
Elena backed up against the desk. "Please…"
"I'm not going to touch you," he said, stopping inches away. "I don't have* to. Fear is more loyal than parmourStrip, or I'll call the press right now and leak everything—the shelter, your abuse, your dependency on me. I'll turn your life into a scandal."
Tears welled in her eyes. Her fingers shook as she began to lift her blouse. Her heart screamed at her to fight, to run. But her body knew better.
Obey, survive!!
That had always been the rule.
"Enough!," he said after she'd revealed her ribs, thin and bruised. "Look at you. You still think you have pride to protect?"
Elena pulled her shirt back down, eyes fixed on the floor.
"I don't care about your body Elena, "I care about your will. And I will break it. Completely. Because that's the only way you'll survive this world."
He walked out without another word, leaving her in the white, still trembling.
That night, she didn't sleep. She sat on the floor by the enormous window, watching the lights of the city below blur through her tears. Her heart ached, not just from fear, but confusion.
Why did he hate her so much?
She thought back to the photo she'd seen in the drawer. The boy who looked like him—bruised, scared. The woman beside him—her face wasn't just afraid. It was desperate.
Dominic wasn't just cruel. He was hiding something.
The next morning, Elena was pulled from bed before sunrise. Dominic's assistant; Marla, a sleek, silver-haired woman who seemed carved from stone—barked orders without emotion.
"You're being prepped for an international press tour. Blackwell expects you to play the part."
"What part?" Elena asked, voice hoarse from crying.
"His fiancée."
The words didn't register at first.
"What?"
"You're not just a singer anymore," Marla said, adjusting her clipboard. "You're a possession. A display. Your engagement will boost his company's image, silence gossip, and make you untouchable. He owns your name now, Elena."
Elena's knees almost buckled.
"But I didn't agree to—"
"You did," Marla cut in. "The moment you said 'I belong to you'."
That night, Dominic returned.
She confronted him in the hallway. Something she never would've dared before.
"An engagement?" she asked, voice trembling. "You're forcing me into a lie?"
He didn't stop walking. "It's not a lie."
"What does that mean?"
He turned sharply, and for the first time, there was something real in his eyes. Not rage. Not ice.
Something raw.
"You think I chose this?" he asked. "This life? This face the world sees?"
"You chose to hurt people," she snapped.
"No. I chose to survive. Same as you."
She didn't understand. And he didn't explain.
"You'll play the part," he said, brushing past her. "You'll wear the ring. Smile for the cameras. And when the world sees us together, they'll believe in something that never existed."
"And what happens after?" she asked. "Do you kill the story—or me?"
He stopped.
Then, in the quietest voice she'd ever heard from him, he whispered:
"No one kills the story, Elena. The story always wins."
Later that night, Elena finds an old newspaper clipping hidden in a book in Dominic's private library. It's yellowed, worn—about a woman named Vivienne Blackwell.
The headline reads: "Heiress Found Dead in Suspected Suicide; Young Son Witnessed Incident."
Elena's blood runs cold.
Vivienne. His mother.
She reads further: "Domestic abuse suspected. Husband, Jonathan Blackwell, denies involvement."
Dominic had lived it. Every horror Elena had endured—he had too.
She thought he was a monster.
But monsters, she realised, are often made. Not born.
And suddenly… she wasn't sure if she hated him anymore.