The slam of the door behind Isabel as she stood frozen in the lavish master bedroom that now served as her prison.
Not a guest. A pawn. A wife in name only.
Her hands clenched around the edge of the dresser as she stared at herself in the mirror. The girl looking back at her word satin and shame. Her eyes, once curious and kind, now look hardened - darkened by betrayal, by fear, by fury.
A sharp knock rattled the door.
She turned, spine straight. "What now?" She called coldly.
Isabel waited.
Silence.
She hesitated before unlocking the door and opening it a crack. No one. Just a tray of untouched food , steaming slightly. Breakfast? Or dinner? She has lost track.
She stepped out into the hallway, but as soon as her foot crossed the threshold, a voice rang out from a hidden corner.
"You were told not to leave the room."
She gasped, spinning around. Damon emerged from the shadows like a ghost. No tie. Shirt unbuttoned at the collar. But his voice - ice.
"I - I just needed some air."
"This isn't a hotel," he said flatly. "You don't get room service and pool privileges, you're here because your father made a deal with the devil. And you... you're part of the payment."
Amara's throat tightened. "Then why marry me? Why not just throw me into a cell like a criminal?"
His jaw tensed. "Because marriage makes the ownership legal."
Her hands flew before she could stop it. The slap cracked through the corridor.
He didn't flinch.
She did.
Tears filled her eyes - not from pain, but from the realization: she'd just struck a man who wouldn't feel anything. Not even rage. That made him scarier than ever.
" You want to fight me, Isabel?" He said quietly. "Good. It'll make watching you fall that much satisfying."
Then he turned and walked away, leaving her standing there with her hand trembling and her heart threatening to rip out of her chest.
That night, she didn't cry.
She sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the ceiling, repeating one thing over and over in her head.
"You'll not break me, I will survive you."
But even as she whispered those words, a darker thought whispered back:
What if surviving him meant losing herself??