I first met Devian when we were twelve.
He was the kind of boy who made teachers smile and troublemakers lower their voices.
Gentle. Polite. Never once raised his voice, not even once.
When Jason Miller tripped me in the hallway and Devian helped me up, his fingers brushing gravel from my skinned knees without a word.
In seventh grade, a jagged scar split my forearm open during a soccer match. Devian apologized for weeks—weeks—like it was his fault the ball had ricocheted wrong.
He brought me honey-glazed pastries from the bakery near his house (always wrapped in too much tissue paper, like fragile things deserved extra care).
He walked me home under his umbrella even when the rain had stopped, just to fill the silence with stupid jokes that made me giggle into my sleeve.
I liked him. Everyone liked him.
But I never met his family. Not really.
Once, when I was fifteen, I thought I saw his mother waiting in a car outside school—a pale face behind tinted glass, gone before I could wave.
Devian never talked about home. Never invited me over.
Yet he knew my house better than his own: the creak of our porch step, the way my father's voice tightened at 6 PM sharp, the exact shelf where I hid my contraband romance novels.
After graduation, he vanished. No dramatic goodbye. No forwarding address. Just an empty desk where he'd sat beside me for six years, and a hollow space in my chest that I told myself was just nostalgia.
I stayed in town. Lived under my father's roof, which meant living under his rules. Strict rules.
The kind where "no" wasn't an option, just a delayed "yes."
-
So when Devian's family appeared in our living room years later, proposing marriage between us, I didn't have the luxury of saying no.
My father agreed on my behalf before I'd even looked at Devian's face.
-
Devian was twenty-six now. Taller. Sharper at the edges.
The boy who'd once shared his lunch with me under the oak tree now stood stiffly in a tailored suit, his knuckles blanching around the bouquet in his hands.
At least it's him, I thought. At least it's someone who knows me.
But the Devian I remembered had warmth in his eyes—this man's gaze was glassy, fixed somewhere past my shoulder.
The priest's voice droned blessings, but Devian didn't react. Not to the incense thickening the air, not to the way my silk sleeves whispered against his wrist when I reached for the ceremonial rice.
The wedding was strange.
Devian's family barely spoke to me.
They exchanged whispers when they thought I wasn't looking.
One woman — maybe an aunt — kept staring at Devian like she was making sure he didn't move the wrong way.
And Devian... he just stood there, silent. Like a guest at his own wedding.
The first time I saw Devian's house, my breath caught in my throat.
-
It wasn't a house. It was a mansion—looming gates, manicured gardens, windows so tall they swallowed the moonlight.
For a second, I thought we'd stopped at some luxury hotel by mistake.
My fingers curled into the fabric of my dress, suddenly aware of how cheap it must look against these marble floors.
How had I never known?
All those years, Devian had carried himself like someone ordinary—worn-out sneakers, second-hand books, packed lunches in brown paper bags.
But this? This was old money. The kind that didn't flaunt itself because it didn't need to. Our first night as husband and wife was... cold.
Not in the way I'd feared—no demands, no roughness.
Just silence.
Devian had changed into his pajamas with his back to me, like I was a stranger sharing his train compartment.
When I tentatively reached out, he flinched.
"You should rest," he said, his voice detached. "It's been a long day."
Then he left.
I stared at the closed door, my cheeks burning.
Was it me? Had I changed so much? Or had he?
The boy who once pressed bandages to my scraped knees now couldn't stand to share a bed with me.
Weeks passed. Devian buried himself in work—business meetings, late nights in his study, avoiding meals with me.
The servants moved like ghosts, their eyes sliding away whenever I tried to ask about him.
Enough.
One night, I slipped into a silk nightgown—the kind that clung, the kind meant to be noticed—and tiptoed to his study.
The door was ajar.
Empty.
My bare feet sank into the plush carpet as I scanned the room.
Neat. Sterile.
Like a museum exhibit of a life I wasn't part of.
Then I saw the papers on his desk.
Divorce Agreement.
My fingers trembled as I flipped through the pages.
A contract—our marriage was a contract—signed by Devian's parents and my parents. 20 million dollars. A transaction wrapped in wedding lace.
And beneath it... a photograph.
Devian, younger, smiling beside a girl with wide, dark eyes. A girl who wasn't me.
The room spun.
Why?
Was this why he couldn't look at me? Why he married me but refused to touch me?
I dug my fingers into my forehead, my nails biting crescent moons into my skin.
A sound escaped me—sharp, jagged. Laughter. What was everyone thinking?
What was I? A doll?
First, they sold me into a marriage I didn't choose. Now, they'd trade me out of it—without a word, without my voice mattering at all.
And Devian?
He'd played along, letting me chase him like a fool while his heart belonged to someone else.
My chest burned. Not with tears—with something uglier.
How stupid had I been? Wearing silk I couldn't afford, lingering in doorways like a ghost begging to be seen. All while he—
My gaze snapped back to the photo. The girl's face was soft, loved. Devian's arm around her wasn't stiff like when he touched me. It was easy. Natural.
Had he ever looked at me like that?
-
The door slammed against the wall with a crack, the sound too loud in the silence he'd forced upon this house.
His room.
The one place he'd forbidden me to enter under any circumstances.
I'd been stupid enough to respect his 'privacy'.
Not tonight.
The door creaked open. The room was dark.
I flicked on the light... and froze.
My chest heaved, my fingers trembling at my sides.
What the hell was this?
The walls were covered in scratches, deep and frantic.
A name—"Lina"—carved over and over, some lines crossed out violently, as if the writer had been consumed by rage.
My stomach twisted.
I stepped closer, my fingertips brushing against one of the markings.
The grooves were rough under my skin.
'Lina, I'll die. Come back.'
Time blurred. I didn't realize I'd been standing there, breath stuck in my throat, until I felt it—warm air on the back of my neck.
Soft. Humming.
A tune I didn't recognize.
Every hair on my body stood on end. Slowly, so slowly, I turned.
Devian.
He stood inches away, his expression blank—wrong. Not the controlled calm I knew, but something hollow, like a doll with its strings cut. A version of him I had never seen before. His eyes didn't leave mine, not even for a second. My skin prickled. I swallowed hard.
"I—I didn't mean to barge in here—" I stammered, then clenched my fists.
No. Stop apologizing.
"I need answers." My voice shook but held. "Who is she? The girl in the picture in your study. And this—" I gestured to the walls, my bravado cracking. "What is this?"
A beat of silence. Then—
Devian's lips curled. Not a smile. A twitch. He didn't flinch. "My sister."
Huh?! Sister? I had never known Devian has a sister.
He took a step closer. Instinctively, I stepped back, my shoulders hitting the cold wall behind me.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
"What are you doing here?" His voice was low, rough.
Not the Devian I knew—the one with lazy smiles and careless charm. This was someone else I don't know who.
I swallowed hard, forcing my voice steady. "Why did your family give 20 million to my father?"
A flicker of something passed over his face—amusement? Anger?—before it vanished. "Ask your father."
Then his fist slammed into the wall beside my head. The impact vibrated through my bones, the sound like a gunshot in the suffocating quiet. My breath caught, my body locking up. I squeezed my eyes shut.
A whisper, too close. "Didn't you ask why I wrote my sister's name all over the wall?"
My throat tightened. I couldn't speak. Couldn't think. The Devian I knew didn't exist here. This was something else—
something broken.
When I finally dared to look at him, he was smiling. Not cruel. Not mocking.
Worse.
Gentle.
It made my blood freeze.
"I'm going to find her," he murmured, his fingers brushing the scribbled name on the wall like a lover's touch. "And lock her here forever."