Elena's room was quiet, but the silence pressed on her like another set of chains. The celebration had ended hours ago, yet her ears still rang with the applause, the whispers, the clinking of glasses. All of it sounded like mockery.
She untied her earrings slowly, setting them on the vanity with hands that trembled despite her perfect smile hours before. The mask was heavy. Too heavy.
He had returned colder, sharper than she remembered. No longer the boy who disappeared without a word, but a man whose presence chilled the air around him. The way his eyes swept over the room, the way he stood at her side—it was like he was already the boss, even if he hadn't claimed the title.
And yet… he had left. He had escaped.
Her reflection stared back at her, pale and tired. She whispered bitterly to herself, "You were the lucky one."
Because she hadn't been given that choice.
The debts her father owed to his family had strangled her life long before this engagement. Every decision, every step, had been decided for her. While he vanished into the world, free from the family's blood-soaked hands, she was forced deeper into the shadows, used as a bargaining chip to preserve what little remained of her family's dignity.
She pressed her fingers against the mirror, her voice breaking. "If I had run, they would've destroyed everything. My father. My brothers. Me."
Her door creaked open.
He stood there, his silhouette framed by the dim hall light. Cold. Imposing. Watching.
For a moment, her heart stumbled.
"I thought you'd be gone," she said softly, masking her weakness.
His lips curved, not into a smile, but something sharper. "And leave the stage to you alone? No, Elena. I don't vanish twice."
His voice was low, dangerous, certain. The kind of voice that left no room for argument.
She hated the way it made her chest tighten.
He stepped closer, eyes like steel. "You're not the only prisoner here. Don't mistake my silence for surrender."
Her breath caught. For the first time, she wondered if this marriage wasn't a cage at all—maybe it was a battlefield.
And neither of them could afford to lose.