The silence of the mansion had become a living thing, curling around Aria's ribs like smoke, pressing against her throat until she could barely breathe. Every day bled into the next—breakfast served with silver platters, guards standing sentinel outside her door, Lorenzo moving through corridors like a king carved from iron and fire. She had begun to imagine herself as a shadow in this house, something painted into its walls, gilded and untouchable yet stripped of all agency. But nothing prepared her for the night she would learn the full, unvarnished truth of her captivity.
It began with a phone call. She hadn't expected it—hadn't even believed she would hear her father's voice again. In her heart, she had imagined him gone forever, swallowed by shame, by debts, by whatever shadows had driven him to place her life into Lorenzo's hands. But the phone rang, shrill against the quiet, in the private room Lorenzo had permitted her to use for reading. It wasn't one of the household lines. No, this was different—an unmarked device, left carelessly on a polished desk as though waiting for this very moment.
Her hand shook as she picked it up. "Hello?"
A pause. Then the sound of breathing—heavy, ragged, familiar. Her chest constricted.
"Aria," her father's voice rasped across the line, breaking years of silence in a single word.
She froze, every muscle locking in place, her body flooding with a rush of emotions so violent she nearly sank to the floor. Anger, relief, longing, hatred—it all tangled together until she could hardly separate one from the other. Her throat worked, her tongue thick, but finally words came out in a whisper that trembled. "Papa?"
"Yes," he said hoarsely, and she could hear it—the weight of regret, the exhaustion, the cowardice that had always lingered beneath his charm. "Yes, my girl. I—"
"Don't call me that," she snapped, the sharpness of her voice cutting across his, surprising even herself. The years of silence, the endless questions, the sudden shattering of her life—all of it rose like fire in her veins. "Don't you dare call me that. Not when you gave me away like… like some kind of pawn."
The silence that followed was suffocating. Then he exhaled, a long, trembling sound that carried the weight of his guilt. "I didn't want to. I had no choice, Aria."
Her hand clenched so tightly around the phone her knuckles ached. "No choice? You had no choice but to sell your daughter?" The words shook as they left her lips, bitter with disbelief. "Tell me, Papa, when you sat down at those tables, when you gambled away everything you had, did you even think of me? Did you even hesitate before you signed me away as collateral?"
His voice cracked when he spoke again, and it cut her deeper than if he had shouted. "I thought I could win it back. I thought—I thought I could fix it before it came to this."
"Fix it?" she echoed, laughter spilling from her lips, brittle and hysterical. "You ruined me! You ruined my life, and now I'm trapped here, in a mansion that's nothing but a cage, because of you." Her words broke, tears pricking her eyes, hot and merciless. "You promised me a future. You promised me I'd go to university, that I'd have choices. Was that just another one of your lies?"
"No," he whispered fiercely, desperation sparking at last in his tone. "No, Aria. I wanted those things for you. I wanted you to have everything I couldn't give. But I was weak. I… I owed them millions. More than I could ever repay. And when Lorenzo's family demanded collateral—" His voice faltered, dropped to a low, shameful whisper. "You were the only thing I had left of value."
The words sliced through her like glass. She staggered back, her body trembling as though he had struck her. "Value?" she repeated, the word tasting like ash on her tongue. "You traded me like property. Like livestock. Like I was nothing more than a bargaining chip on your poker table."
"Aria, please," he begged, his voice breaking. "I thought Lorenzo would protect you. Better him than the others. Better his fire than their cruelty. I swear I—"
"You don't get to swear anything to me," she cut him off, her fury scorching through the fragile tether of love that still bound her to him. "You had one job. One. To protect me. And instead you handed me over like I was already dead. You didn't save me, Papa. You killed me."
For a moment, there was nothing but silence—his silence, her ragged breathing, the thunder of her own heartbeat in her ears. She could almost see him, slumped and broken wherever he was, drowning in debts and self-pity. And for the first time, she didn't feel pity in return. She felt hollow. Empty.
"Aria," he said again, softer now, as though his voice alone could rebuild the trust he had shattered. "I am sorry. If I could take your place, I would. But I can't. All I can do now is beg you to survive. Please. Endure it. Endure him. One day—"
She cut him off with a sharp intake of breath, her voice trembling not from weakness but from fury made steel. "One day what? One day I'll thank you? One day I'll forget that you sold your daughter for a stack of chips and a shot of whiskey? No, Papa. There is no one day. There is only this. My prison. My chains. My life stolen before it even began."
Her voice cracked at the end, but she didn't care. She pressed the phone tighter to her ear, her nails digging into her palm until blood threatened to rise. "I may never forgive you," she whispered, her voice breaking, trembling, laced with grief and fire. "And I may never be free. Not now. Not ever. Because of you."
She slammed the phone down before he could answer, the sharp click of the line disconnecting echoing in the quiet room like a final nail sealing her coffin.
Aria sank against the wall, her body shaking as sobs tore through her chest. She pressed her hands to her face, but it didn't stop the flood of tears, the jagged sound of grief that felt too big for her lungs. She cried until her throat was raw, until her body ached, until the only thing left inside her was the bitter truth that had finally been laid bare.
Her father's debt had become her chains.
And she would never, ever be free again.