By the time Kaelen and I left the press conference, the headlines had already multiplied like wildfire. Every screen, every feed, every whisper carried our names.
But beneath the noise, there was a silence that felt wrong. A stillness that meant something was waiting.
I saw it first when Mark turned the tablet toward us.
"Bella Smith goes live — emotional confession sparks public concern."
A thumbnail froze her mid-sob, eyes red-rimmed, mascara trailing like ink. The caption beneath it was a single sentence: "If they take everything from you, what's left to live for?"
Mark's knuckles were white around the tablet. "It started ten minutes ago. It's trending worldwide."
Kaelen took the device, his expression unreadable—but his pulse, I could feel it from where I sat beside him, was a storm barely caged beneath his skin.
I watched the live feed. Watched her.
She sat in front of a window overlooking the city skyline, wrapped in white silk that made her look like some tragic angel. Her voice was soft, fragile—so perfectly calibrated it hurt.
"I never meant to hurt anyone. I just… I loved someone who forgot how to love me back."A breath, trembling. "And now, the world thinks I'm a monster. They twisted everything. He's saying things that aren't true… things that make me look like I'm insane."
Her eyes shimmered, catching the light just so. "Maybe I am. Maybe it's better if I just disappear. Maybe they will be happier, in a world without me."
The comments section was a flood—hearts, crying emojis, prayers. The kind of digital pity that burns hotter than truth.
Kaelen's voice cut through the hum of the car engine. Low. Controlled. Dangerous.
"Mark, trace her location."
"She's broadcasting from the Smith penthouse," Mark said quickly. "Security's already on standby, but if she—"
"Call the police. Now."
I reached for Kaelen's hand. "Kaelen—"
He turned to me, eyes glass-hard. "She's manipulating the entire country in real time. If I don't show up, and something happens—"
"You'll prove her right," I finished quietly. "You'll also feel guilty for the rest of your life."
He didn't answer. His silence was the answer.
Within minutes, his car veered toward the Smith residence, the city blurring past like streaks of colour. The air between us felt charged, each second heavier than the last.
Kaelen's voice was still tight with urgency when the car came to a stop in front of the Smith penthouse. Cameras flashed in the distance—word had spread faster than oxygen to fire.
"Stay in the car," he told me, his tone brooking no argument. Mark was already on the phone, issuing rapid-fire instructions to someone on the other end.
I reached for Kaelen's sleeve. "Kaelen—be careful."
He hesitated just long enough for his eyes to meet mine. The edge in them softened. "I'll call you the second I have her stabilized. Don't step out. Don't talk to the press. Straight to Sterling after this."
I nodded, though a cold weight had begun to settle in my stomach.
He stepped out, the night swallowing him in flashes of blue and white, and then Mark followed, disappearing into the chaos. The door shut. Silence reclaimed the car, save for the low hum of the engine.
The driver glanced at me through the mirror. "Sterling Group, miss?"
I managed a small nod. "Yes. Thank you."
The car eased forward, away from the lights, into quieter streets.
Then something shifted.
A sound—soft, wrong. Like a cough muffled by distance.
Before I could speak, the car jolted violently. A deafening crack split the air. The tires screamed.
"What—?"
The driver cursed, fighting for control, the car swerving before grinding to a halt. "Stay down, Miss Elara!"
I ducked instinctively, heart pounding against my ribs. My pulse roared in my ears. I could hear footsteps now—heavy, fast—closing in.
The driver reached for his door handle, but it was too late.
Glass shattered. A gloved fist smashed through the window. Another man wrenched the driver's door open. I screamed his name, but he didn't answer—the sickening thud of impact silenced him.
My door was next. The lock clicked. Hands grabbed me—cold, merciless. A hood came down over my head before I could even see their faces.
The world spun into chaos—boots scraping asphalt, someone barking orders, the metallic smell of gun oil and burnt rubber filling the air. My knees hit concrete; strong arms lifted me, dragging me toward another vehicle.
"Let go of me!" My voice came out raw, swallowed by the sound of an engine revving to life.
No response. Only the slam of a van door behind me.
I tried to count the seconds. The turns. The acceleration. Anything that could anchor me. But fear made the world elastic—it stretched and collapsed all at once.
The last thing I heard before the world went black was a voice near my ear—low, male, deliberate.
"Mr. Vancourt should've known better than to leave you alone."
And then—silence.
The world was a void of motion and sound, and it was swallowing me whole.
The coarse hood scratched my face, the scent of male sweat and oil filling my lungs until I choked on silent sobs. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be. The van swerved, and my body slammed against the metal wall, the impact a fresh jolt of terror.
Not again. Not again. Not again.
The flashbacks of my previous encounter came hitting. The punch, the helplessness, the terror.
Panic, cold and sharp, clawed its way up my throat. I couldn't breathe. The hood was a shroud. I was back in my first life, dying alone and betrayed.
"Please," I whimpered, the word a ragged tear in the fabric of my composure. It was swallowed by the engine's roar.
One of the men grunted. "Quiet."
The command was impersonal, final. They weren't killers yet, but they were captors. My value was temporary. The thought sent a fresh wave of nausea through me. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to find Kaelen's face in the darkness behind my lids. His calm, his strength. "Whatever happens out there, Elara—don't let them rewrite us."
But they were. They were rewriting me into a victim, just as I had been before.
The van finally slowed, gravel crunching like bones under the tires. The doors swung open, and the cool, damp air did nothing to clear the fog of fear. Hands, rough and impersonal, hauled me out. My legs, numb with terror, buckled. I was dragged, my shoes scraping, then stumbling on cold, smooth concrete.
They shoved me into a chair. Hard plastic. I cried out as they wrenched my arms back. The bite of the zip-ties on my wrists was a sharp, definitive pain. Another on my ankles. I was trapped.
Then, the hood was ripped away.
I blinked, gasping, in the harsh glare of a single bare bulb. The light swung, casting monstrous, moving shadows. A warehouse. Decaying, empty. Three men stood around me, their faces hard, impersonal. Tools.
But the fourth man wasn't looking at me. He was setting up a professional-looking camera on a tripod. The red recording light was off. Next to it was a high-quality digital camera.
The man with the scar—the leader—stepped in front of me. He held a phone, not to record, but to make a call. He tapped the screen, and said, "We have her."
Bella's voice filled the cavernous space, sweet and venomous as poisoned honey.
"Hello, boys. Great job."
My blood ran cold. She sounded different than when she did on the livestream.
A wave of disorientation and fresh terror washed over me.
"Now, as a reward, you get to break the merchandise," Bella's voice continued, clinical and detached. "Thoroughly. Do what you want. Be… creative. The only rules: no permanent brain damage, and she must remain alive at the end. I want her conscious for it all."
A whimper escaped my lips. I shook my head, my vision blurring with tears. No. No, no, no.
"Use the cameras," Bella instructed. "Photos. Video. I want a comprehensive record. I want to see every tear, every moment of her spirit breaking. When you are finished, you will release her somewhere public. She will be too broken to ever speak of it. And no one will ever want to look at her again, let alone marry her."
The message ended.
The scarred man pocketed the phone. The other two men looked at me, and their indifference had now morphed into something predatory, intent. The game had been defined.
The man at the tripod switched on the camera. The red light glowed like the eye of a demon.
"Please," I begged, my voice a shattered thing. "Don't. I'll give you anything. Money. I can pay you ten times whatever she's paying!"
The scarred man ignored me. He nodded to the larger of the two brutes. "You first."
The man cracked his knuckles and took a step toward me. The other one followed, a slow, deliberate advance, his eyes roaming over me with a cold, appraising hunger.
The man with the still camera lifted it, the lens focusing with a soft whir.
I pulled against the zip-ties until my wrists bled, the plastic cutting deeper. It was useless. I was trapped. The shadows in the warehouse seemed to lean in, eager spectators.