Chapter 12
344 Words
I didn’t cry.
Not after he called me his property.
Not after he f****d the fight out of me like I was just a body to bend and own.
Not after he whispered “you belong to me” against my throat like it was a promise carved in bone.
I didn’t cry.
I just… went still.
Silent.
Empty.
⸻
The collar was still tight around my neck when I curled up in his bed that night.
Silk sheets. Satin skin. A hollowed-out heart.
Dominic had gone to take a call—something about a press leak, maybe a political dinner. I didn’t ask. I didn’t care.
I just lay there, eyes on the ceiling, chest barely rising.
The girl who fought?
Gone.
The girl who dreamed of freedom?
She didn’t exist anymore.
She was a myth. A fairy tale I used to tell myself when the lights were off and the world was cruel.
⸻
He came back and found me like that.
Still. Quiet. Not defiant. Not broken.
Just… fading.
He didn’t speak. Just climbed into bed and pulled me into his arms.
I didn’t resist.
He pressed a kiss to the back of my neck, fingers grazing the velvet collar. “You feel safe yet?”
I didn’t answer.
Because I didn’t know what safe felt like anymore.
⸻
The next morning, I moved like a ghost.
Didn’t eat. Didn’t talk. Didn’t ask questions.
I let him dress me in another expensive outfit—tight black dress, heels higher than my pride.
He told me we had dinner plans.
I nodded.
When he offered his hand, I took it.
When the guards opened the car door, I stepped in.
But inside?
Inside, I was disappearing.
⸻
I stared out the window the whole drive.
Past the glittering city, the towers that touched clouds, the places I used to survive in.
I watched them fade behind tinted glass and bulletproof silence.
This was a prison.
A palace.
A coffin lined in diamonds.
And me?
I was just the pretty thing inside it.
- Writer
