Chapter 5: The Cracked Golden Cage
863 Words
After the devastation at the party, Adrian’s luxurious apartment felt like a golden-lined coffin. Since we returned, I hadn’t spoken a single word. I let the emerald gown fall to the floor, indifferent to its million-dollar price, and locked myself inside the bathroom.
Under the hot shower, I scrubbed my skin until it turned red, as if I could erase the memory of Adrian’s hands that still seemed to linger there. But his voice kept echoing in my mind, looping like a broken tape.
“Bella was nothing but bait…”
“I was the one who paid Bella to run away…”
He was the director of all my suffering. Every tear I had shed since Bella disappeared had been part of a script he had written in blood.
I stepped out of the bathroom wearing only a white silk robe. Adrian was there. Not in his study, but sitting on the sofa at the foot of the bed, holding a glass of whiskey, the top buttons of his shirt undone.
“Have you finished washing away your family’s sins, Elara?” he asked without looking at me.
I didn’t answer. My eyes fell on a small wooden box on the vanity—the painting tools that his staff had delivered earlier that morning. Inside it lay a sharp palette knife.
“Why, Adrian?” My voice finally emerged, hoarse and filled with hatred. “Why me? If you wanted to destroy the Pramudya family, you could have done it without dragging me into your bed!”
Adrian stood, set his glass aside, and walked toward me. His dominating presence filled the room, suffocating the air around me.
“Because they have nothing of value to me except you. Money? Companies? They’re trash. I wanted the only thing they had hidden from me for ten years.”
“I’m not a collectible!” I shouted, grabbing the palette knife and pointing it straight at his chest.
Adrian stopped. He looked at the trembling blade in my hand, then lifted his gaze to meet mine. Instead of fear, a terrifying smile curved his lips.
“Finally,” he whispered hoarsely. “The real Elara appears. The little girl who dared to stab her kidnapper’s arm with a shard of glass ten years ago… I missed that fire in your eyes.”
“Don’t come any closer!”
Instead, Adrian stepped forward, letting the tip of the blade pierce his white shirt until a drop of blood appeared. He didn’t care. He seized my wrist, twisting it with controlled strength until the knife slipped from my hand and clattered onto the marble floor.
“You want to fight me?” Adrian pushed me back until my spine hit the cold wall. He pinned my wrists above my head with one hand, while the other gripped my jaw, forcing me to face the madness in his eyes. “Fight me, Elara. I prefer you to resist rather than surrender like a corpse.”
“I hate you,” I hissed, my face inches from his. “I will make you regret choosing me.”
“Hatred is a good beginning,” Adrian murmured, his breath warm against my skin. “It’s very close to passion. And I have all night to turn your hatred into something else.”
His presence overwhelmed me, his control absolute, leaving no space for escape. In the struggle between us, I realized something that made me despise myself even more: my body was betraying me. His closeness, his voice, the way he whispered my name as if it were a sacred prayer—everything awakened emotions I never wanted to feel.
“Look at yourself,” Adrian whispered when he paused, watching me breathe heavily. “Your words curse me, but your body tells a different story. You can’t lie to me, Elara. You are mine, down to the smallest cell in your blood.”
He lifted me and threw me onto the bed, pulling me into the darkness of emotions I could neither escape nor understand. That night, it wasn’t only my pride that shattered, but also my determination to remain a victim.
If he wanted a masterpiece of suffering, I would give it to him. But I would make sure that every pleasure he took from me would become poison, slowly destroying him from within.
When dawn was almost breaking, when Adrian slept soundly with his arm still wrapped possessively around my waist, I reached for his phone on the bedside table.
I had to find Bella. Not to save her, but to uncover what secret she held that made Adrian so obsessed with me.
I managed to unlock his phone. And there, inside a hidden folder, I found an old photograph. A picture of Bella and me at the age of seven, playing in a garden. But behind the photo was a short digital note that froze my blood:
“Elara — the only remaining heart suitable for donation. Do not let her get injured under any circumstances.”
My hands trembled.
This obsession was no longer about love or revenge.
It was about life and death.
- Writer
