CHAPTER FIVE (LIANA’s POV)
1077 Words
The elevator ride down from Cassien Ravenscroft’s office felt endless, as if the floors themselves conspired to trap me in the moment I most wanted to escape.
His eyes still haunted me, the kind of eyes that made you forget how to breathe. Cold, deliberate, assessing.
No man had ever looked at me like that; no man had ever made me feel so small and seen at the same time.
When the lobby doors slid open, I stepped out into the city glare.
New York pulsed around me, loud and alive, but I couldn’t hear it. All I could think was: It’s done.
The car waiting at the curb gleamed black, the Ravenscroft insignia stitched into the headrest like a seal of ownership.
Inside, the leather smelled new, expensive, trapping the faint scent of his cologne that lingered from earlier meetings.
I pressed my forehead against the window as skyscrapers blurred into light.
Somewhere beneath those towers was the version of me that still believed in freedom.
I wondered if she was crying, too.
When I reached home, the house was silent in that heavy, suffocating way that means bad news has already settled in.
My mother sat perfectly upright on the sofa, a cup of tea growing cold in her trembling hands.
“You met him,” she said softly.
I nodded, throat tight. “He agreed.”
Her lashes fluttered as she exhaled, a sound halfway between relief and despair.
“And you?”
“I don’t think I ever mattered in the decision.”
She set the cup down. Porcelain clinked against the saucer, brittle, final.
“Sometimes survival isn’t about choice, Liana. It’s about endurance.”
The words should have comforted me. They didn’t.
Upstairs, in the privacy of my room, I locked the door and pressed my back to it.
The room smelled of lavender and safety, yet both had long expired.
My father’s study light burned across the hall, he was still awake, still scheming.
He was a man carved from charm and ambition, the kind that could convince you the fire wasn’t burning even as it devoured the house.
Once, I’d admired him. Now, I realized I was the last card in his losing hand.
A pawn dressed in silk.
I didn’t sleep that night.
⸻
The following week unfolded like a play someone else had written for me.
Designers arrived. Dresses were fitted. Invitations were sent.
The tabloids called it the merger of the decade.
At the final fitting, I caught my reflection in the mirror, white lace draped over my shoulders, diamonds winking against my collarbone, and almost laughed.
I looked like a ghost pretending to be a bride.
When the stylist left, I touched my face, tracing the faint dark circles beneath my eyes.
The emerald in them looked sharper than usual—like they resented the light.
That night, I went to my mother again. She was standing by the window, staring into the garden where the last winter roses bloomed.
“Tell him no,” I whispered. “Please. We can leave. Start over somewhere else.”
Her eyes filled, soft and guilty. “And live how, Liana? Your father owes half this city. Cassien Ravenscroft is the only reason we still have a roof tonight.”
“So I’m payment?”
“You’re our hope,” she said, but even she didn’t believe it.
Hope didn’t feel like this.
⸻
The wedding came too fast.
The cathedral smelled of lilies, sickly sweet, and the press lights blinded me.
My father’s arm was stiff beside mine as he walked me down the aisle.
His smile was too wide, too proud, the smile of a man who’d bartered his soul and thought he’d won.
Cassien waited at the altar, every inch of him composed and lethal.
Black suit, cufflinks that caught the light like tiny blades.
He didn’t glance at me until the vows began.
When his eyes finally lifted, they pinned me in place.
The world narrowed to the distance between us, the six feet of polished marble and everything it represented.
“I do,” he said, voice low, smooth, final.
I almost forgot to breathe before whispering mine.
When he slid the ring onto my finger, his touch was fleeting but electric, as if the gold band carried a current.
The applause thundered, a hundred strangers celebrating my captivity.
I smiled for the cameras because breaking down wasn’t an option.
⸻
That night, the mansion loomed like something out of a painting, beautiful, endless, and entirely cold.
The chandeliers burned with light, yet every hallway felt dark.
Cassien vanished into his office after the obligatory toast.
I was led by a quiet maid to “my quarters”, a euphemism for the gilded room where my life would now be contained.
I changed into the silk nightgown someone had laid out, sat by the window, and stared at the city. From here, the streets looked like veins of light threading through the dark.
Sometime past midnight, I heard footsteps in the corridor, measured, unhurried.
Curiosity pushed me to the balcony. He stood there already, coat gone, shirt sleeves rolled to reveal strong forearms and a line of ink running down his right arm, sharp, elegant strokes of black that disappeared beneath his cuff.
The sight shouldn’t have stirred anything in me, but it did. Something unspoken, dangerous.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked without turning.
“I didn’t realize I needed permission.”
He finally looked at me then, half in shadow, half moonlight.
A faint smirk curved his mouth, and the small dimple that appeared was almost cruel in its beauty.
“Noted,” he said quietly. “Just remember, this house keeps its secrets well.”
I swallowed. “Including its prisoners?”
His eyes flickered. “Especially them.”
The silence that followed crackled. I should have left. I didn’t.
“Why me?” I asked, hating how my voice trembled.
He tilted his head slightly. “Because you were available.”
It was a lie. I saw it in the twitch of his jaw, the brief flicker of something behind his eyes. But I didn’t press.
I turned away, retreating before he could wound me further.
Behind me, his voice dropped, almost too low to hear.
“Freedom isn’t given, Liana. It’s taken.”
I didn’t look back. But the echo of that sentence followed me into sleep.
- Writer
