I MARRIED MY ENEMY FOR REVENGE

Nothing could have prepared me for this. Seven years after destroying my life, the man who had shattered my heart was standing in my family's living room as though he belonged there. Not after the way he stood in front of half the school and watched me get humiliated, as if I meant nothing to him. Yet there he was, standing beside his parents in a dark suit, calm and polished, like he had every right to walk back into my life. "Our parents want us to get married," Shadric Vale said, without the slightest hint of emotion. The words landed with terrifying ease, as though he hadn't just altered the course of my life with a single sentence. For a second, I genuinely thought my mind was playing tricks on me. Marriage? To a man like him? A rush of fury surged through me, hot and immediate. A thousand thoughts collided inside my head, but I refused to let a single one reach my face. I had spent seven years making sure that soft girl no longer existed. The naïve teenager who counted down the minutes until he texted. The fool who mistook attention for affection. She had died a long time ago. "Avalan..." my mother murmured from my left. She sounded more anxious than hopeful. I could feel it, the heavy, suffocating pressure of everyone's expectations pinning me to the floor. My family were holding their collective breath, tracking my expression, and waiting for a reaction they could easily capitalise on. But they were completely in the dark. If only they knew. If only they knew the man standing before them had once turned my heart into entertainment. I could still hear the laughter. Still see the faces watching as that video played. I could still feel the shame of standing there while everyone looked at me as though I were nothing. Slowly, I forced my chin up to meet his gaze. I took him in fully, refusing to look away. Seven years had sharpened him. He looked older, more composed, and more dangerous than I remembered. But his eyes were the same, quiet, innocent, and far too steady for a man who had once masterminded my ruin, a wound I had spent years trying to patch together. He stood there acting as if our history were a blank slate. I wanted to destroy him. But revenge was never meant to be quick. It was meant to be patient. "You want to marry me?" I asked. To my own surprise, the question came out steady, devoid of the tremors rocking inside me. He gave a single, firm nod. "Yes." Just a weightless "Yes". A cold smile tugged at the corner of my mouth before I could suppress it. There was nothing in his voice that suggested remorse. Of course, typical of him. My father cleared his throat, the sound slicing through the thick layer of tension that had settled over the room. My father straightened in his chair before speaking, as though this were another business negotiation instead of his daughter's future. "This is an incredible opportunity for everyone involved," he stated, his voice firm and laced with a desperate kind of hope. "His family possesses an unblemished reputation. We've done business with them for decades." Reputation? A bitter laugh bubbled up in my throat, but I kept it trapped behind my teeth, swallowing it down. If my parents only knew who their golden boy truly is and how he tore my life apart with a single video, if they knew what happened after that video spread through the school and how I spent the remaining days of my school days in isolation. "Okay," I said, letting the word drop heavily into the quiet room. The single word seemed to freeze the air, catching everyone off guard. "If a marriage is what you're looking for…" I continued, keeping my tone perfectly conversational and empty of emotion, "…then I will gladly marry you." A sharp, shocking gasp escaped my mother's lips. My father's shoulders dropped in visible relief, convinced that his perfectly orchestrated plan had just fallen into place without a hitch. But my new fiancé didn't look relieved. His gaze lingered on me a second too long, as though my answer wasn't the one he had expected. He was watching me with an intense scrutiny now, his brow shifting slightly as if he were trying to decode a puzzle he couldn't quite solve. Good. Let him drive himself mad, trying to figure me out. Because this time around, I wasn't entering the scene as the lovesick girl who would bend to his whim. I was standing before him as an equal adversary, the one woman he was going to have to fight to survive. I absolutely refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing me fragile. Not again. I am never mapping my pain onto my face for him to witness ever again. Despite my composure, the ghosts of the past came clawing their way back. I remembered waiting outside the library for almost an hour because he had said he might stop by. I remembered pretending not to care when he walked past with another girl. Back then, even a five-minute conversation with him could make my entire day. And then… the day the floor dropped out from beneath me. Looking back, I couldn't tell which moments had been real. The smiles. The conversations. The attention. Every memory felt suspicious now. But the board had changed. Maybe he expected me to throw a tantrum and reject the proposal. Maybe he thought I would run out of the room in tears, repeating the same exit I made years ago. He might truly believe I was still that easily broken, fragile girl. That was his absolute first mistake. Seven years change a person. It had certainly changed me. If he believed this arrangement was going to be a walk in the park or that he could walk into my world, pull the strings, and leave without paying a price, he is deeply mistaken because you don't cut a tree down and still expect it to shadow you during summer. This time around, it wasn't born out of anxiety, or a pathetic shred of hope, or anything resembling affection. It was a pure strategy. This time, I wasn't the pawn on his board. I was the one holding his life in my hands, the one writing the rules of engagement. And he had absolutely no idea of just how far I was willing to go to burn his world to the ground.