Chapter 1
No, I won't!" Iris's said
Her voice broke the thick silence, raw and defiant. Her words sliced through the tension like a knife piercing something delicate, echoing off the walls of the dining room. The glass on the table trembled with the passion behind her words.
Her father's face fell, and with it, the crushing burden of his words weighed further into the air. Each syllable he'd spoken seconds before—marriage contract—clung to her skin like cold metal, intangible chains closing around her ribcage.
"Iris, you don't understand," he began once more, his voice weighed down with desperation. "This is the only way we can save the company."
His hands, usually so tight, trembled as he placed them on either side of the paper on the surface in front of them. The paper was fresh, too clean, too official. As though it hadn't been written by a man—her father—but by the merciless fingers of debt, need, and obligation.
"To keep your mother healthy as well," he grumbled. "We have no option."
Iris's eyes blazed with choked tears. Her vision teared, but she refused to let a single drop fall. Her heartbeat echoed like the beat of war drums in her mind. She could not bear what she was hearing. Not from him.
All after… after every promise at night, every sacrifice they had made to stay a family unit, after years of rebuilding everything that life had torn apart—this was what it had come to?
A marriage. Not for love. Not for her happiness. But for salvation.
“I can’t,” she whispered hoarsely. Then louder, with fire, “I won’t marry him! I’d rather stay single for the rest of my life than be tied to that… monster!”
She shoved her chair back so far that it crashed to the ground, left behind. The clatter was irrelevant. Everything was irrelevant. Not when her father—the one who had once told her she could do anything, be anything—was commanding her to do this.
To sell herself for a second chance at life.
He didn't move. He didn't shift, not to keep her backside from leaving. But his eyes—oh, his eyes, they followed her like a ghost, silently begging, filled with regret.
Iris couldn't bring herself to look at him. Not now. Not when he was a stranger to her.
"I trusted you," she breathed, the hurt threatening to close off her throat. "I always trusted you."
His face contorted. "He's our only hope, Iris," he breathed, barely above a breath. "He's the CEO of Babel Industries. If you marry him, he's guaranteed to pay off our company's debt. He'll pay for your mother's treatment. We'll be whole again."
Whole? The word was a cruel joke.
She stood frozen, the name repeating in her mind like a curse: Marx Danver.
She knew exactly who he was. Everybody did.
The reality of his success came at the hands of destroying others. Cold, calculating, unapproachable. He didn't run an enterprise—he ruled an empire. And now her father wanted her to be his wife?
"To save your company?" she spat. "To save my face? You think I would sell out to an empire-builder who does it for the fun of it?"
"Iris," her father protested, but she would not let him go on.
"He's not a savior, Dad. He's a devil in a suit."
Fear flickered in her father's eyes for the first time. And made her shiver.
"You don't understand," he said. "It's not about him. It's about rescuing all of us. Your mother, the people who work for us. If we lose this contract, we lose everything. Do you want that?"
Her lips parted, but words failed.
Her dad's voice broke again, a whisper-thin "Do you want to watch your mom die because we couldn't afford her surgery? Do you want to watch this family disintegrate completely?"
The words hurt more than any scream ever could.
Her heart pounded. Her brain spun. But even as her chest ached from it all weighing down on her, she shook her head.
"Another way," she gasped. "I'll do better. I'll fix this myself. But I will not marry Marx Danver."
And with that, she whirled and stormed out, the front door crashing shut behind her like a judgment. Her father's cry followed her, pleading, shattering—but she did not turn.
---
Iris roamed the streets like a ghost, her fists pushed deep into the pockets of her coat as if she was trying to rope herself together through sheer will. The cold of night burned her cheeks, but she welcomed the cold. At least it numbed the ache under her ribs.
Marry Marx Danver?
She laughed aloud, the sound bitter. The name itself curled her stomach with revulsion. That man did not love—he bought. He did not request—he took. And now he wished to have her?
Glaring up at a swinging streetlamp, she stood there, pounding heart pressed to her forehead.
"I must think," she breathed to the night. "I must think fast."
But the more she tried, the wilder everything went.
With shaking hands, she pulled out her phone and dialed the only person who would maybe get it.
"Dina," she panted when her best friend picked up. "Degree Tap. I need to shut off my head for a little while."
"I'm on my way. Ten minutes," Dina replied. "A couple of shots aren't going to help, but they might let us fake it."
—
The bar was dim, intimate, and filled with subdued jazz and desultory conversation but none of it touched Iris.
She huddled in the corner booth, leaning forward over a whiskey glass. One gone. The second on stand-by. Her thoughts were too raucous. Her heart, too burdened.
There had to be another alternative.
The door crashed open with a blast of wind, and Dina burst in—black boots, messy bun, and eyes as sharp as ever. She slid into the booth without a word, studying Iris's face.
"Damn," she said. "That bad?"
"Worse." Iris swallowed the next shot in one gulp. "My dad has asked me to marry Marx Danver."
Dina blinked. "Wait. The Marx Danver?
"Only one. CEO of Babel & Co. The guy who sleeps on a stack of broken dreams probably."
Dina's jaw fell. "And your dad thinks that's the answer?"
Iris didn't respond. She just gazed at her empty glass and wished it contained answers.
"So what next?" Dina ventured.
Iris let out a sigh. "That's why I'm here. I don't know what to do. I need a miracle. Or at least a bit more tequila."
---
Hours later, Iris was leaning heavily on Dina's shoulder, stumbling towards the house. She was drunk, laughing softly like that way only comes out when your heart has broken and the pieces are too jagged to touch.
"You're heavier than you look," Dina muttered.
"That's betrayal," Iris was giggling. "Or maybe it's just the whiskey.".
Inside, the house was unnaturally quiet. No lights flickered. Nobody stirred. Dina assumed Mr. Hargrove had gone to bed.
She put Iris into her room, easing her down onto the bed. Iris sprawled out like a broken doll.
"Just stay there," Dina told her. "I'll bring you water."
"I'm fine," Iris whispered. "Just. tired."
On her departure, Dina clicked the TV remote. The screen illuminated the room in weak light. A news anchor's voice broke into the silence.
> "And in today's stunning update, the ownership stake in Hargrove Textiles has officially changed hands to Nanode Private Co. This comes after a federal probe into firm finances that revealed several cases of suspected money laundering."
> Sources confirmed that Joseph Hargrove, majority owner and current CEO, was arrested for questioning and could be charged with corporate bankruptcy and financial fraud.
The room spun. Iris slowly sat up.
The drunken haze burst all at once.
Her world,her entire world just collapsed.
