Chapter 5: The Rules of Thorne
908 Words
Alina woke to silence. Not the warm kind that greets you after a restful sleep, but a brittle, watchful stillness like the world was holding its breath.
She was alone in the penthouse bed. Again.
The city blinked beyond the window wall, glass towers reflecting gold and steel. Her silk nightgown clung to her skin, twisted from a night of tossing, questions spiraling in her mind like storm clouds.
She sat up slowly, pushing strands of dark hair behind her ears, and padded to the closet.
The moment she opened it, she paused.
Everything inside gleamed designer dresses, shoes in impossible heels, gowns still with price tags. None of it was hers. Yet it all fit her measurements perfectly. Damon had stocked her a wardrobe like she was a doll in a display case.
And then, beside the newest Versace evening dress, she saw it—an envelope, ivory and sealed with wax.
Her name was written on it in sharp, slanted ink:
“Alina.”
Heart ticking faster, she opened it.
Inside was a single sheet of thick paper. Typed. No signature.
**Welcome to your new life.
The rules are not suggestions. Break them and you break the contract.
Be available when summoned.
Speak only when necessary in public.
No press statements or interviews without permission.
No locked doors inside the penthouse.
Never enter Damon’s private wing.
Do not ask about the past.**
You will be tested.
Obedience is safety.
Disobedience is risk.
Alina read it again. And again.
The words sank in like cold needles.
No signature. No warmth. Just command.
She folded the note back up and slid it into her pocket.
Damon wasn’t at the breakfast table either.
But waiting for her was a breakfast tray prepared with care: fresh croissants, eggs, coffee, sliced fruit in perfect symmetry.
And a manila folder.
Inside were photos of her. Dozens of them. Candid ones.
One of her walking out of a university building in jeans. Another from the small diner she used to work at. One even taken at night, in front of her old apartment.
Her stomach turned.
There were dates and times scribbled on the back in cold, efficient handwriting.
And a sticky note on top:
“This is how I choose. I don't gamble, Alina. I calculate.”
She closed the folder and stared at the ceiling, the weight of realization finally hitting her like concrete.
She wasn’t just a contract wife. She had been chosen, studied, analyzed like a business acquisition.
That afternoon, Damon returned.
He walked in wearing a dark suit, fresh from a meeting or a hostile takeover—his expression unreadable, jaw set in sharp lines.
Alina stood near the balcony doors, arms crossed, watching him remove his cufflinks as if nothing was wrong.
“I read your rules,” she said quietly.
He didn’t stop moving. “And?”
“I’m not a machine.”
“No,” he said, “you’re an asset. And assets are either well-managed... or liquidated.”
She swallowed her reaction. “And what happened to the asset before me?”
He looked up at her, eyes still as glass.
“You’re asking the wrong question.”
“Then what’s the right one?” she challenged.
He stepped closer, closing the space between them like a slow tide. “The right question is how long do you want to last?”
She stared at him, something bitter rising in her throat. “You keep saying that. ‘Last.’ Like I’m disposable.”
“No,” he said calmly. “Like you’re useful. And in my world, usefulness is everything.”
Alina didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Not when every inch of her screamed for answers she couldn’t voice.
Later that night, she passed the housekeeper in the hallway a woman in her fifties with soft gray eyes who never spoke unless spoken to.
But this time, the woman paused.
Slipped something into Alina’s hand.
Then walked on.
It was a matchbox. From a jazz bar in Brooklyn. Inside it, folded in half, was a photo.
It was old. Grainy. Faded.
But the woman in it had Alina’s eyes. Same shape. Same color.
Not her.
But someone like her.
And standing beside her, in the same suit he wore the night they met, was Damon.
Only he looked younger. Wilder. Less polished.
Alina turned the photo over.
On the back, in black ink, someone had written:
“Ask him why she disappeared.”
Her hand shook.
Was this the first wife?
Her chest tightened.
She went to the kitchen, poured a glass of water she didn’t drink, and stood still for a long time, listening to the silence.
Then she did something she hadn’t dared before.
She walked to the locked wing.
And this time…
It wasn’t locked.
The door was slightly ajar.
Just an inch. A deliberate invitation. Or a trap.
She reached out slowly, her fingers brushing the dark wood.
From behind the door, there was no light.
No sound.
Just a single smell.
Faint. Familiar.
Lavender.
The same perfume she’d smelled once, faintly, on Damon’s collar.
She pushed the door open just enough to see
A glint of something silver on the floor.
And a shadow moving, very slowly, along the far wall.
She didn’t know if it was her own reflection…
Or someone else.
A whisper drifted to her, barely audible. A voice not her own.
“Don’t trust him.”
- Writer
