The Billionaire's Greatest Regret

Isabella's POV Nobody saw it happen. Or maybe they did and chose to look away. Either way, no one came for me. One second, I was walking home. The next, a hand clamped around my arm from behind. Before I could scream, a white cloth was crushed over my mouth and nose, smelling of harsh chemicals which stung my lungs and stole the air from my chest. In a blur of motion—the rain, the headlights, the Tuesday night traffic, the ordinary sounds of the city—all slipped away, one by one, until the world folded into darkness, and the last thing I felt was a grip on my waist. When consciousness finally clawed its way back, the first thing I felt wasn't fear. It was cold. The kind of cold that seeped through skin and settled deep in your bones. Cold stone beneath me. Damp air. A room with no windows... and no way of knowing whether it was day or night. My cheek was pressed against something hard and my mouth tasted metallic. The inside of my skull felt like it had been wrung out and hung to dry. I tried to move my fingers first. Then my hands. Slowly, I pushed myself upright, careful not to move too fast, the way you do when you're not sure your body will obey. Every muscle ached in protest. “Where the hell am I?" I mumbled, leaning back against something solid as I drew my knees to my chest, forcing myself to breathe. The room was small—single dim bulb hung somewhere overhead, casting more shadows than light. Cold concrete walls boxed me in, their damp surface swallowing every sound. Across from me stood a heavy metal door, smooth and featureless from my side, with no handle, no lock, and no obvious way out. My bag was gone, my phone was gone and my shoes were still on, which felt like the only mercy this room had decided to offer me. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth and made myself think. You're alive, you're awake, so start there. I didn't know how long I had been out, my throat was dry and my head pounded with a dull, insistent ache that made thinking feel like pushing through wet concrete. I didn't know where I was, I didn't know who had done this or why or what they wanted but one thing was sure, someone had planned this. The speed of it, the chemical, the fact that no one on that street had apparently seen or done anything made it feel less random.This wasn't a mugging or a mistake or someone grabbing the wrong person, whoever had taken me knew exactly who I was. That thought sat in the middle of my chest like a stone, and I was still sitting with it when I heard footsteps outside the door. It sounded unhurried and relaxed like there was nothing going on. The footsteps of someone who had never once in their life needed to rush because the world had always waited for them. The door opened, Ian Winston filled the doorway the way powerful men do not by being loud, not by demanding attention, but by simply arriving and making everything else in the room feel secondary. He was exactly as I remembered him and nothing like I remembered him, taller, maybe or maybe it was the way he held himself, his jacket on now, dark and fitted, like he'd come from somewhere important or was always dressed like somewhere important was wherever he happened to be standing. His jaw was sharper, his eyes were darker and there was nothing in them that resembled the boy I had grown up beside, nothing at all. He looked at me on the floor and his face shifted, his eyes emitting a dark sensation like something buried was awakening and his expression was smooth again, unreadable, like a lake that didn't believe in reflections. "You're awake," he said. I stared at him then I got up. It wasn't graceful, my legs were unsteady and my head swam when I straightened too fast and I had to put one hand briefly against the wall but I stood anyway. I pulled my shoulders back, lifted my chin the way I had taught myself to do every time the world tried to make me feel small, and I looked Ian Winston directly in the eye. "You did this," I said, my voice came out rougher than I intended. "You had me grabbed off the street." "Yes." That was it? Yes? No apology? No explanation? No flicker of anything that resembled discomfort? Unbelievable! My hands curled at my sides. "Ian…." "Don't." The word landed quietly but it landed hard. "Don't say my name like that, like we're still something to each other." "We're not." I held his gaze. "Which is exactly why you have no right to…." "Sophie tried to kill herself." The air left the room, my mouth stayed open for a half second after my words ran out, my chest tightened so hard it became painful and I watched Ian's face while he said it, watched the way his jaw worked once, the way his eyes stayed fixed on me like he needed me to feel the full weight of it. "Six weeks ago." His voice was low and controlled but underneath the control there was something else, something splintered and barely held together. "They found her in her apartment. She survived. They keep telling me she's going to be okay, and I keep sitting in that hospital and I….." He stopped, pressed his mouth together and started again. "She almost didn't make it." "Ian." His name came out before I could catch it, softer this time, and I saw his eyes harden at the sound of it. "I didn't know, I swear to you, I didn't…." "What you did destroyed her." The words landed like a verdict being read. "You filed that report, you walked away, and you let her carry the fallout alone. You didn't call, you didn't check, you just…." His jaw tightened. "You just disappeared like you always do." "That is not what happened." My voice cracked on the last word and I felt it happen and couldn't stop it. "I had a legal obligation, I didn't have a choice…." "Everyone has a choice." He took a step into the room. "You chose wrong." I could barely hold myself together but I couldn't let myself break in front of him. "So what is this?" I gestured around the concrete room, the single yellow light, the door with no handle, my voice was steadier than I felt, and I was grateful for that. "What exactly are you doing, Ian? Because k********g someone, holding them in a locked room….that's not revenge, that's a felony." "I'm aware of what it is." "Then you also know I can have you arrested the second I walk out of here." He looked at her for a long moment then he turned without a word and walked back through the door. I almost thought he was leaving but he wasn't. He returned less than a minute later with another man. I'd overheard him call the stranger Marcus earlier, though I knew nothing else about him. Marcus carried a thick folder tucked beneath his arm. Without a word, he placed it at my feet, almost like an offering. Or maybe a sentence waiting to be carried out. Ian stood over it and looked at me. "I've spent three months deciding how to make you pay for what you did to her." His eyes didn't move from my face. "I considered other ways, cleaner ways." A pause that lasted too long. "This is what I decided." I looked down at the folder, I crouched and opened it. My name was printed at the top, my full name, my address, my firm, my mother's home address in the city, every f*****g information about me. The document below it was dense and formal and I read the first three lines twice before my brain fully accepted what they said. MARRIAGE CONTRACT. I stood up slowly. "You're not serious," I said. Ian slipped a hand into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a pen. He held it out to me, his grip steady, his expression unreadable. There wasn't a trace of hesitation in him. At that moment, I realized he wasn't bluffing. He meant every word. The pen remained suspended between us. "Sign it." I blinked rapidly, my fingers refused to move.