Chapter One: The Proposal
665 Words
Tari never believed in fairy tales, but even she couldn’t deny how easily Richard Felix rewrote the rules of her world. He entered her life like a storm in a tailored suit — rich, powerful, impossibly charming. The CEO of Phoenix Holdings, he was the man every woman wanted and the one no man dared cross. Yet somehow, in just two months, Tari had gone from being his quiet executive assistant to the woman wearing his ring.
The proposal wasn’t romantic — not in the traditional sense. It was unexpected, clinical, and yet... captivating.
He hadn’t knelt on one knee or whispered sweet nothings. He had handed her a velvet box across his office desk, his dark eyes steady and unreadable.
“You’d make a perfect wife,” he said. “You’re obedient. You’re smart. And I don’t have time to chase butterflies.”
Tari had laughed nervously, thinking it was a joke. But when he didn’t smile, she realized he meant it.
“I’m serious. Marry me.”
“Why me?” she’d asked, heart hammering in her chest.
“Because I trust you,” he said. “And I don’t trust anyone.”
That should have been her first warning.
But something in his voice — the ache of loneliness, the weight of power — pulled her in. It wasn’t love, not really. It was intrigue. And a strange sense of destiny.
The wedding happened two weeks later. Private. Rushed. Just a few of his associates, her overwhelmed mother, and a cold officiant who read the vows like a grocery list.
The mansion he brought her to afterward was beautiful — like something carved from a dream. But the air felt stiff. Like every window had been sealed shut from the inside.
“This is your home now,” he’d said, pressing a kiss to her temple before vanishing into his study, locking the door behind him.
And just like that, she became Mrs. Richard Felix.
---
One Month Later
Tari sat in the massive dining room, the long table stretching between them like an abyss. The air was silent, heavy.
Richard was on his third drink, his fingers wrapped tightly around the crystal glass. He hadn’t said a word to her since yesterday. Not since she’d asked to visit her mother.
“You married me, Tari,” he finally said, not looking at her. “That means your priorities changed.”
“I just want to see her. She's been sick—”
He slammed the glass down. “She’s a liability.”
Tari flinched.
“You forget,” he continued, voice low and deliberate, “what I give, I can take away.”
That night, she cried alone in the luxurious guest bedroom — her punishment for ‘talking back.’
The next morning, she found the door locked from the outside.
It wasn’t a home.
It was a cage.
---
Flashback
Her mother had hesitated when Tari told her about Richard’s proposal. “Two months isn’t enough to know a man,” she warned gently.
“I know,” Tari had admitted. “But he sees me. No one’s ever seen me like this.”
“Powerful men don’t always mean safe men,” her mother replied. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”
Tari had promised.
She hadn’t kept it.
---
The days that followed were quiet — too quiet. Richard barely came home. When he did, he smelled like whiskey and blood and something else she couldn’t name.
Then came the first slap.
It wasn't rage. It was calm. Chillingly calm.
“You disobeyed me,” he said after finding her in the kitchen, trying to call her cousin.
“I was just—”
His hand moved faster than her thoughts.
After that, she stopped trying.
Or so he thought.
Because Tari was keeping notes — in her head, in whispers to herself, in prayers under her breath.
She might be caged.
But she wasn’t broken.
Not yet.
- Writer
