Stripper's Love: Addicted To Me

The Cold Threshold

The ink on the marriage certificate was dry, and with it, Celestia’s fate was sealed.

The reception had been a blur of flashing cameras, strained smiles, and congratulations that felt like death sentences. By midnight, Marco had driven her to his private estate a sprawling, limestone fortress tucked away from the city, surrounded by towering iron gates and dense rows of black pines. It wasn't a home; it was a secure compound meant to keep people out, or keep them in.

As soon as the heavy front doors clicked shut behind them, the polite facade Marco had worn all evening vanished. He loosened his silk tie, tossing it onto a marble console table without looking at her. The silence of the massive house settled over them immediately, heavy and freezing.

"Let us get one thing straight, Celestia," Marco said, his voice flat and devoid of any warmth. He turned to face her, his dark eyes cold as flint. "This marriage is a business transaction. Nothing more. Your family gets their financial lifeline, and my family secures the territory expansion. Do not mistake this ring for an actual relationship and there should be no relationship between you and my brother anymore you are married to me now."

Celestia stood in the center of the grand foyer, the heavy tulle of her wedding dress suddenly feeling like a suffocating cage. She just watched him, her hand instinctively pressing against the cold gold band on her finger.

"You will have your own quarters at the end of the east wing," Marco continued, stepping closer, his demeanor entirely predatory. "My bedroom is strictly off-limits to you. You do not enter it, you do not knock on the door, and you do not intervene in my personal life. Who I see, what I do, and how I spend my nights is none of your business. You will play the dutiful Sinclair wife in public, and in private, you will stay out of my way. Do we understand each other?"

A small, bitter spark of relief flared deep within her chest she wouldn't have to endure his touch. But it was instantly crushed by the sheer humiliation of his tone. He was treating her like an unwanted piece of furniture.

"Perfectly," she whispered.

"Good. Find your room. A maid left your bags there." Without another word, Marco turned on his heel and disappeared up the grand staircase, leaving his bride alone in the dark.

Across the city, the Sinclair family mansion was drowning in a different kind of darkness.

Sebastian slammed an empty crystal glass onto the bar in his private den, the sound shattering the silence as the glass cracked into pieces. His vision was blurred, his chest burning from the sheer volume of alcohol and white powder scattered across the dark wood table.

He was completely numb, yet everything ached.

A mistake. You were just a distraction.

Celestia’s voice echoed in his head, a relentless loop that tore at his sanity. He grabbed a small baggie from the table, his hands trembling violently as he lined up another dose. He needed the noise in his brain to stop. He needed to erase the image of her standing at the altar in that white dress, looking him in the eye and choosing Marco.

His phone sat nearby, the screen cracked into a spiderweb from when he had hurled it against the wall hours ago. The battery was dead, the internal SIM card fried, completely cutting him off from the world. He didn't care. Let the city burn. Let his father’s empire rot. She had broken him, and now he was going to destroy himself in the dark. He poured another glass of bourbon, swallowing it down until his throat burned, welcoming the oblivion.

Two hours later, Celestia sat on the edge of the mattress in her new bedroom. The room was large but sterile, decorated in cold grays and blacks, completely devoid of any personal touches. She had managed to unbutton the heavy wedding dress herself, letting it heap on the floor like a dead skin, and was now wrapped in a simple silk robe.

The silence of the mansion was suddenly broken by the sound of heavy footsteps in the hallway, accompanied by sharp, feminine laughter.

Celestia froze, her breath catching in her throat.

The door to her bedroom didn't just open; it was pushed back with an arrogant force, banging against the wall. Standing in the doorway was a woman with sharp, striking features, wearing a scandalous red dress that left very little to the imagination. Behind her stood Marco, his jacket gone, his shirt half-unbuttoned, a dark look in his eyes.

The woman stepped into Celestia's room, her red stilettos clicking loudly on the hardwood floor. She looked around the space with a sneer before her eyes landed on Celestia.

"So, this is the little charity case," the woman purred, her voice dripping with malice. She walked right up to the bed, looking down at Celestia as if she were dirt beneath her expensive shoes. "Marco told me your family was desperate, but I didn't realize they'd market a girl so utterly plain. No wonder he didn't want to waste his wedding night on you."

Celestia’s hands clenched into fists against the bedsheets. Rage flared hot through her veins, overriding the fear. "Get out of my room," she demanded, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

The woman laughed, a high, grating sound, and turned back to Marco, who was leaning against the doorframe with a bored, amused expression. "Oh, the little mouse has a voice. Don't worry, honey. I’m just taking Marco upstairs to show him what a real woman feels like. Try not to cry too loudly into your pillow."

He simply offered his mistress a cruel, possessive smile, wrapped an arm around her waist, and pulled her out of the room, shutting the door behind them with a firm click.

Within minutes, the torment began.

The walls of the east wing were thick, but not thick enough to drown out the loud, deliberate noises echoing from the master suite down the hall. The moaning, the breathless laughter, and the unmistakable sounds of raw passion tore through the quiet house. It was a calculated humiliation, a loud announcement of her worthlessness in this house, meant to break her spirit on night one.

Tears of pure rage and degradation finally spilled over Celestia’s cheeks. She covered her ears with her hands, pressing down hard, but the sound seemed to vibrate through the very floorboards. She felt small, trapped, and completely stripped of her dignity.

Desperate, she reached for her phone on the nightstand. Her fingers flew across the screen, dialing the one number she knew by heart. The one man who had looked at her with actual fire, who had wanted to burn the world down just to take her away.

Sebastian.

She pressed the phone to her ear, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

“We’re sorry, the number you have dialed is currently unavailable or out of service…”

"No, no, please," she sobbed, hanging up and dialing again, her vision blurred by tears.

“We’re sorry, the number you have dialed”

She tried a third time, then a fourth, but the call wouldn't even ring. It went straight to a dead, clinical recording. He had completely shut her out. He had taken her words at the altar as truth and abandoned her to the monsters.

Celestia dropped the phone onto the bed, pulling her knees up to her chest as the muffled sounds of Marco and his mistress continued to echo through the dark hallway.