Candle in a Black Hole

Chapter 11

The Grand Hall, Zandier Estate

The atmosphere within the Grand Hall of the Zandier Estate was so cavernous and opulent it felt bone-chilling. Maya sat huddled on a high-end leather sofa, the frigid air from the climate control stinging her skin. She couldn’t help but pity her own wretched fate; a mere hour of fresh air was apparently to be traded for a blood-draw and a medical examination, as if she were a newly processed convict.

However, her suspicion soon turned to sheer dread when Barshow entered, followed by a medical team whose faces she recognised from the headlines of controversial medical innovations. This was a world-class team, notorious for their cutting-edge and highly scandalous research.

"Madam, this is the medical team appointed for your examination," Barshow announced, his face an unreadable mask.

"W-What am I being examined for?" Maya asked, her voice fractured. Her mind raced with horrific possibilities—perhaps Alex had ordered a tracking chip to be implanted, or something even more perverse.

"To ensure your... fitness... before you share the Master’s bed."

The sentence struck Maya like a bolt of lightning through her heart. She went rigid, her throat so parched she could scarcely swallow. "Wait... what?" she murmured in disbelief, before whispering a defensive retort. "I-I have never... I have never been with anyone like that!"

Barshow flicked his gaze toward the physicians, issuing a curt amendment. "In that case, omit that part of the exam. A blood and urine sample will suffice."

As the equipment was laid out and the glint of a sharp needle caught the light, Maya’s composure shattered. Driven by a primal terror of needles, she lunged for the nearest anchor—which happened to be Barshow’s arm. She clung to him with the desperation of a drowning soul.

"Is there... is there a smaller needle?" she asked piteously.

Barshow stood as motionless as a stone monument, internally cursing the Madam’s clingy display. "Pray, do not come so close, Madam," he muttered, attempting to prize himself away, but Maya only tightened her grip on his arm.

"What the hell is going on here!"

A deep, commanding voice, laced with untempered fury, thundered from the landing. Alex stood there, his eyes ablaze with a murderous fire as he witnessed his lawfully wedded wife practically pawing at his most trusted lieutenant.

Barshow struggled to wrench his arm from the tiny hands.

"Don't leave me!" Maya cried, her eyes squeezed shut as she scrambled for a new grip, entirely oblivious to the fact that the owner of that thunderous voice had already reached her side.

"Get back!" Alex hissed at Barshow, who retreated instantly.

Maya, whose focus remained entirely on the needle about to pierce her skin, kept her eyes tightly closed. Her small hands grasped blindly in the darkness of her terror. She didn't care whether the muscular arm she clung to belonged to the henchman or the master; she only craved someone strong enough to shield her from the sharpened tip she loathed so much. Her palms were slick and drenched with cold sweat.

"Ah..." she gasped as she felt the sharp sting at the crook of her arm.

Her tiny hands squeezed Alex’s arm with such force that the fabric of his bespoke suit was mangled beyond recognition.

Alex looked down at the small hands gripping him like iron pincers. His towering rage faltered for a fraction of a second, replaced by a visceral sensation that rippled through him. He could feel her frantic pulse thrumming through his sleeve—a rhythm that awakened a predator's instinct, shifting his fury into a dark, consuming hunger for possession.

The sharp sting at the crook of her arm gradually subsided as the needle was withdrawn, yet Maya kept her eyes squeezed shut. Her frame continued to tremble, her courage failing her at the thought of facing reality. She prayed silently for this peculiar medical team to clear out and leave her in peace.

However... the atmosphere around her shifted.

A searing warmth of breath fanned across her forehead, accompanied by that distinctive scent of opulent cologne laced with a ghostly trace of tobacco. It assaulted her senses with predatory intensity. Maya struggled to swallow the lump in her throat before tentatively fluttering her eyelids open.

Her heart nearly seized when she found Alex’s chiseled features mere centimetres from her own.

He jerked the arm she had been mangling upward, thrusting it before her face. "...Have you quite finished?"

Maya recoiled, her hands flying back in a frantic scramble as she realised his exorbitantly expensive suit was now a ruined mass of creases by her own doing. But before a single word of apology could escape her, his heavy hand shot out, gripping her jaw with a bruising force.

He compelled her to look into eyes that were smouldering with a lethal fury. "If I ever catch you pawing at another man's arm like that again... I shall have their limbs severed!"

The sheer brutality in his voice left Maya shuddering like a fledgling caught in a predator's talons. She shook her head frantically, desperate to convey that it hadn't been intentional, but Alex granted her no quarter for explanations.

He crushed his lips against hers with a violent, barbaric intensity. He bit into her tightly pressed lips until they parted in a gasp, allowing his tongue to invade and plunder her mouth with absolute entitlement. The bitter, ashy aftertaste of tobacco lingered on his rough tongue as he scavenged for her sweetness, leaving Maya’s slight frame so spent she could scarcely remain upright.

Once satisfied, he broke away with jarring abruptness.

"Remember... exactly who you belong to!" Alex turned and strode away with a chilling detachment.

Maya was left there, gasping for air, her body heaving with the force of her sobs. She collapsed onto the sofa, her face flushed crimson to the tips of her ears—not out of affection, but from the searing humiliation of being branded like cattle before the household staff.

She darted her eyes left and right in a fit of paranoia, terrified that someone had witnessed that savage kiss. Snatching her smartphone, she bolted toward her room in a blind panic, as if fleeing for her life from the very devil who had just stolen the breath from her lungs.

Maya’s Bedroom, Zandier Estate

BANG!!!

Maya slammed the door shut with every ounce of strength she had left. She pressed her back against the thick timber, gasping for air like a woman drowning. She lunged into the bathroom, desperate to use the cold water to wash away the traces of his barbaric touch. But as she caught her reflection in the mirror, her knees nearly buckled. Faint, red finger-marks lingered on her smooth cheeks from his bruising grip, and her lips were swollen, sporting a fresh tear as a grim souvenir of his assault.

"That... that depraved beast!"

She hissed the insult under her breath, only to instantly stifle her voice as she remembered that every nook and cranny of this room held his hidden 'eyes and ears'.

Powerless to do anything else, she could only sit and stare at her smartphone. Maya felt as though the world were severing its ties with her, piece by piece. She yearned for the liberty beyond these three mountains—the place where she was once herself. Her gaze fell upon the Diamond Platinum card, and she sighed, thinking ironically that in those mafia romance novels, such a card would be followed by a lavish shopping spree. "Hmph... why is real life never like the stories?"

She scrolled through her newsfeed, mentally questioning what everyone saw in Alex Zandier and why the press was so obsessed with him. Then, her finger froze. "Oh... it’s Grandfather Frost."

Maya tapped the article with lightning speed. The news stated that Grandfather Frost had travelled to a distant city on business with her father, and it appeared there were preparations to permanently relocate the Akkarabadi firm to a new headquarters there.

"What on earth...? If the company is to be moved and thrive like that, then why was I sent here as a sacrificial lamb?" Tears welled in her eyes, born of utter dejection. She truly could not fathom it. If her marriage was meant to 'salvage' the firm so her father could continue his business, why was he relocating so far away?

What she did not realise, however, was that had she not agreed to wed Alex, the Akkarabadi firm would have already collapsed into bankruptcy. Without the prestige and the immense capital injected by the Zandier Group to facilitate such a move, the Akkarabadi Group would have ceased to exist entirely.

But to Maya, at this moment... it felt as though she had been lured into a trap so that everyone else could move forward without her.

She switched off her phone in disbelief. A thought surfaced... would Alex permit her to bid farewell to her father and Grandfather before they moved? Yet, the exhaustion from her sleepless night, coupled with the crushing stress that left her mind a total blank, proved too much to resist. Maya eventually drifted into a fitful slumber on the sofa, her anxieties still gnawing at her soul, even in sleep.

Evening…

The dead silence of the room was supplanted by an atmosphere so leaden it was a struggle to draw breath. Maya blinked rapidly, trying to shake off the remnants of her slumber, but as her vision cleared, her body went rigid as if struck by a curse.

Alex Zandier was sitting there... amidst the gathering shadows of the room. He was composed, perusing a set of documents on the opposite sofa, with only a small table serving as a frail barricade between them.

"Y-You!" Maya gasped, her voice parched, the words barely more than a dry wheeze.

Alex did not look up immediately. He merely tossed the bundle of papers onto the table with a resounding thud. It was the medical report from her examination that afternoon.

"Twenty-three years... and never touched by a man." He finally tore his eyes from the parchment to bore deep into hers, his lips curling into a mocking sneer. "In this day and age, are there truly women who still cling to the notion of preserving their virtue for a wedding night?" He lit a cigarette, deliberately exhaling a plume of grey smoke into her face.

Maya coughed and spluttered, waving her hands frantically to clear the air.

"To-morrow, I must travel to a distant city... to attend to the affairs of my father-in-law’s firm," he remarked flatly, using the glowing ember of his cigarette to carelessly flick at her medical report, as if her very being were nothing more than a scrap of wastepaper.

Maya’s eyes widened, a spark of hope igniting amidst her despair. "M-May I come... with you?"

Alex took another long drag of nicotine before letting the smoke billow out. "Very well... but on one condition." He leaned across the table, his face so close their noses nearly touched. The scent of tobacco and his lethal aura were so overwhelming that Maya dared not breathe. "Do not stray more than ten paces from me."

He subjected her body to a lewd, calculating gaze from head to toe, as if appraising a piece of merchandise he had recently acquired. "If you still wish to use this body... as the life-support for Akkarabadi." He retreated into his seat, leaning back with cold indifference.

Maya paid no heed to his threats or the scorn in his eyes. She nodded fervently, her mind filled only with the image of her parents whom she longed to see. 'Why must they relocate the firm? Why does everyone act as though I have been abandoned here alone?' The questions hammered against her chest. To-morrow, she would wrest the truth from them, regardless of the cost—even if it meant bartering the dregs of her remaining dignity.

Alex smirked with the triumph of a conqueror, his sharp eyes burning with a mixture of contempt and unbridled lust. He extinguished his cigarette against her medical report with clinical detachment before leaning back to survey her frame with absolute entitlement.

"Over here." He slapped his powerful thigh with a sharp thud. It was a simple, yet absolute command.

Maya glanced at his hand and then back to his rugged features, her heart hammering in her throat. She could scarcely believe he was making such demands now, in the stifling quiet of this room.

Alex arched an eyebrow—a silent, dangerous question: Do you dare defy me?

Shuddering, Maya suppressed the surge of revulsion rising within her. Having no other recourse, she rose and moved toward him, each step heavy with dread. She sank onto his broad lap with agonizing awkwardness; she had never sat upon a man's lap in her life, save for her father's.

Alex wasted no time. He wound a heavy arm around her waist, hauling her slight frame against his chest until they seemed to melt into one. A predatory grin touched his lips as he buried his face in the crook of her neck. The scent of his cologne and the ghostly trace of tobacco made her skin crawl. He pressed his lips into her flesh with brutal force, biting down until a vivid, crimson mark was left as his personal brand.

"You find your own husband repulsive, do you not?" he rasped, gripping her chin to force her to meet his gaze at point-blank range. "But I am your husband... do not ever forget it!" With that, he cast her aside, letting her slight frame collapse onto the floor without a second thought.

Alex rose to his full, imposing height, looking down at the trembling woman at his feet with utter derision. He adjusted his attire with a flick of his hand before striding toward the door.

"Do not forget to go down for your dinner," he barked, leaving the curt command behind as he vanished through the doorway.

Maya slowly hauled herself up from the floor, her limbs shaking with exhaustion. She stumbled into the bathroom, wishing to splash her face and wash away the stain of this humiliation. But as she looked into the mirror, she closed her eyes in dejection. The dark red mark on her throat was a cruel reminder of the truth: no matter how far she fled, his mark would follow her everywhere, like an invisible shackle.

The Dining Hall, Zandier Estate

Maya entered the dining room with her emotions in a violent disarray, torn between a chilling dread and a simmering furnace of resentment. Her life had been spun out of control this day—treated as a mere commodity to be inspected for use, followed by the news of the Akkarabadi family’s relocation. And to-morrow, she was to be dragged along with Alex to her father’s firm, tethered to him as his ‘toy’. As she watched Auntie Na packing her bags upstairs, a piercing uncertainty gnawed at her: what would he demand of her this very night?

True to Alex’s word, there was no sign of Grandfather Frost. Only the towering silhouette of Alex remained, absorbed in the tablet in his hand.

He looked up momentarily before setting the device aside. “Sit.” A curt command, his finger pointing to the same chair she had occupied that morning.

Maya obeyed, her movements steeped in cowardice. The phantom sensation of his barbaric lips crushing hers and his teeth grazing her neck continued to haunt her. No matter how much foundation she had caked over the vivid crimson brand he had left, the ‘stinging heat’ remained—a persistent reminder of his savagery.

A maid approached and placed a dish before Maya. However, it was neither the steak nor the pasta enjoyed by the man across the table.

“Mr Frost telephoned with specific instructions for Madam’s dinner,” the maid explained. “He asks that you do not fret over your family; he shall oversee everything personally.”

At those words, Maya’s heart plummeted. Her small hands began to tremble uncontrollably. In light of the news regarding the firm’s relocation, his message sounded less like a reassurance and more like a veiled threat. A surge of loathing and fury boiled within her. She cast her gaze down at the plate of ‘Seafood Rad-Na’—her once-favourite dish. At this moment, however, the prawns and shellfish looked like the carved remnants of her own kin, served as a sacrifice upon a porcelain altar.

Alex sat watching her reaction with a perverse satisfaction, his deep sea-green eyes gleaming with mockery. He took a twisted delight in seeing her drowned in confusion, entirely oblivious to the fact that the seemingly benevolent Grandfather Frost was, in truth, the master architect who had caged her in this gilded prison from the very start.

“Do get on with it,” Alex remarked, twirling his pasta with an air of nonchalance that stood in stark contrast to Maya’s quiet agony. “We depart at dawn. I haven't the time to wait for you to dally over breakfast to-morrow.”

Maya forced the lump of bitterness down her throat. With trembling hands, she lifted her spoon, struggling to force the greens into her mouth. A fragment of her consciousness screamed that she must survive. ‘Eat to sustain your breath... eat to serve as the sole guarantee for the hundreds of employees still clinging to the Akkarabadi name.’

Though the dish tasted of ash and salt from the tears brimming in her eyes, and though she yearned to hurl the bowl across the room, she ate. She ate to endure, waiting for the day she could demand the truth from every soul who had conspired to betray her.