Chapter 3. The Warning Beneath the Vows

Ariella's POV.

The lights in the studio were too bright. Damon’s hand on my thigh was too deliberate.

We were halfway through a live morning interview, our first as newlyweds. I kept smiling. It wasn’t joy, it was survival in red lipstick.

“You two look absolutely radiant. Was it love at first sight?” The host gushed. Damon smiled, stared at me, and retorted. “Let’s say… it was clarity. I saw who she was the moment we met. Strong, elegant, and efficient. I knew I’d never find better.”

I laughed softly, trained and hollow, like a borrowed laugh.

“And Ariella,” the host turned to me, “what about you? What made Damon the one?”

Damon’s fingers pressed gently into my leg, a reminder, not affection.

I answered, “He didn’t ask me to become someone else. He just made space for who I already was.”

A beautiful lie at that. The kind that makes women envious and men jealous. Then the host glanced at her cue card. “There’s been speculation about Damon’s brother, Jace. Will he be returning to the family business now that things are… settled?”

My smile faltered. Just for half a second. My eyes moved, reflexively. Damon’s fingers tensed.

“We don’t discuss ghosts,” Damon said coolly, his smile never breaking. “Some things are better left buried.”

The segment ended two minutes later. Damon didn’t speak again until we reached the corridor.

“You blush like that again; I will burn every bridge you think you’re hiding behind.” He said softly. I shook my head slightly, but I refused to reply.

Hours later. Back at the house, I shut myself in the bathroom under the guise of reapplying my makeup.

That’s when I felt it, the burner phone in the coat pocket.

One new message. “8:30 PM. 16th & Mercer, basement entrance.”

No name and no plea. Just location and time.

I stared at it for nearly five minutes. Then I left.

“Stylist appointment,” I told the driver. “Emergency.”

He didn’t question it.

The basement door at 16th & Mercer was unmarked, unwelcoming. I stepped inside anyway. The room beyond was raw concrete and low-hanging bulbs. Paintings lined the walls, twisted, broken things, full of silence and pain.

He stood in front of one: a woman behind gold bars, her hands bloodied from clawing her way out.

“You always liked the dramatics,” I said, my voice bouncing off the cement.

Jace didn’t turn. “Thought this one might speak to you.”

“It doesn’t.”

“You sure?”

I walked closer, ignoring the way my pulse responded to him. “You said you left to protect me. But disappearing without a word wasn’t protection. It was abandonment.”

He finally turned. “If I stayed, I would’ve killed him.”

“Maybe you should have.”

The silence thickened between us.

He handed me a folder.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Receipts. Forged contracts. Financial trails. Damon didn’t save your father; he created the debt that nearly buried him.”

My throat closed. “Why would he do that?”

“Because he wanted you. And in his world, if something isn’t given, it’s taken.”

I held the folder, suddenly heavy in my hands. “You’re saying all of it, this marriage, was a setup?”

He nodded. “You were sold before you said yes.”

I should’ve thrown the folder at him. I should’ve screamed. Instead, I said, “Why now? Why come back now?”

“Because I saw your face at the altar. And I remembered what it felt like to lose you.”

I took a step back. “You have no right to feel anything.”

“I know.” His voice was low. “But you deserve to know the truth.”

When I came back to the house, Damon was waiting for me. He looked at me with a corner of his left eye and miffed. It looked like he had been pacing the corridor.

“Stylist?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Two hours?”

“She was behind.”

He approached slowly, stopping close enough for his perfume to sting. He stared at me and bellowed. ''Don’t insult me. If you want to lie, at least make it believable.”

I tried to hold his gaze but failed.

“Next time you walk out that door without permission,” he said, “you'd better not come back.”

He turned and walked away. He left me shaking in the same house where I slept. I woke from the silk sheets in chains. I secured the bathroom door and lowered myself onto the chilly floor. The marble was cold under my knees

I opened the folder.

Inside: wire transfers. Signed documents. Stamped approvals. But the timing is too clean, too neat. And the signature, my father’s, was a forgery. I knew because I’d spent my childhood watching him write it a hundred times.

Damon hadn’t saved us.

He created the storm.

Then he swooped in to play the hero with a noose made of wedding vows. My hands trembled. The burner phone buzzed again.

“Tell me everything.”

I stared at the screen. The choice was dangerous. Finally, I typed back. “I’m listening.”