5. Ink And Ashes

Everything passes like a blur.

It’s what happens when survival mode kicks in.

I answer every question tossed my way with vague nods, tight smiles, clipped words that barely scrape the surface of polite conversation. I let Hale lead me through like a well-trained pet, smiling when I have to, laughing when I’m expected.

All while my brain fractures behind my eyes, every beat of my heart a warning.

I don’t think about Belle.

Because if I do, the panic claws its way up my throat until it feels like I’m choking on it.

I don’t think about my brothers or my father either, because when I do, emotions flicker—hurt, rage, betrayal—all fusing into something sharp enough to cut me from the inside out.

I focus on breathing.

On staying upright.

On doing whatever the hell it takes to survive this nightmare night without unraveling.

Before I know it, it’s over.

The guests start to file out, each handshake and feigned smile leaving a little more of my soul scraped raw. The grand hall empties, the heavy doors close, and silence falls around us, thick and suffocating. That’s when the panic finally cracks through my ribs—and damned be it, it’s ugly.

It doesn’t creep. It doesn’t whisper.

It detonates, violent and thorough.

I spin on Hale before he even has the chance to speak, slamming my hands against his chest with everything I have left.

“You son of a bitch!” I snarl, shoving him hard enough that the impact jars up my arms.

He doesn’t move. Not even a fraction.

He catches my wrists in one hand like I’m nothing but a disobedient child and sighs, the picture of mild annoyance. “Save it,” he says, voice flat and cold.

I thrash against him, kicking out, my movements fueled by panic and rage and the bone-deep certainty that I cannot—will not—let him win.

“Let me go, you fucking piece of shit!” I scream, twisting ferociously, trying to wrench free.

He barely spares me a glance, his grip tightening just enough to make my bones ache.

“Well, this is getting rather too predictable and boring,” he mutters, dragging me along like I weigh nothing.

And I was not having it.

I yank against his hold, sink my nails into his forearm, raking them down hard enough to leave bloody trails.

He hisses under his breath but keeps going, his pace infuriatingly steady. Without a word, he kicks open a door and hauls me inside.

My stomach knots, instincts roaring at me to fight harder, to run, to claw my way out before it’s too late.

It’s a large bedroom—his, maybe. I don’t know and I don’t care. What I do know is that nothing good is waiting for me here.

Not with the way he dragged me in like I already belong to him. Not with the way the door slams shut like a cell block.

As his so-called ‘property,’ my brain spits out the worst-case scenarios on loop.

I picture being forced to do things against my will.

I picture him doing exactly what men like him always do, and act like—damn monsters wrapped in expensive suits. The door slams shut behind us, the lock clicking into place with a metallic finality that echoes off the walls.

And there, sitting dead center on the pristine bedspread, is a manila file.

Hale marches me straight to it and shoves me down onto the mattress, not violent, not gentle—just inevitable.

He picks up the file, flipping it open with a sharp snap of his wrist, and tosses a pen onto the bed beside me. “Sign it,” he says, voice smooth and sharp enough to gut me where I sit.

I blink at the document, overtaken with a different kind of panic—bile rising in my throat. It’s a marriage contract.

Terms. Conditions. Ownership.

My whole fucking life condensed into neat black letters and bloodless psychobabble.

“Go fuck yourself,” I bite out, each word saturated with venom.

Hale just smiles, the kind of smile that says he already won the second I walked into this house. “I already live in hell, sweetheart,” he sighs, voice like broken glass. “Now sign.”

I launch myself at him without thinking, pure rage and instinct.

He sidesteps the first hit, but I manage to slam a brutal jab into his ribs. Before he can recover, I drive the crown of my head straight into his face. The sickening crunch of his nose breaking is one of the best sounds I’ve ever heard.

Blood gushes immediately, bright and vivid against his too-perfect suit.

I scramble up off the bed, ready to make a run for it, but his laugh stops me dead.

Low. Dark. Amused.

“You’re fucking wild,” he says, wiping the blood from his face with the back of his hand. “I like it.”

Oh, shit. Before I can react, he’s on me again.

He grabs me around the waist, tackles me back onto the bed, and pins me down with a casual, terrifying kind of ease.

I thrash and curse and try to bite, but he’s unmoving, a stone wall trapping me under him. He pulls something from his back pocket. It’s a photograph. He dangles it just out of reach, waiting.

I don’t want to look.

Because I know what it is.

Still, my traitorous eyes lock onto the image.

Belle.

Sitting in a library, homework spread out in front of her, surrounded by a few girls—her friends—who have no idea that death could be inches away.

My heart punches against my ribs, breath stalling in my throat.

Hale watches the moment I shatter with a predator’s patience.

“She looks so happy,” he murmurs, waving the photo closer to my face. “Would be a real shame if that changed.”

I stiffen beneath him, rage and terror battling for dominance. But my body knows what my pride won’t admit.

I can’t save Belle if I don’t survive this first.

The pen is shoved back into my hand. And this time, I take it.

I stare at it for a long moment, fingers trembling so badly it’s a miracle I can hold it at all.

My whole world narrows down to the line where I have to sign.

Where I have to surrender.

I scrawl my name across the bottom, the ink dragging and bleeding from the force I drive into it. When I finish, I slam the pen down so hard it bounces off the bed.

Hale scoops up the contract, grinning like the devil himself.

He leans down, close enough that I can smell blood and danger and victory clinging to his skin. “Good girl,” he drawls, voice low and rough enough to scrape against every raw nerve left in me. He straightens, and the absence of his body leaves the air colder, emptier, like he stole the heat from the room with him.

He unlocks the door and steps out without another word, taking what is left of my soul and dignity.

I lie there, fists clenched so tight my nails cut half-moons into my palms, silk and diamonds crushing the air out of my lungs.

The rage inside me doesn’t flicker.

It burns.

Hot. Endless. Merciless.

And as I stare at the closed door, heart hammering against my ribs, I make myself a silent, vicious promise.

He thinks he owns me now. Oh, he thinks he has won.

But when I get my chance, I’m going to tear his whole fucking world apart.