CHAPTER 3

Liam POV

I sit in the back of the Maybach, the partition up, the world outside muted to a dull gray blur.

The city can scream all it wants; nothing gets through this glass unless I allow it.

My phone is in my right hand.

The screen is dark, but I know exactly what the last photo she sent me looks like: Serena in the cream silk blouse I chose, camel skirt hugging her hips, those long legs in the nude Louboutins. She smiled for the camera the way I taught her (lips closed, eyes soft, a little shy). Perfect. Mine.

I swipe again anyway, just to feel it in my chest.

The picture was taken at 9:12 a.m.

It is now 10:47 a.m.

She should be at Madame Laurent’s atelier by now, standing on that little round platform while the French woman crawls around her with pins in her mouth. I paid extra so there are no other brides today. Only Serena. Only my future wife.

I zoom in on her face.

Her green eyes look back at me, a little too wide, a little too careful. I hate when she looks careful. It means she’s thinking something she hasn’t told me yet.

I open the tracking app.

A red dot pulses on Madison Avenue, right where the atelier is. Good girl.

I switch to the kitchen camera feed from this morning.

There she is at 7:03 a.m., sitting at the island in my T-shirt, hair messy, eating the eggs Anton made. She finishes everything on the plate,I watch at 2× speed until the plate is clean . My shoulders relax a fraction. At least she’s listening about food.

I rewind to the moment she first walked downstairs.

She pauses at the top of the stairs, looks around like she’s checking if I’m hiding in a corner. I smile at the screen. She still does that every morning, even after five years. Cute.

I close the feeds and lean my head against the cool leather.

Tokyo is on the big screen in front of me, numbers and charts and Japanese men in suits bowing every time they change the slide. I nod when my CFO nods, say “proceed” when he asks, but none of it matters right now. The only thing that matters is six weeks from today Serena will walk down a white carpet covered in rose petals and say “I do” while five hundred plus people watch her become mine forever mine.

I feel it in my blood, hot and sweet.

Mine.

I was twenty-seven the night I saw her across the room at that charity gala in the Hamptons. She was twenty-two, wearing a green dress that made her eyes look like forest glass. She was laughing at something her father said, head thrown back, throat long and smooth. I stopped breathing for three full seconds.

I knew right then.

Some men want money, or power, or fame.

I already had those things.

I wanted her. Only her. Forever.

Roman laughed when I told him the next day. My big brother, always so calm and above it all, said, “You don’t even know her name, Liam.”

I told him names are easy. Owning is harder.

It took four months to make her love me.

Four months of flowers, private jets to Paris just for dinner, jewelry she tried to give back because it was “too much.” I never let her give anything back. Gifts aren’t gifts if you can return them.

Then one night in Aspen, snow coming down so thick we couldn’t see the mountains, I took her to bed for the first time. She cried a little (not from pain, from feeling too much, she said). I kissed every tear and told her she belonged to me now. She whispered yes against my mouth, and I felt the world click into place.

Five years later and she still says yes.

Every day.

Even when her voice shakes.

The car stops. We’re at the office (Voss Global, sixty-eight floors of black glass on Park Avenue). My assistant, Priya, is waiting with an umbrella even though it’s barely misting.

“Mr. Voss, the board is ready in the main conference”

“Five minutes,” I say, not slowing down.

I go straight to my private elevator, thumb scan, up to the top floor. My office is the entire floor. Floor-to-ceiling windows, black marble desk the size of a car, one chair behind it, two in front. No one sits unless I tell them to.

I lock the door, loosen my tie, sit down, and open the laptop.

There’s a new notification from the jewelry camera.

The engagement ring has been taken out of the safe at Tiffany’s for resizing. I watch the live feed: the salesman slides it onto a mandrel, measures, nods. It’s loose on her finger now. She’s lost eight pounds since August. I noticed the night I grabbed her wrist too hard and felt bone instead of softness. She cried and said sorry. I kissed the tears and told her she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

I don’t want her thinner.

I want her soft and glowing and mine.

I text Priya: Tell Anton to add more calories starting tomorrow. Avocado toast with eggs, full-fat yogurt, chocolate at night if she wants. Tell him I’ll know if he doesn’t.

Then I open the folder on my desktop labeled simply “S.”

Inside are 11,847 photos.

I scroll slowly.

Serena sleeping, Serena laughing at a restaurant, Serena in lingerie I bought her, Serena with bruises shaped like my fingers, Serena smiling at me like I’m her whole world.

I stop on one from last month.

She’s on the terrace at sunset, wind in her hair, wearing my white shirt, nothing underneath nothing. The shirt is unbuttoned just enough. She’s looking straight at the camera because I told her to. Her eyes are scared and in love at the same time. My chest aches with how perfect she is.

I pick up the phone and call Marco.

“Yes, boss.”

“Where is she right now?”

“Just pulled up to Tiffany’s for the ring resizing.”

“Good. Stay close. If she talks to anyone longer than thirty seconds, I want the name.”

“Yes, sir.”

I hang up.

I lean back in the chair and close my eyes.

I see her at sixteen, the first time her Dad brought Caroline home. Chloe was thirteen, all braces and attitude. Serena stood on the staircase in jeans and a Columbia sweatshirt, arms crossed, staring at her new stepmother like she was an intruder. Even then she was beautiful. Even then I wanted her. I was twenty-one and told myself it was just a passing thing.

It wasn’t.

When she turned twenty-two and walked into that gala, I almost laughed at how the universe handed her back to me wrapped in green silk.

Roman tried to warn me.

He said, “She’s too young. She’s breakable. Find someone who can handle you.”

I told him to go to hell.

He doesn’t understand. No one does.

Breakable things are meant to be kept safe. Locked away. Protected.

I open my eyes and text her.

Me: How’s the fitting going, baby?

Three dots appear almost instantly.

Serena: Almost done. The dress is perfect. I feel like a princess.

I smile at the screen.

Me: Send me a picture. Now.

A minute later it comes: her in the wedding dress, standing on the platform, veil trailing on the floor like spilled milk. The dress hugs every curve I know by heart. Her eyes look straight into the camera again, a little shiny. Nervous. Excited.

Mine.

Me: Most beautiful bride in the world. I’m hard just looking at you.

Serena: Liam…

Me: Tonight when I get home I’m going to take that dress off you with my teeth.

Serena: Promise?

Me: Count the minutes.

I set the phone down and breathe through the rush of heat.

I pick the phone again and open the app that shows every text she sends and receives.

Nothing new since my last check twenty minutes ago. Good.

I scroll back to two nights ago.

Serena 11:47 p.m. to “Emma 👯‍♀️”: Sometimes I feel like I’m disappearing.

Emma 11:49 p.m.: What do you mean??

Serena 11:51 p.m.: Like I’m becoming someone else. Like the girl I was is gone.

Emma 11:53 p.m.: That’s just wedding stress, babe. Cold feet are normal.

Serena never answered after that.

I stare at the words until they burn.

Disappearing.

I feel something cold crawl up my spine.

I call Chloe.

She answers on the second ring, bubbly and loud. “Future brother-in-law! Miss me already?”

“Make sure she has fun at the bridal shower, and keep a close eye on her ”

“Liam, relax,” Chloe laughs. “I’ve got her. She’s going to cry happy tears and thank me for the best night of her life.”

“See that she does.”

I hang up.

I stand and walk to the window. Sixty-eight floors up, the city is small and powerless beneath me. Central Park looks like a green rug someone dropped between buildings.

Somewhere down there my future wife is walking around with my ring on her finger, my name almost on her passport, my baby possibly already growing inside her (I stopped letting her take the pill three months ago; she doesn’t know).

Six weeks.

Forty-two days.

One thousand and eight hours.

I press my forehead to the cold glass and whisper to the city that can’t hear me.

“You can try to hide, Serena.

You can try to disappear.

But I will always find you.

You are already mine.”

I stay there a long time, watching the tiny people move like ants, feeling the beast inside my chest pace and growl as I wait for the day the whole world will celebrate that she belongs to me.

And if anyone tries to take her…

I smile at my own reflection.

They’ll learn what happens when you touch what’s mine.