BEAUTIFUL RESISTANCE

The dress had to go.

Ava stared at her reflection in Dario’s bathroom mirror, taking in the damage. Her makeup had long since smudged into war paint, her hair had escaped its careful pins, and the wedding dress—that beautiful, expensive symbol of the life she’d lost—hung around her like a shroud.

She found scissors in the vanity drawer and began cutting.

The beaded bodice fell away first, followed by layers of silk and tulle. Each snip felt like severing another connection to the woman she had been this morning. By the time she finished, she was wearing nothing but the slip underneath and something harder, fiercer than she had ever allowed herself to feel.

Let Dario see what he had really taken. Not some blushing bride, but a woman with nothing left to lose.

She found a robe hanging behind the door, a black silk that probably cost more than her monthly salary and wrapped it around herself like armor. When she emerged from the bathroom, Dario was standing by the windows with his back to her, talking quietly into his phone.

“I don’t care what it costs. I want eyes on him twenty-four hours a day… No, don’t touch him yet. Let him play detective for a while. It’s amusing.”

He turned as she approached, his gaze taking in her transformation with something that might have been approval.

“Much better.” He ended his call and slipped the phone into his pocket. “Though I’m sorry to see the dress go. You looked beautiful.”

“Don’t.” Her voice came out sharper than she’d intended, but she didn’t soften it. “Don’t you dare talk to me like we are having some casual conversation. You destroyed my life tonight.”

His expression didn’t change, but something flickered in those pale blue eyes. “I saved your life tonight.”

“By kidnapping me? By terrorizing my family?” She moved closer, anger giving her strength she didn’t know she possessed. “By forcing me into this nightmare?”

“By stopping you from making the biggest mistake of your life.” He moved to a bar cart in the corner, pouring amber liquid into two crystal glasses with the casual indifference of a man discussing the weather. “Drink?”

“I don’t take anything from kidnappers.”

“Then don’t think of me as your kidnapper.” He held out a glass, the crystal catching the city lights. “Think of me as your wake-up call.”

She slapped the glass out of his hand.

The crystal shattered against the marble floor, whiskey spreading in a dark stain that looked disturbingly like blood. The sound echoed through the penthouse like a gunshot.

Dario looked down at the mess, then back at her, and smiled.

“There she is.” His voice carried a satisfaction that made her skin crawl. “There’s the fire I saw in the hospital. The strength you have been hiding behind all that sweetness.”

“You want to see fire?” Ava stepped closer, close enough to see her own reflection in his pupils. “You want to see strength? Let me go. Right now. Walk me to the elevator and let me leave, and I will show you exactly how strong I am by never pressing charges, never telling anyone what you did.”

“No.”

The simple word hit her like a slap. No explanation, no justification, no room for negotiation.

“No?” she repeated, her voice rising. “That’s it? Just… no?”

“That’s it.” He stepped around the broken glass with fluid grace, moving toward her with the patient stalking of a predator who knew his prey had nowhere to run. “You are not leaving, Ava. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever. The sooner you accept that, the easier this will be.”

“Easier for who?”

“For both of us.” He reached out as if to touch her face, and she jerked backward so violently she nearly tripped.

“Don’t touch me.” The words came out raw, desperate. “Don’t you dare touch me.”

His hand dropped to his side, but his eyes never left her face. “You felt it that day in the hospital. The connection. Don’t try to deny it now.”

“What I felt was compassion for a dying man!” She was shouting now, three weeks of buried confusion and guilt finally finding their voice. “I’m a nurse, you psychopath! It’s my job to care about patients!”

“Is it your job to hold their hands after they are stable? To find excuses to check on them during your rounds? To dream about them weeks after they’re discharged?”

The words hit her like physical blows, each one more devastating than the last. How could he know? How could he possibly know about the dreams, about the way she had found herself thinking about him at the most random moments?

“You’re delusional.”

“Am I?” He tilted his head, studying her with the intensity of a scientist examining a fascinating specimen. “Tell me, little bird—when was the last time you felt truly alive? When did you last do something that scared you? When did you last want something so badly it hurt?”

“I want to go home!” The scream tore from her throat, raw and desperate. “That’s what I want! I want my life back! I want my wedding back! I want you to disappear and leave me alone!”

“Liar.” The word was soft but certain, and it cut deeper than any shout could have. “You want to go back to a life that was slowly killing you? Back to a man who loves the idea of you but doesn’t see who you really are? Back to pretending you don’t have fire in your veins?”

“Leandro loves me!”

“No he doesn’t. He loves how predictable you are. He loves the sweet, accommodating nurse who will give him a comfortable life and never ask for more than he’s willing to give.” Dario’s voice was gentle now, almost hypnotic.

“But I love the woman who pointed a gun at my chest. I love the strength it took to sacrifice yourself for a room full of strangers. I love the fire you are showing me right now.”

“You don’t love me!” She moved backwards, putting distance between them even though there was nowhere to go. “You don’t even know me! This isn’t love, it’s obsession. It’s sickness!”

“Perhaps.” He followed her retreat with measured steps, never hurrying, never pressuring, just… inevitable. “But it’s honest. When did anyone last want you enough to risk everything? When did anyone last choose you over safety, over sanity, over their own life?”

The questions hit her like lightening, and she hated him for it. Hated him for seeing the things she had never admitted to herself, for voicing the doubts that kept her awake at night.

“That doesn’t give you the right to take me!”

“Right?” His laugh was bitter, broken. “I built an empire on taking what I wanted because no one was going to give it to me. I clawed my way out of hell because I refused to accept that I deserved to stay there. Rights are for people who have the luxury of asking politely.”

“So you just… take? You just destroy lives because you want something?”

“I take what’s already mine.” His voice dropped to barely above a whisper, and somehow that made it more terrifying than any shout. “And you, little bird, became mine the moment you breathed life back into my lungs.”

“I saved you because it was my job!”

“You saved me because you couldn’t bear to watch me die. You saved me because something in you recognized something in me. You saved me because you were already mine, even if you didn’t know it yet.”

She wanted to scream, to fight, to find some way to deny the terrible certainty in his voice. But trapped between his advancing figure and the wall of windows, she found herself pinned by more than just his physical presence.

“This is insane.” Her voice was losing strength, becoming smaller. “You’re insane. This whole thing is insane.”

“Yes.” He stopped just out of reach, close enough that she could see the flecks of silver in his pale eyes. “Sanity is overrated. Sanity would have let me die in that hospital bed. Sanity would have let you marry a man who doesn’t deserve the fire in your soul. Sanity is for people who are willing to settle for less than everything.”

“And what if I want to settle?” The words came out broken, desperate. “What if I choose safe? What if I choose the life I built instead of whatever insanity you are offering?”

“Then I will keep you here until you remember who you really are.” His voice calm, like he was discussing dinner plans. “I will keep you here until you stop lying to yourself about what you want and you admit that you have never felt more alive than you do right now, terrified and furious and completely, utterly seen.”

The truth of it hit her like a physical blow. Even now, even trapped and afraid and hating him with every fiber of her being, she could feel something electric in the air between them. Something dangerous and alive and completely unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

“I hate you.” The words came out as barely a whisper.

“I know.” His voice was gentle, almost tender. “Hate is honest. Hate is real. Hate means you feel something instead of nothing.”

“Let me go.” But even as she said it, she knew it was a plea, not a demand.

“I can’t do that.”

“Won’t.”

“Won’t,” he agreed, and there was something like regret in his voice. “Because losing you would destroy me, and I have worked too hard to survive to let that happen now.”

For a moment, they stood there in silence, the weight of his confession hanging between them like a challenge. Then Ava straightened, drawing on reserves of strength she didn’t know she possessed.

“Then you will have to keep me here forever,” she said, her voice steady despite the tears threatening to fall. “Because I will never stop fighting you. I will never stop trying to escape. And I will never, ever give you what you want.”

His smile was sad and beautiful and terrible. “We will see, little bird.”

But as he turned away, leaving her alone by the windows with the glittering city spread below,

What terrified her most wasn’t that he might break her.

It was the part of her that wanted him to try.