THE PRICE OF DEFIANCE 1

The first act of defiance came quietly.

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t loud. It didn’t involve screaming or throwing things or running into the night like some desperate heroine in a cheap novel.

It was silence.

I woke before dawn, the house still breathing in that hollow, watchful way it always did. The estate never truly slept there was always a guard shifting weight, a camera blinking, a system humming, but the early hours belonged to me more than any other part of the day.

I slipped out of bed without alerting anyone.

Dominic wasn’t there. He rarely slept beside me. The room we shared if it could be called sharing, was a strategic choice, not intimacy. A statement. He allowed proximity when it suited him, absence when it didn’t.

I dressed in simple black trousers and a sweater, refusing the clothes laid out for me the night before. That alone felt like rebellion. Small. Insignificant.

Necessary.

The hallway was empty as I stepped out, marble cool beneath my bare feet. I didn’t head toward the kitchens or the gardens. I didn’t take the paths I’d been subtly guided to follow over the past weeks.

Instead, I turned left.

Toward the west wing.

The staff avoided that side of the house. I’d noticed it almost immediately how conversations died there, how footsteps sped up. How doors remained closed. Locked.

That alone made it irresistible.

The corridor grew dimmer as I walked, the lights spaced farther apart. The walls here were older, darker wood replacing polished stone. Portraits lined the hall, their eyes following me with painted judgment.

Men in tailored suits. Women with cold eyes and sharp smiles. Voss blood, I assumed. Power immortalized in oil and gold frames.

I stopped in front of one.

A young Dominic stared back at me.

He couldn’t have been more than twenty in the painting. Still hard-eyed. Still unreadable. But there was something else there too, something raw beneath the polish.

Pain.

The door at the end of the hall was ajar.

That, more than anything, told me I wasn’t meant to be here.

I pushed it open.

The room beyond wasn’t lavish like the rest of the estate. It was functional. Cold. Steel shelves lined the walls, holding files, weapons, documents. A desk sat in the center, bare except for a lamp and a single open folder.

I stepped inside, my pulse loud in my ears.

I didn’t touch anything. Not at first.

I wasn’t stupid.

But curiosity burned hotter than fear.

The folder was thick. Paper edges worn. My name sat neatly typed on the tab.

ELARA QUINN VOSS.

My stomach twisted.

I opened it.

Inside were documents I’d never been meant to see. Financial records. Surveillance reports. Medical history. School transcripts. Psychological evaluations.

Someone had been watching me long before I met Dominic.

Photos slipped free as I turned the pages; me at a café, laughing at something Marcus said. Me crossing a street, hair pulled back. Me sitting in a park alone, reading.

My hands shook.

This wasn’t protection.

This was premeditation.

“You shouldn’t be in here.”

His voice came from behind me.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t jump. I closed the folder slowly and turned to face him.

Dominic stood in the doorway, perfectly composed. Dark shirt. Sleeves rolled up. No weapon visible, he never needed one.

“I could say the same about you watching my life like a film,” I replied.

His eyes dropped briefly to the folder in my hands.

“You went looking,” he said.

“Yes.”

“You knew there would be consequences.”

“Yes.”

“And you still did it.”

I met his gaze. “Yes.”

The silence that followed was dangerous.

He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, the soft click echoing louder than a gunshot.

“You think this is defiance,” he said calmly. “It isn’t.”

“What is it, then?” I asked.

“Curiosity,” he replied. “And curiosity gets people killed in my world.”

“Your world,” I repeated. “You keep saying that like I’m not trapped inside it.”

“You are inside it,” he said. “Because I allow it.”

The words hit hard.

I straightened my spine. “You don’t get to decide what I see.”

“I decide everything that happens under my roof.”

“Then you should have locked the door.”

A muscle in his jaw flexed.

“Say it again,” he said softly.

“You should have locked...”

In a blur, he crossed the room.

One moment I was standing free, the next my back hit the desk, the edge pressing into my hips. His hands came down on either side of me, caging me in without touching.

His face hovered inches from mine.

“This,” he said quietly, “is the price of defiance.”

I swallowed. “You’re going to punish me for reading?”

“No,” he said. “I’m going to correct a misunderstanding.”

His presence was overwhelming. Not just physically though he was close enough that I could feel the heat of him but psychologically. Every instinct screamed at me to retreat.

I didn’t.

“You don’t scare me,” I lied.

A slow smile curved his mouth. Not kind. Not amused.

“That,” he said, “is another misunderstanding.”

His hand lifted, fingers brushing the side of my throat not tight. Never tight. Just enough to remind me how easily he could be.

My breath caught.

“You think you’re pushing back,” he murmured. “Testing boundaries. You think this makes you strong.”

“It makes me human,” I said.

His thumb pressed lightly beneath my jaw, forcing my chin up.

“You were human when you belonged to people who would have destroyed you,” he said. “You’re alive now because I claimed you.”

“By force.”

“Yes.”

The honesty stunned me.

“I didn’t choose you,” he continued. “I selected you. There’s a difference.”

Anger flared hot in my chest. “Then why pretend this is anything else?”

“Because,” he said quietly, “you wouldn’t have survived the truth at first.”

I stared at him, searching for cracks.

“What truth?” I asked.

“That you were never collateral,” he replied. “You were the objective.”

The room tilted.

“You’re lying,” I said.

“No,” he said. “I’m clarifying.”

His hand dropped away. He stepped back, giving me space that felt more dangerous than his closeness.

“You want freedom?” he asked. “Earn it.”

“How?” I demanded.

“Learn,” he replied. “Understand the world you’re in. The rules. The players. The costs.”

“And if I refuse?”

His eyes darkened.

“Then you’ll remain exactly what you are now,” he said. “Protected. Controlled. Untouchable. And powerless.”

The word cut deeper than any threat.

Powerless.

He turned toward the door, then paused.

“One more thing,” he said without looking at me. “Next time you come into this room, do it with permission.”

“And if I don’t?”

He glanced back over his shoulder.

“Then the consequences won’t be this gentle.”

The door closed behind him.

I stood there long after he left, my hands trembling not from fear alone, but from something far worse.

Understanding.

Dominic Voss wasn’t reacting to my defiance.

He’d anticipated it.

Planned for it.

And somewhere in the depths of his cold, controlled world, he was waiting to see how far I would go.

I walked back to my room with my head high, my heart racing, and one certainty burning through me:

If power was the currency here, I would learn how to steal it.