Prologue.

Elviira.

Wisteria Vine, Northern Finland

December 23rd, 1981.

It’s extremely dark outside.

The winter air is brutally cold, the kind that bites straight through lace and silk. My thin dress offers no protection, only shame. The frozen trail crunches beneath my feet as I run, thudding, trembling, seeking solace in the jaws of death. Jaws of death that I know I should run away from. But I don't want to run away from it. I'm running towards it.

Yes, I’m running toward death. Because if I don’t, my life ends in another way. A slow, bitter death... inside that house. That house I once grew up has become a thorn on my flesh. A bane to my once peaceful existence.

My name is Elviira Laine. I’m the only daughter of Niko and Sini Laine, heirs to the once-glorious Wisteria Vine.

And today, I was married.

To Richmond Hills, a wealthy Scottish businessman, twenty-two years older than me. He is forty. I am eighteen.

To the world, it was a fairytale union. Wealth. Power. Status. Applause rang the moment we were declared man and wife. But none of them heard the silent scream in my chest. None of them saw the despair settle into my soul.

I don’t love him.

I can’t. No matter what they say, I will never love him.

Because my heart already belongs to someone else, a man whose love was stolen from me the moment my father signed a business deal inked in betrayal.

The day my father met Richmond, he saw not a man—but an opportunity. A way to restore his lost empire through a partnership in steel. And the price of entry? Me.

Who trades their daughter like livestock in the 20th century?

He didn’t ask if I was willing. He didn’t care. All he saw was profit. Richmond promised to treat me as family, not just as a business asset—and for that kindness, I was gifted like a trinket, offered up for marriage.

“You will marry Richmond Hills, Elviira!” My father’s booming words still ring in my ears as I run. “It is important that as my only child, you restore us to our former glory!”

“But father!” I objected and his eyes and voice silenced me.

“Enough, Elviira! You’re marrying Richmond!”

Cold tears me back to the present as I continue to run.

Since then, every glance from Richmond turns my stomach. Every touch is a silent invasion. The kiss we shared at the altar was nothing, void of spark, void of soul.

I was numb.

Now I stand at the edge of the cliff. Below, the rapids rage—a torrent of freezing water crashing against jagged rocks. Wind whips my hair and lashes my cheeks. The sound is deafening, like the roar of fate itself.

One step.

That’s all it takes. 

One step, and I’ll be free. No more expectations. No more deals. No more Richmond. No more heartbreak. Loss of the one I truly love. The one I truly desire. 

But just as I lean forward, I see something. In the chaos of the water, I see... us.

Me. Him. Together. Kissing. Holding children. Building something bigger than this pain. I see a future I never imagined, wealth, yes, but more than that. A legacy.

A dynasty.

I stumble back, breathless. My tears are hot now, not cold. That life… could it be real?

Can I return to Richmond? Could I ever embrace him? Could I become that woman?

Or is the water still the kinder option?

I stare into the rapid below, frozen between two fates.

Then, I slip.