Chapter 7

                                                                 The Sister's Price

"Stop!" I threw myself between Richard and Lila, my hands raised like they could somehow shield her from the knife. "Please, not her. Not like this."

Richard paused, the blade an inch from my palm. His eyes studied me with clinical precision, like I was a specimen under glass.

"Interesting." He lowered the knife slowly. "You are still protecting her. Even knowing what she will become."

My blood turned to ice. "What?"

"Did you think I did not notice?" He circled me, predatory and patient. "The way you look at her sometimes. Like you are seeing something that has not happened yet. The way you flinch when she touches things of yours, like you are remembering a betrayal that exists only in your mind."

He knew. Oh God, he knew something was different about me.

"I do not know what you are talking about."

"No?" He pressed the flat of the blade against my cheek, cold metal against feverish skin. "Then explain how you knew about ChemCore's financial troubles. How you knew exactly when to approach Marcus Zhao. How you knew to run before I even showed you who I really am."

Lila's sobs had quieted. She was listening now, despite her terror.

"I got lucky," I whispered. "I did research"

"You knew things no amount of research could tell you." Richard's free hand tangled in my hair, yanked my head back. "You knew I would hurt you before I ever touched you. You know exactly what kind of monster I am."

The knife traced down my throat, not cutting, just promising.

"So I will ask you once, Aria. Only once." His lips brushed my ear. "How?"

The truth clawed at my throat, desperate to escape. I died. You killed me. I came back. I know every terrible thing you will do because I already lived through it.

But if I told him, if he knew the full extent of what I carried.

"I do not know what you want me to say." My voice shook. "You are hurting me because you can. Because you want to. That is all the reason a monster needs."

Something flickered across his face. Surprise? Disappointment?

"Wrong answer."

The knife flashed. I screamed.

But the blade did not touch me. It sliced through the ropes binding Lila's wrists, and she tumbled forward, gasping.

"Get up," Richard commanded. He hauled her to her feet with his free hand. "Look at your sister."

Lila's eyes met mine, wild with fear and confusion.

"This is the woman you were planning to betray," Richard said softly. "This is the woman whose husband you were going to seduce at the engagement party next week."

The room spun. "What?"

"Oh, did I not mention?" Richard's smile was vicious. "I have had your sister for weeks. She has been meeting with my competitors, gathering information about our engagement. Planning to what was the phrase, Lila? 'Steal Richard Ashford before the wedding even happens.'"

Lila's face was drained of color. "That is not I was not"

"Do not lie." Richard pressed the knife to her throat, and she froze. "I have videos. Recordings. Your entire pathetic plan is documented in excruciating detail."

My sister. My betrayer from the first timeline. She was already planning to destroy me, even now.

"I did it for you!" Lila's voice cracked. "Father said if you did not marry Richard, we would lose everything. I thought if I could seduce him first, get him to choose me instead"

"You thought you could save the family by stealing my fiancé?"

"I thought I could have him!" The truth burst out of her like poison. "You do not even want him, Aria! You never did! You are just doing this because Father told you to. But I, I actually want Richard. I want the life he can give me."

The honesty of it was somehow worse than the betrayal.

Richard laughed, low and dangerous. "How touching. Two sisters fighting over me like I am a prize to be won." He released Lila, pushed her toward me. "Here is what is going to happen. Lila is going to call Father right now and confess everything."

"No" Lila started.

"Or I release the videos publicly. Your reputation is destroyed. Your trust fund is eliminated. Your entire future is ruined." Richard held out a phone. "Choose."

Lila took the phone with shaking hands. Dialed. Waited.

"Father?" Her voice was small, broken. "I need to tell you something."

I listened as my sister confessed her plan to seduce Richard, her meetings with his competitors, her desperate attempt to steal my engagement. On the other end, my father's voice rose in fury, then went cold and distant.

"Pack your things," he said finally. "You are no longer welcome in this family."

The line went dead.

Lila stood there, phone hanging limply in her hand, her entire world collapsing around her. Part of me, the part that remembered her affair with Richard in my first life, her betrayal at my lowest moment, felt savage satisfaction.

But another part, smaller and more broken, saw only my little sister. Desperate and lost.

"Richard, please." I turned to him. "She made a mistake, but she does not deserve"

"Does he deserve what?" He pocketed the knife. "Consequences? Punishment? The same treatment you are receiving for far less?"

He had a point. A terrible, accurate point.

"Get out," Richard told Lila. "Before I change my mind about the videos."

She ran. The door slammed behind her, and then I was alone with him.

"Why did you do that?" I whispered. "You could have used her. Played us against each other."

"I could have." He moved closer, and I had nowhere to retreat. "But I do not need to. You are already broken, Aria. Already terrified. Adding your sister to the equation would just complicate things."

His hand cupped my face with false gentleness.

"I want you isolated. I want you to have no one to turn to, no one to trust, no one who might encourage your defiance." His thumb traced my lips. "I want you to understand that I am your entire world now."

"You will never be my world."

"Give it time." He pulled me against him, and I felt his heartbeat, steady and calm while mine raced with terror. "Six months until the wedding. Six months for me to remake you into the perfect wife."

"I would rather die."

"No, you would not." His voice was absolute certainty. "Because if you die, I move on to everyone you love. Your parents. Your sister. Even Marcus Zhao and his mysterious ally Elena Vasquez. I will destroy them all, slowly and thoroughly, and you will not be there to stop me."

He had me. Completely and utterly trapped.

"What do you want from me?" The question came out broken.

"Everything." He released me, stepped back. "Your obedience. Your body. Your mind. Your soul." His smile was terrifying in its honesty. "I want to consume you, Aria. I want you to exist only for me."

My phone is still in his possession buzzing. He glanced at it, and his expression shifted.

"Well. This is unexpected."

"What?"

He showed me the screen. Another message from Elena Vasquez:  I know what he is doing to you. I know you think you are alone. You are not. There are seventeen women in this city who escaped men like Richard Ashford. We help each other. Let us help you. The engagement party, I will be there. Find me. 

"Seventeen women," Richard murmured. "She has been busy."

"You cannot stop her from attending a public event."

"No." His smile turned predatory. "But I can make sure you never reach her. Starting now, you do not leave my sight. You move into my penthouse tonight."

"What? No"

"Yes." He pulled out his own phone, typed rapidly. "I am sending cars to collect your belongings. My security team will be stationed outside your room. You eat when I say. Sleep when I say. Breathe when I say."

"That is insane!"

"That is necessary." He grabbed my wrist, pulled me toward the door. "You have proven you cannot be trusted with freedom. So I am taking it away."

We walked through the building's corridors, and I saw other rooms. Other doors. Other cameras blinking red.

"How many people have you brought here?" I asked quietly.

"Enough." His grip tightened. "This is where I bring problems that need solving. People who need convincing. Obstacles that require removal."

"You mean this is where you torture people."

"I prefer 'aggressive negotiation.'" He pushed open the exit door, and cold night air hit my face. "But call it what you want."

The car waited. His driver opened the door, and Richard pushed me inside.

"Penthouse," he ordered. "And call ahead. I want her suite prepared. Extra security on her floor."

As we drove through the city, I watched the lights blur past and tried to think. Elena Vasquez. Seventeen women. An underground network. It was more help than I had dared hope for.

But Richard would be watching me every second. How could I reach Elena at the engagement party with his security surrounding me?

The penthouse was everything I expected glass and steel and money. Seventy floors above the city, isolated from the world below.

Richard led me through massive doors into a bedroom that looked like a luxury prison. King-size bed. Floor-to-ceiling windows. And cameras. I counted five.

"Your suite," he announced. "You will stay here until the engagement party. I will have clothes sent up. Food delivered. Everything you need."

"Except freedom."

"Except that." He pulled out a tablet, showed me a screen divided into multiple camera feeds. My parents' house. My sister's apartment. Marcus Zhao's office. "These are live feeds of everyone you care about. If you try to escape, if you contact anyone unauthorized, if you so much as look at me wrong, I press a button, and they suffer."

He set the tablet on the nightstand like it was a decorative object.

"Sleep well, darling. Tomorrow, we start your training."

"Training?"

"For the engagement party." His hand traced my jaw. "You are going to smile. Laugh. Convince three hundred guests that you are madly in love with me. Because if anyone suspects otherwise, if anyone thinks you need rescuing."

He did not finish. He did not need to.

The door locked behind him with an electronic beep.

I was alone in a golden cage, seventy floors above the world, with cameras watching my every move.

I collapsed on the bed and finally let myself cry.

My phone, the one Richard had taken, buzzed from somewhere in the suite.

I found it on the dresser. A new message from an unknown number; The cameras have a blind spot. Southeast corner, near the window. 3AM, someone will come. Be ready. 

I looked at the southeast corner. Then at the cameras.

Elena Vasquez was either my salvation or Richard's trap.

Either way, I had six hours to decide if I trusted her.

And whether I was brave enough to find out.