Chapter 5

The walk home felt less like a commute and more like a march to the gallows.

My mind kept drifting back to the man in the bakery—the dark suit, the cerulean blue eyes, the way the word ‘Petite’ had rolled off his tongue like a caress and a threat all at once. For a few terrifying minutes, I had felt alive.

Now, staring at the front door of my parents' house, I just felt dead. I wished I could go back and relive that moment with him.

I took a deep breath, steeling myself, and turned the key.

Click.

The moment I stepped inside, I was hit by a wall of warmth and the smell of roast beef. Laughter drifted from the kitchen—light, airy, happy. It sounded like a home. It sounded like a family.

It sounded like a lie.

I tried to slip past the foyer and make a break for the stairs, but I wasn't fast enough.

"Oh! You're back!"

Skylar popped out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. She was beaming, her face flushed with excitement, looking every bit the perfect future daughter-in-law. Her insistent, annoying voice rang out into the room, and I felt absolutely tired already.

"Welcome home!" she chirped.

I stiffened, gripping my bag strap until my knuckles turned white. "Thank you," I said, my voice flat. Devoid of warmth.

"So... how was work?" she asked, tilting her head. She spoke to me with that grating, sing-song tone people used for toddlers or pets.

"Fine," I clipped out. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to my room."

"Oh, don't be like that!" She reached out and—to my horror—linked her arm through mine. "Dinner is ready! You have to eat. You look so pale, Seraphina. Doesn't she look pale, Tyler?"

I looked up. Tyler was leaning against the kitchen doorframe, watching us. He wasn't smiling. He was staring at my arm where Skylar was touching me, his eyes dark and unreadable.

"She looks fine," he muttered, turning back into the kitchen with a gruff tone.

I pulled my arm away from Skylar, fighting the urge to scrub the skin she had touched. "I'm not hungry."

"Nonsense!" Skylar giggled, ignoring my blatant rejection. "Come on. We waited for you."

I was dragged, essentially against my will, into the dining room. I sat in my usual chair, feeling like an intruder in my own life. My parents were already seated. My mother offered me a tight, strained smile. My father didn't even look up from carving the beef.

The meal was excruciating. Skylar chattered endlessly about flower arrangements, seating charts, and the honeymoon in Bora Bora. My parents nodded and smiled, playing the role of the doting in-laws perfectly.

I stared at my plate, pushing a pea around with my fork, counting the seconds until I could escape.

"You're not eating, honey," Skylar noted, her voice dripping with fake concern. "You need your strength. We can't have our baker falling ill, can we?"

My head snapped up. "Excuse me?"

She blinked, feigning innocence. "For the wedding cake, silly! I was looking at designs today, and I found this gorgeous three-tier idea with sugar roses. I know it’s a lot of work, but I know you can do it."

I put my fork down. The metal clattered loudly against the china.

"I already told you," I said, my voice steady despite the shaking in my hands. "I am not baking your cake."

The table went silent. Skylar’s smile didn't waver, but her eyes hardened.

"Oh, stop teasing," she laughed, looking at my parents. "She's so funny. Mr. and Mrs. Vale already agreed it would be your gift to us."

"I don't care what they agreed to," I said, looking directly at my father. "I am not doing it. Find someone else. I have a business to run."

My father stopped chewing. He wiped his mouth slowly with his napkin and placed it on the table.

"A business?" he repeated, his voice dangerously calm.

"Yes. My bakery," I said, lifting my chin. "I'm fully booked."

He let out a short, dry chuckle. It was a cruel sound. "Your bakery? Is that what you think it is?"

I frowned. "I run it. I manage it. I make the profit."

"But whose name is on the deed, Seraphina?"

The air was sucked out of the room.

I froze. "What?"

"The loan," he said, bored, as if explaining taxes to a child. "When we opened that place three years ago, you had no credit. Who signed the papers? Who holds the lease?"

My blood ran cold. "You did. But... but we agreed. Once the loan was paid down, you would transfer it to me."

"Plans change," he said, picking up his wine glass.

He took a sip, savoring the vintage, while my world crumbled around me.

"Here is the reality," my father said, setting the glass down. "That is my bakery. It is my lease. And if you want to keep playing shopkeeper, you will do as you are told."

He leaned forward, his eyes hard as flint.

"You will bake that cake for your brother. You will do it with a smile. Or I will sell the building out from under you by Monday morning."

I looked at my mother. "Mom?"

She looked down at her lap, refusing to meet my eyes. "It... it's just a cake, Seraphina. Why do you have to be so difficult? Just do it for the family."

For the family.

The family that silenced me. The family that sided with my abuser. And now, the family that was holding my only source of freedom hostage.

I looked at Tyler. He was smirking.

I stood up. My legs felt like jelly, but I forced them to hold me. That sentence was a death knell for my freedom.

"You can't do that," I whispered.

"I can," my father said, returning to his roast beef. "Decision is yours. You have until tomorrow morning."

I turned and ran.

I didn't stop until I was in my room. I collapsed onto the bed, gasping for air, feeling the walls of the house closing in like a coffin.

They had me. They actually had me.

If I didn't bake the cake, I lost the bakery. If I lost the bakery, I had no money. If I had no money, I could never leave this house.

I was trapped.

Unless...

My hand drifted to my pocket. My fingers brushed against the crisp edge of a paper I hadn't realized I’d kept.

Wait.

I sat up, pulling the paper out of my jeans.

It was the receipt the French stranger had left on the counter. But on the back, in elegant, sharp handwriting, there was a scrawl of numbers.

I hadn't seen him write it. I flipped it over. No name. Just a number.

And a sudden, crazy thought bloomed in my mind.

Could I rely on him? Is he my ticket out of here?