Chapter 3

Roksana’s POV

My reflection in the full-length glass didn't look like me.

It looked like a corpse dressed up for a cruel, open-casket viewing, a stranger trapped inside a white, silk-wrapped coffin.

The heavy fabric clung to my ribs like a second skin, each breath a struggle against the corset biting into my waist, mocking the freedom I was about to claw back with my own bare hands.

My reflection began to smear and dissolve as hot tears flooded my vision. My chest seized, the air turning to dry ash in my lungs. 

I can’t do this.

I whipped away from the mirror, my heels clicking frantically against the hardwood.

I crossed the bedroom in two desperate strides, slammed the heavy mahogany door shut, and turned the heavy brass key with a sharp, echoing click that felt like sealing a tomb.

I threw myself at the window, shoving the glass wide to let the sharp morning air hit my burning, tear-streaked cheeks.

The moment I looked down, my stomach plummeted into a sickening, violent freefall. The manicured lawn far below didn't look soft; it looked like a bed of jagged rocks waiting to crush me.

Should I run?

The thought didn't even register as a choice anymore. It was a raw, survival instinct screaming at the base of my skull, clawing at my throat.

Just the thought of Santiago Da-Luca made bile flood my mouth with the bitter taste of copper and stomach acid.

That man didn’t just ruin lives; he vacuumed the oxygen out of the room until everyone around him suffocated.

I knew, with a terrifying, certainty,that I wouldn’t survive a single week under his roof. A gilded cage was still a cage, and the monster holding the key is a monster in human form.

I bit down hard on my lower lip, tasting my own blood as I tried to anchor myself against the dizzying vertigo. My panicked gaze swept the perimeter of the estate.

A sharp spike of relief pierced the terror: the guards weren’t stationed beneath this wing. They were all clustered at the grand front entrance, acting as mindless ceremonial gatekeepers for a wedding I had zero intention of attending.

If I could just take the side path, slip past the iron trellis, and head straight for the back service gate...

My pulse roared in my ears like a runaway freight train, drowning out all logic. It could work. It had to work.

As long as nobody looked up. As long as my legs didn’t buckle and turn to water before I hit the floor.

I sprinted back across the room, ripping the heavy, duvet off the mattress. My fingers fumbled, slick with freezing cold sweat, as I knotted the thick fabric around the sturdy iron window frame with desperate, bruising strength.

I yanked on it hard, testing the knot once, twice, until the friction burned the meat of my palms raw. I heaved the makeshift rope out the window.

The silk and cotton cascaded downward, stretching taut until it reached roughly halfway—leaving a sheer drop of at least five feet to the unforgiving concrete below.

A heavy, violent fist smashed against the bedroom door. My breath caught, freezing solid in my throat.

"Roksana!"

Mother’s sharp, demanding voice cut straight through the wood, and absolute ice flooded my veins.

The doorknob rattled viciously, the metal grinding against the latch.

With a pathetic whimper that tore straight from my aching chest, I hitched up the suffocating layers of the white wedding dress, balling yards of expensive silk in my trembling fists.

I forced my eyes away from the door, swallowing hard against the thick, suffocating lump of terror choking me.

I swung my legs over the deep stone sill. The wind whipped my hair across my face, blinding me as I stared down at the terrifying abyss.

My stomach lurched violently, every fiber of my being screaming at me to pull back, to surrender, to just open the door and take the easier, slower misery.

Instead, I squeezed my eyes shut, blotting out the world, and slid out into the open air, my fingers locking desperately around the fabric of the duvet.

Friction bit instantly into my palms. I slid down inch by inch, my arms trembling so violently they felt hollow, every muscle in my upper body screaming and burning from the sudden, unbearable strain.

The bedroom door slams open.

The sound of splintering wood echoed behind me like a gunshot. My eyes flew open. Standing right there at the window, was Mother.

For a terrifying, endless second, time completely stopped. Her eyes locked onto mine through the open glass. Her perfectly arched brows hiked straight up in utter disbelief.

She didn’t look away. She didn’t scream for the guards. She just stared at me, hanging off the side of a three-story house like a desperate ghost wrapped in a white shroud.

Shakily, I swallowed down another violent gulp of air, my frantic gaze darting from her face down to the brutal concrete floor beneath my dangling toes.

There was still a little distance left. My grip was slipping. The friction was burning the skin right off my palms, grease and sweat making my hands slide.

"I can’t marry him!" I sobbed out into the empty air, the confession tearing raw and bleeding from my throat.

Panic completely overrode reason.

Ignoring her stares, I started scrambling down the makeshift rope faster, moving like a hunted, trapped animal.

My arms shook so hard they felt like glass ready to shatter into a thousand pieces, and my heart hammered a deafening, frantic rhythm against my ribs.

I jerked my chin up to look back at the window, and the blood drained entirely from my face.

Mom was standing there with a slow, chilling grin stretching across her lips. Calmly, she reached out and unhooked the top of the cloth from the iron frame.

My eyes widened in pure, unadulterated horror. 

“No—“

The fabric gave way before my brain could even process the betrayal.

Gravity swallowed me whole.

I hit the concrete courtyard flat on my back. Pain, sharp, blinding, exploded through every single fiber of my being all at once.

My breath, violently snatched from my lungs, leaving me gasping like a fish out of water, a loud, ragged wince tearing from my throat as white hot agony radiated outward from my spine.

Hot, heavy tears spilled freely from my eyes, tracking hot paths through the dust on my cheeks.

I stared up at the sky, my vision blurring at the edges. I bit down so hard on my lower lip that I tasted iron. 

I tried to push myself up on my elbows, but the moment I shifted, another agony ripped through my lower back. It felt like my spine had literally snapped in half, the muscles seizing into agonizing knots.

Heavy footsteps thudded against the pavement.

Strong hands grabbed my arms, hauling me roughly to my feet. A fresh wave of agony ripped through my back, a guttural groan tearing from my lips as the world spun dangerously.

They dragged me inside through the back service door, hauling my dead weight down a maze of bleak, empty hallways straight into a disused sitting room.

Mom was already there. Dad was there, too.

And… Santiago De-Luca.

The moment I crossed the threshold, the entire atmosphere in the room collapsed under a crushing, suffocating weight.

It felt as though even the air molecules stopped moving, forced to obey his silent command.

Mom and Dad had always carried a certain coldness, but I had never, ever felt an aura this thick, this chillingly absolute. It made the hair on my arms stand straight up.

"Here she is," Mom said smoothly, her voice completely devoid of warmth, gesturing toward me as Dad glanced up from the corner.

"Release her," Dad muttered to the guards.