Astrid's heart beat against her ribs in frantic, uneven bursts — a bird's wings battering the bars of its cage. The soundless scream of panic reverberated in her chest. Her fingers, unbidden, drifted to her bandaged arm. She traced the cloth lightly, as though it could tether her to the present. White fabric. A reminder. Shattered glass. The moment where the walls closed in and she chose escape over breath.
Even without the full memory, she knew enough. The name alone was poison: Matthew Sterling.
He was the reason Emberly's life had rotted from the inside, the fracture that had spread like a crack in glass until everything splintered. And now his name glared at her from the invitation card, embossed in metallic ink that caught the lamplight cruelly. Matthew Sterling — Engagement. The letters glittered with mockery.
The silence stretched thin and sharp as razor wire.
Kyle stood a few paces away. He didn't move, didn't speak. His stillness was heavier than anger. His steel-blue eyes — flecked with gray, cold, assessing — rested on her as though she were a cipher he had grown tired of solving. His presence filled the room, suffocating in its restraint.
This was the test.
She could see how Emberly would have reacted — the snap of a wrist, the crash of crystal shattering against marble, words sharpened into daggers. Rage, always rage. But Astrid wasn't Emberly. She would not give him the eruption he expected. She would not lose control.
Her lips parted. The words escaped quieter than she intended, barely cutting through the silence.
"I'll go."
The air shifted.
A flicker — surprise, maybe, or suspicion — passed across Kyle's face. His hand paused where it rested against the desk, then withdrew slowly. He straightened to his full height, his gaze narrowing, cold and intent.
"Think carefully," he said. His voice was low, deliberate, a vibration that hummed in her bones. "This isn't a game. You'll be there as my wife. Every eye will be on you. I expect nothing but perfection. No… theatrics."
The last word was edged in disdain, a puff of cold air that promised consequences.
Astrid's throat was dry. She lifted her chin despite the tremor that threatened to betray her. "I won't disappoint you," she said, steadying her voice. "I'll be on my best behavior."
Silence again, weighted and immovable. His gaze searched her face, looking for the cracks, the fault lines. She forced herself not to look away, though the pressure in his eyes made her skin prickle.
At last, he gave a single nod — a gesture as sharp as a verdict.
"Liana will stay with Kayden while we're gone."
His tone was clipped, final. The subject closed.
Astrid exhaled only when his footsteps faded into the hall. Her breath came slow and shaky, her heart still thrumming in her chest. She didn't know if she had convinced him or only sharpened his suspicions.
Later, the car waited at the front of the mansion. A gleaming black machine, polished to a mirror sheen. Its interior smelled faintly of leather and cedar — sterile, expensive, a scent that carried no comfort.
Kyle slid into the back seat, his posture flawless, his silence an art. Beside the driver, Michael turned slightly, his sharp gaze flicking toward him.
"How did it go?"
Kyle didn't answer at once. The tinted windows caught the glow of city lights, turning them into fractured streaks of gold and red. He watched them blur by as though the world outside belonged to someone else.
"Better than I expected," he said finally, voice even. "She agreed to go."
Michael's brows lifted, curiosity lighting his face. "And you believe her?"
Kyle's jaw flexed. His fingers tapped once against the armrest, then stilled.
He thought back. To the Emberly he knew — venom, fire, contempt. And to the Emberly of late — strangely quiet, oddly yielding.
"She let me touch her," he said, the words measured, reluctant. "Didn't flinch. Didn't scream. Emberly never tolerated me in her space. And yet… she was there. In my bed."
Michael's eyes flicked up in the mirror, sharp with interest. "So, either it's a performance…"
"…or she doesn't even realize it," Kyle finished. His voice cooled further, steel-blue eyes narrowing as he watched the streaking lights outside. "I told the servants to move her things into my room. Quietly. She hasn't noticed. She sleeps. She dreams. Sometimes she looks… oblivious."
A short breath left him, almost a laugh but without mirth. "Almost like it isn't Emberly at all."
The words hung in the car like smoke.
Michael hesitated before speaking again, his voice lower, hesitant. "Do you consider it an assault? Touching someone without their permission?"
Kyle leaned back against the leather seat, his steel-blue gaze fixed on the blur of headlights and shadows streaking past the window. To Michael, he looked composed — cold, unshaken, a man carved out of duty.
But inside, his thoughts coiled darker.
For years, Emberly had turned their marriage into a battlefield. Screams, glass shattering, venom laced into every word. He had endured it all, for Kayden's sake. He had lived as though walking on shards of glass, waiting for the next wound. And yet… now she was different. Softer. Quieter. She let him touch her without flinching. She lay in his bed like it belonged to her.
And he wanted to believe it. He wanted to believe she was finally yielding.
But another voice — colder, more cynical — whispered that this wasn't change. It was a mask. Emberly had always been capable of masks.
His hand flexed against the leather armrest, the woven bracelet at his wrist biting into his skin. The gesture looked casual, but in his chest a storm was rising.
Michael's question still lingered, quiet and dangerous. Do you consider it an assault?
Kyle's jaw tightened, his lips curving into that bitter, cruel twist again. "She belongs to me," he said under his breath, softer now, but sharper for it. "Wife. Body. Reputation. Mine. That was the deal, and I don't care if she regrets it."
He shut his eyes, the darkness behind them offering no comfort. "For years, she made me the villain. Maybe I am. But villains still keep what's theirs."
The words weren't for Michael. They were for himself. A vow, whispered into the silence.
Michael glanced at him through the mirror, but wisely said nothing. The car's hum filled the void, the sterile scent of leather and cedar thickening the air.
Kyle exhaled slowly, opening his eyes again. The city lights reflected cold in his gaze, the steel-blue flecked with gray.
She's mine. Whether she fights it or not.
The thought sat in his chest, heavy, unyielding, and just a little too satisfying