The air in the mansion was thick with smoke and whispered power. Isla's fingers trembled as she gripped the thin strap of her dress, a flimsy barrier against the darkness that had just descended upon her life. Her stepfather's smirk had never looked so sinister, the finality of his words echoing in her mind. "He's paying well. Consider it… a business decision."
A business decision. That was how he'd sold her. To a man who, from the stories whispered in the city's darkest corners, didn't just command loyalty—he demanded obsession. Lucien. The name alone carried a weight that pressed down on her chest. Wealth, danger, and cruelty clung to it like smoke.
The car ride to the mansion where she was to meet him was silent except for her shallow breaths and the occasional sigh of the driver, a man too accustomed to transporting human cargo to bother with small talk. Isla stared out the tinted window, watching the city blur into a smear of light and shadow. She had always believed her life was complicated, but never this… final.
When the car stopped, she was led through towering iron gates, past guards whose eyes flickered with barely concealed hunger for the forbidden thrill of power. And then she saw him. Lucien. He stood in the center of a vast, dimly lit hall, a figure carved from shadows. The sharp cut of his suit mirrored the precision in his gaze, and his eyes, dark as midnight, seemed to weigh every thought she hadn't even dared to think.
"Isla," he said, his voice smooth and low, curling around her like smoke. "I hear you paint."
She swallowed. The sound of her own voice caught somewhere between fear and defiance. "I… I do."
He stepped closer, the faintest trace of a smile tugging at one corner of his lips. "Good. I like art that tells secrets. Pain, longing… fear. Your work intrigues me."
Her pulse quickened. Not with desire—she couldn't allow that—but with the raw, dizzying fear that prickled along her spine. His presence was magnetic, suffocating, intoxicating.
"You belong to me now," Lucien said, circling her slowly, like a predator savoring the tension in its prey. "But I think… you'll find, under the right guidance, that captivity has its… pleasures."
Isla's stomach twisted, a mix of revulsion and an undeniable, shocking spark of something she couldn't name. She forced her chin up, meeting his gaze with as much courage as she could muster. "I am not yours."
"Not yet," he murmured, close enough that she felt the heat of him, smelled the faint trace of expensive cologne. "But you will be. And when you are… you will understand that the chains I wrap around you are velvet, not steel."
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears as he stepped back, letting the shadow between them breathe for a moment. But even as the guards closed in behind her, and the reality of her new life settled like a stone in her chest, Isla could not deny the dangerous pull of Lucien's gaze. It was a promise and a warning, all at once.
And she knew, with a shiver she couldn't control, that her life had just begun to unravel.