The punishment did not arrive with raised voices or locked wrists.
It arrived with absence.
The morning after her failed escape, Selene woke to silence so complete it felt artificial. No guards outside her door. No footsteps in the corridor. No Camille with quiet instructions and measured looks. Even the hum of the mansion felt muted, as though the building itself had decided to withdraw from her.
She sat up slowly, waiting for something to happen.
Nothing did.
Breakfast did not come.
When she stepped into the hallway, no one stopped her. The doors that had once required permission opened at her touch. The cameras remained, she could feel them, but they did not track her with their usual precision. It was as if she had been downgraded from threat to irrelevance.
That realization unsettled her more than restraint ever could.
She wandered the mansion, barefoot, her steps echoing too loudly in the empty halls. The dining room was set, immaculate, untouched. The food was there. Fresh. Warm. But no one invited her to sit.
So she did not.
By midday, the weight of it pressed into her chest. Adrien had not summoned her. Had not appeared. Had not sent a single message through Camille or the guards. He had simply removed himself from her world.
She understood then.
This was not neglect. It was correction.
She returned to her room and shut the door harder than necessary. The sound felt small, swallowed by the walls.
He was teaching her what her presence meant when it was no longer acknowledged.
That night, she did not sleep.
The bed felt larger, emptier. The air colder. She kept expecting to feel his attention settle on her like pressure, the way it always did. Instead, there was nothing. Not even the faint comfort of surveillance.
By the third day, the silence began to bruise.
Camille reappeared only to deliver necessities. No conversation. No warnings. No explanations.
"You're punishing me," Selene said finally, unable to keep the edge from her voice.
Camille paused, tray in hand. "No," she replied evenly. "You are experiencing consequence."
"For trying to leave."
"For proving you did not yet understand where you are," Camille corrected.
Selene clenched her fists. "Adrien said I could run."
"He said he would find you."
"That isn't the same thing."
Camille's gaze sharpened. "It is, here."
When she left, Selene stood in the center of the room, breathing hard.
She had expected anger and had expected confinement.
She had even expected fear.
She had not expected to be erased.
On the fifth night, she broke.
Not outwardly. Not visibly.
She went to the window and pressed her palm against the glass, staring down at the city. It glittered indifferently, alive and unreachable. Somewhere down there, people laughed. Made choices. Failed and recovered without permission.
She whispered his name before she realized she was doing it.
"Adrien"
The sound disappeared into the room.
No answer came. And the truth settled, heavy and undeniable.
She missed him.
Not his control, mot his power, his presence.
That frightened her more than anything else that had happened since she signed the contract.
ADRIEN:
Adrien Moreau had always known silence was a weapon.
He had used it in boardrooms and war rooms alike. Against men who mistook noise for strength. Against enemies who needed reaction to feel alive.
Selene was no different. Except she was.
He watched her from a distance now, refusing the instinct to intervene. The feeds showed her pacing less, sitting more. Her movements had slowed, sharpened, as if every step carried calculation. She no longer tested doors. No longer counted seconds between patrols.
She was thinking. Good.
That had been the goal. Lucien did not agree.
"You're pushing her too far," he said quietly one evening, standing near the edge of Adrien's office. "Isolation destabilizes. Especially someone like her."
Adrien did not look away from the screen. "Someone like her adapts."
"And if she doesn't?"
Adrien's jaw tightened. "She will."
He had not removed the guards because she was safe.
He had removed them because she needed to feel the absence of resistance. The illusion of freedom without direction. It was the same method he used when breaking hostile networks.
Give them space. Let them move. Let them realize how little movement mattered without power.
Selene had tried to run.
That alone had forced escalation.
Not because she disobeyed it was because she had learned too quickly.
He replayed the moment she had turned at the door, eyes sharp instead of frightened. Defiant instead of desperate. She had not begged. She had not pleaded.
She had asked why.
That question still lingered.
Adrien closed the feed and leaned back, fingers steepled. He had not lied when he said he wanted her to believe escape was possible. Belief revealed intention. Intention revealed capability.
She had both.
That made her dangerous.
To his enemies.
And to him.
On the seventh night, he went to her room. Not through the cameras butThrough the door.
Selene was sitting on the bed, back straight, hands folded in her lap. She looked up the moment he entered, as if she had known he would come tonight.
She did not stand, She did not speak.
Adrien closed the door behind him, the sound final in a way silence never was. He remained near it, watching her carefully.
"You're angry," she said finally.
"No," he replied.
"Then what is this?" she demanded. "Because it feels like abandonment."
His gaze sharpened. "Does it."
"Yes."
"Good."
She inhaled sharply. "You wanted me to feel that?"
"I wanted you to understand it," he said. "There is a difference."
She rose slowly, stopping a few feet away. "Understand what."
Adrien met her eyes. "That when you move without awareness, you create vacuums. And vacuums get filled. Usually with things far worse than me."
Her voice dropped. "You could have told me."
"I did," he said calmly. "You chose to test it instead."
Silence stretched between them, dense and charged.
"I hated you," Selene said suddenly.
Adrien did not react.
"For those days," she continued. "I hated you for making me invisible.
"That was not hatred," he replied. "That was loss of control."
Her breath caught.
He stepped closer, stopping just within reach but not touching her. "You ran because you wanted proof you still mattered."
She stared at him, stunned.
"You do," he said quietly. "That is why you were punished."
Her voice shook. "By being ignored."
"By being forced to sit with the absence of resistance," he corrected. "You are not a prisoner, Selene. Prisoners fight walls. You are learning where the walls actually are."
She swallowed. "And where are they."
Adrien's gaze softened, just barely. "Around both of us."
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Selene asked the question she had been holding back since the night he stopped her.
"Why didn't you punish me the way you punish everyone else."
Adrien answered without hesitation. "Because fear would have taught you nothing."
"And this did?"
"Yes," he said simply.
She exhaled slowly. "I don't know if that makes you cruel or careful."
Adrien allowed himself a small, humorless smile. "Those are not opposites."
He stepped back then, creating distance again. "This ends tonight," he said. "The silence. The withdrawal. You have learned what you needed to learn."
"And if I hadn't?"
His gaze darkened. "Then we would not be having this conversation."
She nodded once, absorbing that.
As he turned to leave, Selene spoke again.
"You knew I would want you to stop me."
Adrien paused.
"Yes.
"Why."
He looked back at her, something unguarded flickering through his eyes. "Because you wanted to know if I would choose you."
Her chest tightened. He left without another word.
Alone again, Selene sat down slowly, heart racing
She understood now.
The punishment had never been about obedience.
It had been about attachment.
And Adrien Moreau was teaching her, piece by piece, what it meant to belong to something powerful enough to walk away.
The realization did not come all at once. It crept into Selene's bones like cold. She stayed by the window long after Adrien left, watching the city pulse beneath her. From this height, it looked orderly, beautiful even. Lights blinked in careful patterns. Traffic flowed like blood through veins. It was easy to forget how much violence it took to keep the city running this smoothly. Adrien did not rule from chaos. He ruled from control. That frightened her more than brutality ever could.
She moved through the room, touching the edges of things as if confirming they were real. The bed. The chair. The door that locked from the outside. Everything in the mansion reminded her that safety and captivity were two sides of the same coin. She thought of the men she had overheard, speaking with coded certainty about loss and retaliation. Adrien hadn't threatened them. He had simply stated facts. Touch her and die.
A knock sounded at the door. Camille entered, composed, eyes assessing the room. "You didn't eat much," she said. Selene lied. Camille warned her she'd begin learning how the house worked. "And if I don't want to?" Selene asked. Camille's expression stayed unreadable. "Then it will learn you."