Willow's POV
"You will marry him."
My father's voice carried through the room with a calm certainty that made it worse than if he had shouted. It settled over me like something heavy and suffocating, pressing down on my chest until it became harder to breathe. I stood there, staring at him, my fingers tightening in the fabric of my dress as if holding onto something physical might stop everything from slipping out of my control.
I waited, just for a second, hoping he would say something else—anything to prove this wasn't real—but he didn't. His expression remained cold, unmoved, as though he had already decided my future and there was nothing left for me to say about it.
"I won't," I said, my voice quieter than I intended but steady enough to make the words real.
The moment they left my lips, I knew I had crossed a line I couldn't step back from, yet a strange sense of relief followed, like I had finally allowed myself to breathe after being held underwater for too long. For a brief second, the room went completely still, the kind of silence that makes your skin prickle because you know something is about to happen.
I saw the shift in his eyes before I could react, but it was too late to take anything back.
His hand struck my face with enough force to send me stumbling sideways, my vision blurring as I lost my balance and hit the edge of the desk before collapsing onto the floor. The impact knocked the air out of my lungs, and for a moment I could only focus on the sharp ringing in my ears and the burning pain spreading across my cheek.
I tasted blood almost immediately, metallic and warm, and I pressed my lips together to keep from letting any sound escape. Crying would only make it worse, and I had learned that lesson long ago.
"You don't get to refuse me," he said, his tone returning to that same controlled calm as if nothing had happened, which somehow made it more terrifying.
I forced myself to look up at him, even though my vision was still slightly unfocused, and saw no hesitation, no regret—just the same cold authority he had always carried. "Everything you have belongs to me, including your future."
I pushed myself up slowly, my hands trembling slightly as I steadied myself, but I refused to stay on the ground in front of him. My cheek throbbed with every movement, and I could feel the warmth of swelling skin, yet none of it mattered as much as the realization settling deep in my chest.
"You're selling me," I said, the words coming out softer now, but they carried more weight than anything I had said before. It wasn't a question, and we both knew it.
"This is how power works," he replied without hesitation, as if that explained everything.
A hollow feeling spread through me at his answer, and I shook my head slightly, unable to accept it even if I understood it. "No," I said quietly, meeting his gaze despite the fear trying to crawl its way back in, "this is how control works." The change in his expression was subtle but unmistakable, a warning I would have listened to any other day, but not now.
"Careful, Willow," he said, his voice lowering just enough to send a chill down my spine.
But something inside me had already shifted, something that refused to be silenced again.
"I would rather die than marry a man I've never even met," I said, and this time my voice didn't waver at all. The words hung between us, heavy and irreversible, and for the first time, I didn't feel afraid of them.
He studied me for a moment before speaking again, and when he did, his voice was colder than anything I had heard before. "You won't," he said simply. "Because you're not strong enough for that."
That should have broken me, but instead, it did the opposite.
Something inside me snapped into place, not violently, but with a quiet certainty that I couldn't ignore. Maybe I wasn't strong enough to die, but I was strong enough to leave, and suddenly that felt like the only thing that mattered.
I didn't say another word. I turned and walked out of the room, my steps steady despite the storm building inside me, and I didn't look back even once.
The silence that followed me through the halls felt unnatural, almost staged, as if the house itself was holding its breath. No one stopped me as I passed, not the staff who avoided my eyes or the guards stationed at the doors, and that alone was enough to make unease settle deep in my stomach.
It was too easy, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that meant something, but I couldn't afford to think about it now.
When I pushed the front doors open, the cold night air hit me immediately, sharp and real, filling my lungs in a way that made everything inside me tighten.
Rain had already started to fall, light at first but quickly growing heavier, soaking into my hair and clothes within seconds. I hesitated just briefly on the steps, staring out into the darkness beyond the gates, because for the first time in my life, there was nothing in front of me but the unknown.
Then I stepped forward.
The sound of my heels against the stone echoed too loudly in the quiet, making my pulse spike as I hurried down the long driveway. Halfway through, I stopped, the sudden stillness around me pressing in from all sides as a single thought forced its way to the surface—why hadn't anyone tried to stop me?
The question lingered just long enough to make doubt creep in, but I pushed it away, because thinking about it would only slow me down.
I slipped off my heels without hesitation and broke into a run, the cold ground beneath my feet barely registering as adrenaline took over. The rain fell harder now, blurring my vision and making every step uncertain, but I didn't stop, not even when my lungs began to burn or my legs started to ache.
I kept going, faster and further, driven by something stronger than fear, something that refused to let me turn back.
By the time I reached the gates and crossed them, it felt like stepping into a completely different world, one that was louder, colder, and infinitely more real than anything I had ever known.
I didn't slow down, not even then, because the fragile sense of freedom settling over me felt like it could disappear at any moment if I wasn't careful.
I didn't know that someone had been watching me the entire time.
I didn't see the black car parked across the street, its presence hidden by darkness and rain, or the man sitting inside it, his gaze fixed on me as if I were something worth remembering.
I didn't feel the weight of his attention or understand that while I was running, trying to escape everything I had ever known, I had already been noticed.
And somehow, that would matter more than anything else.