“For your future.” He turns then, giving me the politician’s version of gentleness. “We’re finalizing an engagement, Darla. Family to family. As it should be.”
Engagement. The word is a costume that can’t cover the shape beneath.
“An arrangement,” Trent clarifies, as if I’m slow. “With expectations codified. Safeguards. You’ll be looked after.” His smile widens. “Cherished.”
The steward slides a single sheet toward my father, and another toward Trent. Columns of numbers. Bullet points of obligations and rights. A donation amount noted discreetly—Vassallo Foundation, in exchange for… elsewhere on the page: dowry. The figure beside it makes my stomach flip, not because of the size but the neatness of it. I am tidy lines. Decimal points. I fit in a row.
My father picks up a pen. “We will, of course, maintain discretion. The announcement will follow an appropriate period of courtship.” He says courtship like a PR strategy. “No one needs the particulars.”
“Of course,” Trent murmurs. His eyes stay on me. “I’m very good at keeping secrets.”
Air thins. The room is suddenly too small for molecules.
“I—” My voice breaks. I steady it because I am practiced. “No.”
A small, indulgent silence follows, the kind adults give to children.
My father doesn’t sigh. “Darla, this is not a debate.”
“It’s not a marriage,” I say. The words are a blade I finally pick up. “It’s a sale.”
Trent’s smile doesn’t move. “Marriage is always a contract. We’re simply… forthright.”
The steward clears his throat softly, as if helping us keep pace. He sets the velvet ring box in front of me, lid angled open. A diamond stares up from black velvet—flawless, brilliant, exact. The band is heavy platinum. It could anchor a ship.
“Try it,” Trent suggests.
My hands stay at my sides, fingers digging crescents into silk.
My father’s voice lowers, smoothing to that careful, lethal calm. “You will put the ring on for the photo.”
Photo.
The word is the trap closing. I see it all—how the masquerade becomes an announcement; how the platforms become altars for girls with new names; how the bells chime when papers are signed. Private selections. Folios. Lots.
And me: Lot-unknown, because mine is not meant for display. Mine is a back-room acquisition dressed as a love story.
My mouth tastes like metal. I think of East’s body between me and Trent, leather and heat and refusal. I think of the feeling that burns like a candle in my chest. It gutters. It clings.
“Now,” my father whispers.
Something inside me snaps without making a sound. I reach for the box with steady fingers, then lift the ring and slide the cold circle onto my finger. It bites as it settles. The diamond throws light as if it means to blind me.
Trent exhales, satisfied. The steward’s pen scratches. My father nods.
“Excellent,” Trent says. “We’ll finalize the transfer at midnight. Discretion as agreed.”
Transfer.
The violinists swell somewhere beyond the door. Applause rises, generalized and cheerful. The party goes on as the room tilts around me.
I look down at my hand. The stone sits like a promise nailed through flesh. In the mirror across the room, a silvergirl stares back—mask flawless, posture perfect, ring gleaming—a testament to good breeding and better deals. No one would know she is a ledger entry.
But behind the mask, my breath saws, hot and uneven, and beneath my ribs, something refuses to go quiet. Terror surges up my spine, cold and electric. Fury burns under it, brighter, cleaner.
I am packaged. I am priced. Trapped.
And I am still, impossibly, alive. Alive is enough to be dangerous.
