He studies me for a moment, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. The ice clicks softly. Outside, the storm is building, wind rattling the windows. The weather report predicted gale-force winds tonight. Dangerous conditions. They recommended staying away from the cliffs.
This house was built on the cliffs.
"Do you know what I did today?" Gabriel asks. He's using his boardroom voice now, the one that makes venture capitalists nervous. "I had lunch with Malcolm. You remember Malcolm, don't you? My attorney?"
I remember Malcolm. Slick hair, expensive suit, the kind of lawyer who gets rich helping rich men stay rich.
"Malcolm told me something interesting," Gabriel continues. "Apparently, if a marriage dissolves, certain assets can be... contested. Particularly inherited wealth that was never properly protected."
My stomach goes cold. The house. My parents' house, the only thing I have that's truly mine.
"You're talking about prenup modifications," I say.
"I'm talking about protecting what's mine." He drains half his scotch in one swallow. "Because that's what you are, Lana. Mine. The house is mine because you're mine. Your time is mine. Your body is mine. And whoever you've been giving those things to—"
"I haven't given anything to anyone."
"Then why are you so secretive?" He slams the glass down hard enough that I flinch. There it is—the crack in hiscomposure. "Why do you come home smelling like coffee? Why do I find receipts for bookstores in neighborhoods we don't visit? Why, Lana?"
Because I needed something that was mine. Because I was suffocating. Because if I didn't carve out some small space where Gabriel couldn't reach, I was going to disappear completely.
But I don't say any of that.
"I wanted privacy," I tell him instead. "That's all. Just a few hours a week where I didn't have to account for every breath."
"Privacy." He laughs, bitter and harsh. "You want privacy in our marriage?"
"I want to exist."
The words escape before I can stop them. They hang in the sterile kitchen, too honest, too raw.
Gabriel goes very still.
Then he stands, moves around the island with terrifying calm. I should run. Every instinct screams at me to run. But there's nowhere to go—not in this house he's made into a prison, not in this life he's made into a cage.
He stops in front of me, close enough that I can smell the scotch on his breath, see the fury barely leashed behind his perfect facade.
"You exist because I allow it," he says softly. "Everything you are, everything you have—it exists because I permit it. Do you understand?"
I understand that I've married a monster. I understand that no amount of submission will ever be enough. I understandthat this moment, right here, is the edge of something I can't come back from.
"Gabriel—"
"Stand up."
I stand because not standing would be worse.
"He reaches past me, opens a drawer I rarely use—the one where we keep the good knives, the expensive Japanese steel he bought to impress dinner guests who never venture into the kitchen. His hand hovers over them, and for one horrible second, I think he's going to choose one."
But he closes the drawer.
"Walk," he says instead, gesturing toward the glass doors that lead to the back terrace. "We're going outside."
"It's storming—"
"I don't care."
The glass doors slide open with a whisper, and the storm rushes in. Wind tears through the kitchen, scattering the papers Gabriel left on the counter, sending his scotch glass skating across marble. Rain hits my face like thrown gravel.
