I’ll make them regret thinking I could ever be owned.
***
I’m dressed like a weapon—sharp black silk, smoky eyes, lips painted the color of bruised cherries. The necklace sits heavy on my throat, the pressure constant, impossible to forget. The driver opens the door, and I step out into a world that smells like power and champagne, every surface polished until it blinds.
The gala sprawls behind glass walls—one of those palaces of excess where even the waiters wear thousand-euro smiles and no one ever says what they really mean.
Leon stays close, a shadow draped in bespoke wool and midnight intent. His hand never quite touches, but the warning is always there, a promise in the tension between us. Cameras flash as we move through the crowd—tabloid hounds, security men, business rivals sniffing for blood.
I keep my chin high, smile for no one, and let the cold steel of my anger hold my posture upright.
All around me, laughter peals and crystal clinks, the scent of gardenia and sweat and nerves hanging heavy as smoke.
Every eye is on us. I see myself reflected in every surface—hostage in a dress, a black collar winking with threat. I want to scream. Instead, I become what they expect: beautiful, inscrutable, impossible to read.
Then I see him.
My father, Marcus White stands with his jaw set in that stubborn line I know better than my own. His suit is immaculate, but his eyes are shadowed, flicking from my face to the collar and back again.
For a heartbeat, I’m a child again, desperate for his approval, for the illusion that he could fix this. I want to run to him. I want to rage and sob and make him see me—not just as a bargaining chip or disappointment, but as a daughter who learned every lesson he never meant to teach.
The necklace presses its warning against my skin. I can’t risk it. I can only stand there, mouth dry, heart pounding, as Leon brings me to his side.
They greet each other in low, formal tones, the kind of conversation that could pass for polite if you weren’t listening for the knives under the velvet.
“You know the terms,” Leon murmurs, voice pitched so I can only catch fragments—“untouched… return… consequences.”
Dad’s face drains, then hardens. He looks at me, through me, as if trying to see the cost in the set of my shoulders. I see the exact moment he decides what I’m worth tonight.
Leon’s hand rests at my arm; it’s gentle, but I know better. I’m leashed, and he holds the other end. Every glance, every word, is a negotiation. Around us, the party spins on, oblivious.
It goes on forever. Every conversation is a performance, every introduction a test. I meet the gaze of the city’s vultures—old men with predator’s smiles, women weighed down in diamonds—and I refuse to look away.
They want to see me flinch. I won’t. I let the humiliation burn, forging it into armor. I can feel it, the knowledge passing between them: that’s her, the White girl, the one with the leash.
The weight of that necklace is unbearable. I watch my father retreat into conversation, his eyes darting toward me and away, never once softening. I wonder if he even wants me back—or just wants not to lose.
When it’s finally over, Leon’s hand at my elbow guides me out. The photographers snap their last shots; the cold night air stings my skin, washing away the perfume and noise but leaving the shame.
The car is silent, the drive back endless. Every turn of the wheel winds the necklace tighter around my throat.
Inside the house, something in me finally snaps. The doors aren’t even closed before I whirl on him, the words spilling out before I can stop them.
“You paraded me like an animal!” My voice shakes with rage. “Do you even care what you’re doing? I was your leverage. Your hostage. You put me on display for my father like I was property!”
Leon closes the door, his face a mask. “It was necessary.”
“Necessary?” I spit the word. “You humiliated me. You made me into a threat and a warning and a fucking prize. I’m not a thing you can trade for your brother.”
He doesn’t blink, his gaze flint and calculation. “Your father understands the stakes now. He’s not going to stall, or bluff. This was the only way to make sure he listened.”
I shove him, both hands on his chest. He barely moves, but the shock of the contact crackles between us—static and fire, too close, too charged.
“You think this is about tactics? You think I’m just a message in a dress?” My voice cracks, throat raw. “I’m not your pawn.”
He catches my wrists before I can hit him again, his grip bruising but careful. He yanks me close, so close I can feel the heat of his breath, the tension coiled in every muscle.
“You’re not a pawn,” he grits out. “You’re a bomb. I can’t turn my back on you for a second.”
