Zara,
You don’t deserve white—your virginity was gone long before I ever had the chance to lay claim—but with ivory, I can enjoy the lie.
You’ll wear this for me, like the whore you’ve proven yourself to be. Lace and silk wrapped around a body that was promised to me, even if you spent years selling it to whoever would pay.
You can scream. You can fight. You can bleed. None of it changes where you belong.
At my side. On your knees. In my bed.
The dress is just the beginning.
—A.F.
The note slipsfrom my fingers and flutters to the floor.
The older woman lifts it again, smooths the corner, and sets it neatly on the desk like it doesn’t reek of ownership and threat.
“I’m not marrying him,” I whisper. “Do you hear me? I’m not marrying that psychopath.”
No response.
My chest tightens.
“Do you speak?” My voice cracks. “Do you?Please. Just…say something. Anything. Look at me. I’m still a person.”
The younger woman flinches. But her eyes stay lowered. She doesn’t respond. Neither does the other.
“Say my name,” I whisper. “Please.Just remind me I still exist.”
Silence.
They pack the dress, the ring, the box. Fold the screen. Wheel out the mirror. Back through the door like I’m just another task on their list.
When the door closes again, it feels like the air goes with them.
I slide to the floor, trembling in a way I can’t control anymore.
This is what they want. They want mebroken.Compliant. Beautiful and hollow. A shell of a woman in ivory lace. They want to break me with silence, with building dread. And it’sworking.
I try to scream, but it comes out choked and weak. Sobs wreck me as I begin to drift into surrender.
The truth is sinking in, that no one, not even myself, can save me this time.
The meeting roomsmells like old leather and fresh espresso.
The table is long, dark mahogany, marked by years of strategy and spilled blood. Around it sit the men who’ve run this city at my side—capos and trusted enforcers. Each of them deadly in their own right. Each of them here because they know what’s at stake when I call them in without warning.
Lars sits to my right, arms crossed, shoulders loose. But I know him too well to mistake that posture for ease. He’s ready to move. He always is when there’s blood in the water.
Gio, my security chief, is thumbing a lighter beside his coffee. Marco, who oversees the port runs, is already impatiently tapping the table. The others shift in their seats before I stand, and silence takes the room.
“We’ve had eyes on the Kavanagh family for months. You’ve all been briefed on the hits. The alliances they’ve been building south of the city. They’re trying to expand. Take what isn’t theirs. And until now, we’ve been making small moves to let them know we see it and we won’t allow it.”
I pause, letting the gravity settle before I continue.
“Those gentle warnings? They end tonight.”
Chairs creak as bodies lean forward.
