Chapter 1

The pain was the first thing to cut through the fog. A sharp, grinding fire in my left knee, a deep ache in my ribs that made every breath a struggle. I was on the floor, the cold marble a shock against my cheek. The city lights of a world that wasn't mine smeared into long, wet streaks through a skyscraper's shattered window.

I couldn't see much. My vision was blurry, swimming in and out of focus. Most sounds were muffled, a dull roar like the ocean, but one sound was perfectly clear-the soft, rhythmic tap of a stiletto heel on the marble floor. It was getting closer. I tried to push myself up, but my arms wouldn't obey, and a fresh wave of agony from my side sent me crashing back down.

A sleek, black heel entered my limited field of vision, stopping right beside my head. Then, the toe of the shoe pressed under my jaw, forcing my head up. The pressure was firm, deliberate, making my neck crack. I had no choice but to look at her.

Her voice was as cold and clear as the glass that littered the floor around us.

"Look at me, Noah."

She stood over me, a vision in a floor-length white gown that should have been for a wedding. It was pristine, untouched by the chaos and the blood. My blood. The contrast was sickening. She looked like an angel of death, her dark hair pulled back severely, her face a mask of calm, beautiful indifference.

It was her. It was Chloe. The woman I had spent years of my life trying to save. The brilliant, broken girl from the novel "The Gilded Cage." The villainess I had guided away from her tragic destiny, only to be met with this.

I tried to speak, to ask the one word that burned in my throat. Why? But all that came out was a wet, gurgling sound as blood filled my mouth. I choked on it.

She read the question in my eyes anyway. A small, cruel smile touched her lips.

"You think you saved me?"

Her voice was soft, almost a whisper, but it cut deeper than any physical blow she had dealt me.

"You think by changing the variables, by pulling the strings, you made my life better? You didn't save me, Noah. You played God with a life that wasn't yours to control."

She knelt, her movements graceful, the expensive fabric of her dress pooling around her on the bloody floor. She was so close now I could smell her perfume, a scent I had once picked out for her in a virtual Parisian boutique.

"My pain was mine. My mistakes were mine to make. My love for Liam, my obsession, my ruin... that was all part of my story. It was the cage that defined me, and you took it away. You stole my tragedy and replaced it with this... this hollow success."

She gestured around the opulent penthouse, a symbol of the tech empire I had helped her build. An empire meant to make her strong, to make her untouchable.

"You didn't free me," she hissed, her mask of calm finally cracking to show the fury beneath. "You just built me a different cage."

With a sudden, powerful grip, she grabbed the collar of my torn shirt and began to drag me across the floor. My broken body screamed in protest, every inch a new torture. The shards of glass dug into my back as she pulled me toward the gaping hole in the window, toward the long, dark fall that waited outside.