Chapter 7

Eve's face was a mask of cold satisfaction when I told her I would go see my father.

"I'll go with you," she said.

"No," I replied, my voice flat. "I'll go alone."

I met her gaze, a silent challenge. For a moment, I thought she would argue, but then she shrugged. "Fine. But be back by dinner."

She watched me as I changed out of the pajamas I'd been wearing for days. Her eyes lingered on the fresh scars on my abdomen, a possessive, triumphant gleam in them. The servants whispered as I left, their voices laced with a sick kind of pity.

"Ms. Yates dotes on him so much."

"He's so lucky."

I wanted to scream at them, to tell them the truth about their beloved Ms. Yates. But I just kept walking. The car she sent for me was, of course, bugged. I found the microphone and camera hidden in the overhead light fixture. Even when she let me out of my cage, I was still on her leash.

As long as it gets me out of here, I thought. Just for a few hours.

The moment I stepped into my father' s house, I knew it was a mistake. The air was thick with the smell of stale beer and resentment.

"So, you finally decided to show your face," my father, Damon Hahn, sneered from his armchair.

Before I could answer, he hurled his glass at the wall behind me. It shattered, and I flinched, instinctively dropping to my knees to pick up the pieces. It was a conditioned response, beaten into me over years of his drunken rages.

"Get up," he snarled. "You're a disgrace. Crawling back here with your tail between your legs because your rich wife finally got tired of you."

"I'm not crawling back," I said, my voice shaking with a rage I hadn't felt in years. "I'm here to tell you to stop what you're doing."

He looked genuinely surprised by my tone. "What did you say to me?"

He stood up, grabbing the heavy wooden cane he used for his fake limp. He had been using it to beat me since I was a child. He swung it, and it connected with my back with a sickening thud.

I crumpled to the floor, the pain radiating through my body.

"You used to take it without a word," he grunted, breathing heavily. "What happened? Did your wife give you a backbone?"

I looked up at him from the floor, my vision swimming. "You ruined my life," I whispered. "You sold me to that woman for your own selfish greed."

"I gave you a life of luxury!" he roared, kicking me in the ribs. "You should be thanking me!"

"You don't deserve to be a father," I spat, blood trickling from my lip. "You don't deserve to have my mother's memory in this house."

That was the final straw. He descended on me in a flurry of kicks and punches. I didn't fight back. I just lay there, a strange sense of peace washing over me. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was how it ended.

Just as my vision started to fade, the front door burst open. Eve's security guards swarmed in, pulling my father off me.

The last thing I saw before I passed out was Eve's face, her expression unreadable, as her men surrounded me.

I woke up back in the penthouse, my body aching. Eve had imprisoned me again, but this time, she employed a new tactic: silence. She didn't speak to me, didn't even look at me. She just left food outside my door and went about her life, often bringing Kason home with her, their laughter echoing through the halls.

One evening, an anonymous message appeared on the phone she'd given me. It was a video. Eve and Kason, in our bed, tangled together. It was clearly meant to torture me, to break me down completely.

I watched it with a dead, hollow feeling in my chest. There was nothing left for her to break.

I was done. I wanted out. For good.

That night, she came into my room. She was drunk, her movements unsteady. She reeked of whiskey and Kason's cologne.

She stumbled towards the bed and slammed her hands down on either side of my head, trapping me. Her eyes were wild, red-rimmed.

"Why are you so calm?" she hissed, her face inches from mine. "Why doesn't this bother you anymore? Say you hate me! Say you love me! Say something!"

I just stared at her, my face a blank mask.

"I wish I were dead," I said, my voice a monotone.

"Don't you dare," she snarled, cutting me off. "Even if you die, Bennet, your ghost will belong to me. I'll keep your ashes in an urn by my bed so you can never leave me."

Her words sent a chill down my spine. She was insane. Truly, terrifyingly insane.

She leaned in, her lips trying to find mine. I turned my head, and she bit my shoulder, hard.

A moment later, her body went slack, and she collapsed on top of me, passed out from the alcohol.

I lay there for a long time, her dead weight pinning me to the bed. Her words echoed in my head. Even if you die, you can never leave me.

My phone, lying on the nightstand, buzzed. It was a message from Jillian Bell's lawyer.

"The wedding is scheduled for one week from today. Are you ready?"

I looked at Eve's sleeping form, at the prison she had built around me. And I knew what I had to do.

I pushed her off me and got out of bed. I walked to her study, the one place that was truly hers. It was filled with her books, her awards, her life.

I found a bottle of expensive brandy and a lighter on her desk.

I began to pour the liquid over everything. The leather-bound books, the velvet curtains, the antique desk.

The fire caught quickly, the flames licking up the walls with a hungry roar.

I walked back to the bedroom and looked at Eve one last time. She was still sleeping, oblivious to the destruction I had unleashed.

"Goodbye, Eve," I whispered.

Then I turned and walked out of the apartment, not looking back as the flames consumed my past.