“I agree to marry Killian Arrows.”

The words dropped like stones in the silence of the penthouse boardroom.

My grandmother, Victoria Valcruz didn’t even look up. The gold spoon clinked gently against porcelain as she sipped her tea elegantly.

“You are bluffing aren’t you?” she said, finally glancing at me, her voice cold. “The cameras will love it. The press will worship the fairytale. You will wear the ring, play the rich wife. But behind closed doors?”

She finally met my eyes.

“You will be nothing but a baby making machine…a mere surrogate who carries the heir. Nothing more nothing less.”

“I know and I accept.” I replied calmly.

She tilted her head, something close to disgust passing through her expression. “So that’s it. You will warm the bed of a killer just to buy your name into a legacy that never wanted you?”

I met her gaze unfazed. “Wasn’t it you who once suggested marrying me off to that eighty-year-old real estate mogul whose last wife mysteriously drowned in a champagne tub?

I am making it easy for you…selling off myself to the highest bidder.”

Killian Arrows, Mafia King of Spain, the once Wall Street’s crown prince had walked out of federal prison just three weeks ago. The photos of his release had made front pages around the world: the sharp suit, the cold eyes, the silver cuffs.

They called him the Devil in Dior.

And now… he would call me wife.

His family wanted a marriage to maintain their bloodline but my father’s beloved daughter Jessica refused, crying like there was no tomorrow.

She always had the luxury of saying no unlike me.

Victoria finally leaned back in her chair. “You are that desperate for attention? Trying to prove your worth.”

“No.” I said. “I am doing this because you need the Arrows Empire. And I am the daughter no one noticed until you needed a name to sign on the dotted line.”

She studied me, cold and calculating.

“This could work.” she murmured. “A noble sacrifice. The media will adore it and soon the Valcruz shares will recover. Yes... very well.”

“I want compensation.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

“I want half of your private estates, thirty percent of Valcruz shares and fifty million dollars as compensation.”

Victoria’s mouth twitched, just slightly. “That would make you richer than your uncles combined!”

“I am not asking.” I said getting up. “ Even if you don’t recognize me, I am still the legitimate daughter and Jessica is an illegitimate bastard my father brought home. “

My voice cracked but didn’t falter.

“If I am going to chain my body and soul to a man who may never love me, just to save your crumbling empire, I will be paid… for every year you made me invisible.”

“You ungrateful brat-”

“Ungrateful?” I let out a breathless laugh, one that sounded far too close to a sob.

“I was raised in the servant’s quarters scrubbing dirty floors on my knees while Jessica wore diamonds to parties. Don’t talk to me about gratitude.”

I turned to leave, then paused.

“One more thing,” I said, my voice bitter and choked. “Reassign Xander to Jessica.”

“The bodyguard?” she asked. “The one you shielded with your own body when your father tried to whip him? The man for whom you once refused to eat for four days until his punishment was lifted?”

She gave a short amused laugh. “I thought you were in love with him even when he used you like a tissue.”

My throat tightened as unshed tears glistened in my eyes.

“I thought that too.” With that I left.

Three days ago, a drunken night led me to Xander’s bedroom and the next thing I knew was we were sharing a searing kiss as I confessed my undying love to him.

And then, in one of the most vulnerable moments of my life, I gave him everything-my love, my soul…my virginity only to wake up in an icy cold bed the next morning.

Xander stood near the mirror, his back towards me already dressed in his tailored suit, adjusting his cufflinks like nothing happened….Composed. Emotionless.

“Now that you are up, get dressed and leave. You are not supposed to be in my room.” His voice cut the silence like a knife.

That was it.

No worry

No words of love or asking me if I was in pain from yesterday.

I sat up slowly, heart pounding as I felt my entire world crumbling. “Xander…I told you I love-”

“Love?” He turned slowly, his muscles taut and eyes detached. “Yestertday was a drunken mistake, Miss Athena Valcruz so I would advise you not to throw a tantrum over it.”

The cold words cut deeper than any wounds making me look at Xander in horror.

My knees buckled slightly as I rose, each step toward him like walking barefoot on shattered glass.

“Was it all nothing to you?” I asked, reaching out but he wouldn’t even look at me.

“You stayed by my side for three years. You wiped my tears when I had no one else. You remembered my birthday when even my own family didn’t-”

“I did all of that because it was my job. I am your bodyguard. Nothing more.”

His eyes met mine sharp, distant… unrecognizable.

“Don’t romanticize this. I never saw you as anything but a responsibility. A duty I was assigned and paid to protect.”

My breath caught.

“And the way you dress… the way you act…” he added, his words turning to knives as he looked at me in disdain. “don’t pretend last night was some sacred moment. You flirt like it’s second nature, Athena. It’s not like you were a goddamn virgin to begin with..”

I reeled.

The air punched out of my lungs.

Without warning, he grabbed my wrist, his grip bruising as he dragged me to the door like I was dirt beneath his boots.

“Don’t confuse attention for affection, Athena.” he said with quiet cruelty. “That’s where women like you always go wrong.”

And then the door slammed shut.

And I was left completely shattered, sobbing on the floor that morning, utterly used and discarded.

Everyone had chosen to abandon me so this time I would be the one to decide my future.

I will leave the father who loved his ‘illegitimate child’, the man who used me and the family who never once considered me their own.

This time, I would be the one to walk away.

My grandmother Victoria Valcruz always gave Jessica everything. The billion dollar inheritance.

A perfect debutante ball and a curated rise in the tabloids as “Valcruz’s Darling Heiress.”

So I knew that she would finally give me this- a wedding full of thorns.

As anticipated, an envelope arrived the next morning sealed in blood-red wax with the Arrows crest- a coiled serpent around a crown.

I stared at it for a long time, my fingers trembling as I broke the seal.

[MARRIAGE CONTRACT

Athena Valcruz and Killian Arrows

Status: Approved]

Along with the contract was a letter for me.

[I will come to receive you in three days. A private villa that had already been prepared and bridal fittings are scheduled. Our marriage is in two weeks~ Killian]

The wedding ceremony? In two weeks.

I placed the letter down on the desk, my hand numb.

So this was it.

I had been sold. Again.

Just this time, it was my own voice that sealed the bargain and made me realize that this family never accepted me from the beginning.

Walking down the hallway reminiscing my life that I was about to throw away I came across Xander’s room

And the noises stopped me cold.

Low pants and masculine moans ignited the atmosphere.

It was raw…ferocious… Shameless.

My hand reached for the door and opened hell.

Xander was sitting shirtless, muscles taut, sweat gleaming off his skin, his hand buried between his legs his eyes half-closed, lost in pleasure.

His back to me as papers were scattered everywhere….The floor. The bed. The desk.

My eyes widened as I stumbled back.

Jessica.

He had drawn her face in every angle laughing, looking over her shoulder, hair tousled like she had just rolled out of bed.

And then there was something more.

Sketches of her nude.

Not crude or pornographic but intimate soft curves.

In one image, she was lying on her back, her head turned slightly, mouth parted.

In another her arms above her head, a silk sheet barely covering her thighs.

I stood frozen as Xander lifted one particular sketch of Jessica topless, back arched and kissed the paper softly before moans of pleasure filled the room.

“Jess….Jess…”

I felt everything inside me sink. Collapse.

He hadn’t just used me.

He had never even seen me.

Then his phone buzzed.

“No” he said gruffly. “I can’t return to the mafia until she’s mine. I want her at my side as my queen. Jessica is my everything.”

I choked on my breath.

Mafia?

Xander Thorn.

My heart froze completely.

My once-betrothed fiancé that I never even saw… who publicly rejected me after my mother’s funeral, calling me “unworthy of his blood.”

A tear escaped my eye in horror.He had been beside me this whole time, with a new name, a new face…

and I had welcomed him like a lamb to slaughter.

“I am only here for Jessica..” he continued. “Always was. Athena? Still throwing herself at me like a dog in heat.

You think I would waste three years on Athena if it wasn’t for the bigger picture?”

Tears dribbled my eyes as a dagger twisted in my heart deep.

“She is useful and lonely. That’s what makes her easy. Always trying to seduce me wearing such clothes…it is almost like she is a prostitute.”

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t feel my legs.

Three years. Three goddamn years. I let him into every corner of my life. My schedule. My insecurities. My mother’s ashes.

I thought he was stone, unmoved by glitz and glamor.

But all this time… he was chasing her…the reason my mother died of heartbreak.

The day my mom found out my father had a secret mistress and a second child, something in her snapped. I witnessed her stop eating…stop speaking and soon began scratching at her own skin until she bled.

I was eight when they took her to the psychiatric wing, her broken eyes looking at me for the last time.

One day, she walked into the sea wearing pearls and never came back.

They called it “an accident.”

Jessica moved in the next week. Took my room. Called my mother “that unstable woman.”

She framed me at ten for trying to push her down the stairs. My father slapped me across the face in front of the servants.

I should have walked away. Should have screamed when Xander chose her and yet I stood in the doorway frozen with Xander not even flinching as our eyes met.

He saw that I looked at his body and unabashedly dressed himself without a care, eyes staring at me like I was just another assistant who had forgotten to knock.

I should have screamed. Should have thrown something.

“Even if I am your guard, knock before you enter Miss Valcruz.”

Miss Valcruz.

As if he hadn’t memorized the sound of my footsteps, the pattern of my panic attacks, the way I liked my wine after boardroom disasters.

As if he hadn’t held me when I collapsed on the bathroom floor the day I lost my mother’s estate in court whimpering and thrashed like a ragdoll..

He moved to pick up his sketchbook, wiping it like it was some treasure before keeping it away.

I could no longer bear and said "Tomorrow is an event I am organizing, you have to follow me as my bodyguard-”

“Will Miss Jessica come?”

My heart shattered completely as I looked at him with my eyes wide.

“W-What? It’s a tribute for my mom…for her death anniversary! Do you think I will invite that wench?!”

As soon as my words fell into his ears, Xander’s face darkened instantly.

Not for the mother who raised me in a backroom apartment while Jessica had nannies and ponies.

“Follow me tomorrow, it is an order!” I turned to leave, my throat burning.

Then, as if to make sure the knife twisted fully, I heard him mutter under his breath-

“She’s still chasing me…” he muttered behind my back. “Thinks one night in my bed changed anything. It’s pitiful.”

I stopped walking.

He didn’t know I heard.

Didn’t care if I had.

For him I was just the stepping stone.

I left the door open behind me.

Let the wind blow through as I told myself that everything as coming to an end.

And I was going away from the chaos.

The next evening Xander was waiting at the bottom of the marble staircase, his hand stretched out like always waiting for me to take.

At the very next moment I walked past him without a word for the first time in three years.

He froze for a second before composing himself, a flicker of surprise reflecting in his eyes before he composed himself.

With that he followed me without another word, sitting opposite in the car like a stranger.

It was my night.

The Valcruz Legacy Showcase.

REVIVE.

My first fashion line.

Six dresses that took me years to prepare..

Every thread was a wound that I remembered.

The collection was my love letter to a woman the world tried to erase.

To a girl who was eight years old and alone when she watched her mother stop wanting to live.

At the fashion show of the year my dresses began to appear one by one.

‘Ariadne’ the dress in pink, my mother’s youthful love to my father.

‘Descent’ a bird in cage when mom realised that father married her for her money.

‘Unspoken’ Cerulean blue when my father’s mistress was found and my mother was locked for ‘creating a scene’.

‘Inheritance’ midnight-black embroidered with barbed vines. Strength passed through pain.

‘Resurrection’ a scarlet blaze cut high and fierce. The fire she lit in me.

But then the clapping intensified as my final piece appeared with thousands of people cheering and applauding yet my face was pale as a ghost.

My stepsister Jessica stepped onto the stage, wearing the final masterpiece.

‘Love’

A dress I had stitched with trembling hands, tears slipping onto the fabric.

It held a piece of mom….actual strands of her hair sealed inside the brooch at the collar.

Her heartbeat lived inside that gown.

My mother’s dress.

My ears rang in horror.

“No!” I choked out, stumbling towards the stage “She is not supposed to wear that…she can’t! No!”

At that moment a hand gripped my wrist in a bruising grip.

I whipped around on the verge of breaking down and saw him.

Xander.

His fingers dug into my skin, his gaze unreadable.

“Let go of me!” I hissed, shaking with rage. “That dress has my mother’s hair in it! My mother’s killer is wearing a part of her? No! Don’t you understand that?!”

But Xander didn’t flinch.

“Don’t cause a scene, Miss Valcruz. This isn’t about you.” I staggered back snapping my hand out of his hold, my entire world collapsing.

That’s when a voice boomed across the room.

A man stepped forward in black uniform.

“My name is Peter. Butler to Mr. Xander Thorne, CEO of Thorn Enterprises.”

He bowed elegantly before continuing “Our CEO believes that all beautiful things in this world should go their rightful owner and all these dresses can only have one master and that is Miss Jessica..”

Jessica blushed, pressing a gloved hand to her chest as if embarrassed. “Oh… I had no idea Mr.Xander would show me such favor. I-I am just honored….I would want to meet the man who is so kind…I have never seen him before so I hope we can arrange a meeting soon.”

The crowd swooned.

The flashes grew louder.

“Xander Thorne? Everyone knows about him but he has never made a public appearance, and to think Miss Jessica already has him wrapped around her finger?”

“Xander Thorne must be head over heels for Miss Jessica. To think she attracted the attention of such tycoon.”

My steps faltered.

“What the hell is this?” I asked, low and sharp, barely breathing.

Before I could reach the stage, event staff wheeled out racks. The five other dresses shoved onto plastic hangers. Not handled with gloves. Not even with care.

“All six pieces, exclusively gifted to Miss Jessica Thorn by our master Mr Xander Thorne, who has said that Miss Athena should know her place and not bully the innocent miss Jessica.”

The crowd gasped and everyone watched me like I was a specimen in zoo, harsh and calculating.

Jessica looked around, feigning innocence.

“Sister? Please don’t..don’t be mad okay?…I am sorry but I never wanted to steal your spotlight.” she said with eyes wide and innocent.

I wanted to scream and cry.

Xander stood behind me watching me closely like a judge.

He didn’t speak.

He looked at me like I was an eyesore. Like this was a necessary punishment for not inviting Jessica and for calling her a ‘wench.’

His wrath was precise.

Public.

Humiliating.

I bit my tongue so hard I tasted blood.

The event ended and just like that all my dresses were gone with my name completely erased.

With that I didn’t had anything left in me.

Turning around I did not watch Xander looking at Jessica like a lovestruck man, nor did I see Jessica’s sly smile.

I drove to the countryside farmhouse which was on the verge of collapse.

To the garden.

My mother’s garden. The one she fought to keep when they wanted to demolish it for an underground vault.

The jasmine had bloomed early.

I stood beneath it in heels and ruin, looking like a woman who was left with nothing.

And I cried.

Not polite tears but the deep cries that shake one’s soul.

The kind that come from the deepest corner of a broken girl.

Not because I had loved Xander like a fire in winter and he had used that very same fire to burn me alive.

Not because the crowd adored Jessica like she was the heroine and marked me as the villainess.

But because I was letting go of all the love that once I held for anyone in this place.

The screams that echoed were left unanswered.