Chapter 28
Elise's POV
"I won't!"
The words left my mouth as I turned toward the door.
But Liam's hand shot out and clamped around my arm.
Hard. Hard enough that I could feel my bones grinding together beneath his grip.
"Try taking one more step," he said.
His voice was right beside my ear—low, cold, carrying something I'd never heard from him before. Not anger. Excitement. He was enjoying this. Enjoying my fear, my helplessness, the fact that I had no choice but to turn to him for protection.
I turned back to look at him through my mask.
Under the dim lighting, his blue eyes reflected my trembling figure like twin mirrors.
He smiled.
"Beg me," he said. "Tell me you want to stay."
My lips were shaking.
I wanted to say no. Wanted to wrench my arm free, turn around and run—run out of this hall reeking of decay, run to the shore, throw myself into the icy water and wash away everything that had touched me tonight. But I couldn't say it. Because I knew that even if I ran outside, there would be nothing but a dark coastline and unfamiliar roads stretching endlessly ahead. I had no car, no money, and my phone was within his control. Behind me were thirty or forty masked strangers, any one of whom could drag me back within three seconds.
I had nothing.
In this hall, standing before this man, I didn't even have the right to leave.
Tears fell.
One drop, then two, sliding down my cheeks past the edge of my mask and landing on the back of Liam's hand.
He didn't let go.
He tightened his grip instead.
"Elise."
His voice softened slightly, as if coaxing a frightened animal.
"Just say one sentence. That's all."
The people around us were still watching. The laughter still echoed. That sickly sweet stench still burrowed into my nostrils.
I looked into those blue eyes behind Liam's mask.
Three days ago, this man had saved me from four thugs. He'd stood by his workbench covered in blood, adjusting his cufflinks with such composure that I thought—I thought he cared about me. Thought I was special.
But now I understood.
I was never a person to him.
I was a thing. Something to be displayed or hidden away or brought out for punishment.
He hadn't brought me here because we'd fought and needed to reconcile.
He'd brought me here because I didn't obey.
Because I refused to close the tattoo shop.
Because he needed me to remember—what happens when you disobey.
Something inside me shattered.
It made a soft sound, like thin ice cracking.
Then came a cold, deathly emptiness.
"...Okay."
I said it.
My throat felt like it had been scraped raw with sandpaper.
"I'll stay."
Liam smiled.
He released my chin and took my hand again as if nothing had happened, then turned toward the man in the red demon mask.
I followed behind him.
One step after another.
My feet felt like they were stepping on cotton—unsteady and unreal.
I stopped looking at the people around me. Stopped smelling the air. Stopped wondering why the woman on the couch wasn't moving or what was inside those bags on the carpet.
I shut down all my senses.
From today forward, the old Elise was dead.
What remained was a tool. A doll. A thing meant to satisfy Liam Sterling's need for control.
I shouldn't have had expectations. Shouldn't have fantasized. Shouldn't have been stupid enough to think I meant something special to him.
That girl who swore at thirteen she'd control her own life?
How laughable.
I'd never controlled anything at all.
---
Liam's POV
Her hand was cold.
From the moment I grabbed her arm, it never warmed up.
When she said "I'll stay," her voice was so soft I could barely hear it. Then she went silent—no more struggling, no more talking, not even looking at me anymore. It was as if someone had sucked the soul right out of her body, leaving behind only a docile shell following obediently at my side.
I should have been pleased.
Wasn't this what I wanted? A completely obedient Elise—one who wouldn't talk back to me or pick fights over some broken-down tattoo shop?
But I wasn't pleased at all.
My stomach felt like it had been filled with lead—heavy and dragging downward with every step I took.
The man in the red demon mask approached us and clapped a hand on my shoulder, lowering his voice to ask: "Who's this?"
I ignored him.
Because I knew he was an actor.
Everyone here was.
The couple tangled together on the couch, the woman doing drugs by the bar, the circle of people gathered on the carpet—all of them were temporary actors I'd paid for tonight. They took their money and performed according to my script: chaos, indulgence, depravity—the more outrageous, the better.
This entire party was staged from start to finish.
A performance for my family's benefit.
Three days ago when Isabella's people went looking for Elise, word got back to my family immediately—and then Isabella herself called Grandfather directly—I don't know exactly what she told him—but by the next day Grandfather's secretary contacted me with that kind of "concern" that made my spine crawl:
"Young Master Liam—the family feels you may be investing too much attention in this... Miss Elise?"