Chapter 26
Elise's POV:
"Liam," I said, each word feeling like it was being dragged through my teeth, "this shop is the only thing I truly own. It's not something I 'have to' run. It's my choice. When I was thirteen, hiding under that carpet, I swore to myself that when I finally had control over my own life, I would do what I loved."
"Tattooing is what I love."
Liam looked visibly agitated, pacing back and forth in the studio. "Then find another way—"
"No." I said it decisively. "I won't."
Perhaps it was everything that had happened tonight that made my emotions run too high. Under normal circumstances, I would never talk back to Liam like this. But at this moment, only one voice kept repeating in my mind: I absolutely cannot close the tattoo shop.
Liam's footsteps stopped. He turned to look at me, disbelief flickering in his eyes. "Elise—"
"You don't understand." I interrupted him. "You've had everything you wanted within reach your whole life. Your money was given to you by your parents. Your house was given to you by your family. Your life was arranged for you. You've never experienced what it feels like to fight desperately for something you want."
"So what? What exactly are you fighting so desperately to get?" Liam asked.
I looked at him, and suddenly an overwhelming sense of helplessness surged through me.
What did I want?
I wanted to go back to when my parents were still alive; to go back to when someone loved me, when someone took care of me; to go back to those carefree days when I didn't have to worry about survival or my own safety.
But I didn't know how to tell Liam any of this.
These were experiences he'd never had. Even if I told him, he wouldn't be able to understand.
Finally, after thinking for a long time, I said, "It's proof that I'm alive."
Liam stared at me for a long time.
Then he stood up, turning his back to me.
"Do whatever you want," he said.
I could sense a kind of detachment in his tone, and indifference. I felt inexplicably panicked.
Even though Liam wasn't wholeheartedly devoted to me, he had always provided comfort and help in many ways.
I called out to his retreating back, "Liam, what are you going to do?"
I asked anxiously.
He stopped at the door.
Didn't turn around.
"Elise."
His voice was cold.
Cold enough to make my entire body chill.
"You can be stubborn. You can be willful. You can value a broken-down tattoo shop more than your own life."
He turned his head slightly, his gaze falling to the side, his voice dropping low like a threat:
"But you need to remember—all your willfulness, in the end, I'm the one who has to pay for it."
With that, he left.
The door closed behind him.
Only I remained in the studio.
I sat on the workbench, still in that disheveled state.
Shirt half-open, skirt wrinkled into a ball, hair scattered.
I stared at that tightly closed iron door.
Tears finally fell.
Not because I felt wronged.
But because I had just done the stupidest thing of my life—
I had pushed Liam further away.
---
Three days.
Three whole days, he didn't contact me.
No messages, no calls, no movement whatsoever.
Every day I stared at my phone screen, like waiting for a verdict that would never come.
I went to school as usual during the day.
After school, the tattoo shop operated as usual.
Receiving clients, drawing designs, giving tattoos—everything as normal. Only I knew that every time my phone vibrated, my heart would jump violently.
Then disappointment.
On the third night at eleven o'clock.
I was lying in bed tossing and turning, unable to sleep, when my phone suddenly lit up.
A message.
From Liam.
Just an address and a time: "Tomorrow night at eight. I'll pick you up."
No explanation. No apology. Not even an extra word.
But I still replied: "Okay."
Days of anxious unease seemed to find an outlet in this moment.
I didn't even ask where we were going, nor did I ask what he'd been thinking these past few days.
Just from this message whose tone showed no difference, I felt like my relationship with him seemed to have returned to how it was before the argument.
I knew this was spineless, but I had to admit that right now, only Liam could give me a sense of security.
---
The next evening at seven-fifty.
I stood by the streetlight downstairs from the apartment building, wearing a black silk dress. The dress was one Liam had given me before, with an open-back design, knee-length, not revealing but not conservative either. I'd applied light makeup and pinned up my hair, exposing my neck and collarbones.
I was waiting for him.
At seven fifty-two, a black Maybach slowly came into view.
The car stopped in front of me, the window rolling down halfway.
Liam sat in the driver's seat, wearing a dark gray shirt with two buttons undone at the collar. He didn't look at me, just picked up something from the passenger seat and handed it out.
A mask.
A Venetian-style half-face mask, black base, inlaid with silver vine patterns. Around the eye openings were scattered tiny crystals that glinted coldly under the streetlight.
"Put it on," he said.
I took the mask, stunned for a moment. "What's this?"
"You'll know when we get there."
His tone was flat. I couldn't hear any emotion in it.
I looked at the mask in my hand, vaguely feeling something was wrong.
"Liam, where are we going?"
"A party."
"A party that requires masks?"
He didn't answer, just turned his head slightly, those blue eyes looking at me through the car window.
Two seconds of silence.
"You don't want to go?"
That sentence pierced me like a thorn.
I didn't want to continue the cold war with him. Didn't want him to think I would only ever refuse him.
So I opened the car door and got in.
Then I put on the mask.