Chapter2

Evander dragged me down the freezing, antiseptic hallway of the mortuary.

My boots stumbled over the cracked linoleum, but his grip on my wrist was like iron.

He didn't stop until we reached the place.

Before I could catch my balance, he shoved me hard into the center of the room.

I caught the edge of the stainless-steel embalming table.

"Let's see if a proper timeout cures that feral attitude of yours," Evander sneered.

He stepped out. The heavy steel door slammed shut.

The exterior deadbolt locked with a sharp, metallic clack.

Then, the overhead lights snapped off.

Total, impenetrable darkness hit me.

The air instantly died in my lungs.

For three years of my childhood, Sabine’s mother had kept me chained like a dog in a windowless root cellar.

There was never any light.

Only the suffocating smell of wet earth, rot, and my own waste.

If I dared to cry in the pitch black, she would walk down the stairs, heat up an iron fire poker, and press it directly into my collarbone to teach me how to be quiet.

That was how my claustrophobia was born.

The darkness didn't just scare me—it meant torture.

For the last six years, I had worked the night shifts in this very mortuary.

I only survived being around the dead bodies by keeping every single fluorescent bulb blazing bright, practically blinding myself with light.

I choked down my terror of enclosed spaces every single night because my son, Rowan, needed his medical bills paid.

I conquered my deepest trauma just for him.

Now, I knew Rowan’s illness was a lie. And I was back in the pitch black.

"Let me out! Evander, please!" I slammed my fists against the heavy steel door.

The phobia triggered a violent, physical reflex. My brain screamed that I was buried alive.

I fell to my knees in the dark. I scratched frantically at the bottom edge of the metal door, trying to find a gap.

"Please! I'm sorry! I'm going to die in here—"

Suddenly, the deadbolt snapped open.

The door swung wide. Harsh hallway light violently spilled in.

I scrambled out and collapsed onto the floor tiles, gasping hysterically for air.

My whole body shook.

I crawled forward on my bruised knees.

I grabbed the hem of Evander's slacks

"Please... don't lock me in the dark," I gasped, my face covered in a pathetic mix of sweat, dust, and tears. "I'll die... you know what they did to me..."

He pulled his leg back and delivered a sharp, heavy kick to my shoulder, knocking me flat onto the tiles.

"Could you tone down this pathetic act?" Evander smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle on his trousers. "

You are exhausting, Maris. I bring you back to a multi-million-dollar estate, I give you our last name, and you still act like street trash.

Look at you. You reek of cheap embalming fluid and desperation."

I stayed on the floor, my chest heaving, listening to my own brother degrade me.

"You use that exaggerated childhood story to excuse your feral behavior,"

Evander looked down at me with pure contempt.

"You're just throwing a fake panic attack to play the victim. It's truly disgusting."

He crouched down, grabbing my chin to force my tear-streaked face up to meet his eyes.

"You think your life at this mortuary was just a string of bad luck?" Evander smiled lazily.

"Every single abusive client you had over the last six years was personally screened and hired by me."

It took a few agonizing seconds for the ringing in my ears to stop.

"Those men..." My voice was a broken whisper. "You arranged them?"

Humiliating, degrading memories flooded my brain like a physical blow.

I stayed in the morgue for six years, and people kept picking on me, bullying me and forcing me to drink alcohol all the time.

My brother arranged all of it.

"So what if I did?" Evander sounded completely justified.

"I was smoothing out your temper. I needed to teach you humility.

If I didn't train you to take a beating, how would you have ever earned the right to step foot in high society?"

Cassian oppened the door.

"Sabine is hosting a charity gala tonight,"

Cassian said, his voice smooth and authoritative.

"You're coming with us. The press has been digging into Sabine's past.

Your public appearance is the only way people will believe Sabine is the daughter of your mother.

Cassian offered me a gentle smile that looked exactly like charity.

"You always wanted a wedding, didn't you?" Cassian whispered softly. "Be a good girl. Give Sabine the daughter she wants. Once you hand the baby over, I'll give you the wedding of the century."

A wedding under the moonlight.

That was the exact promise Cassian whispered to me years ago when we had nothing.

Now, my deepest dream was just the bait on a hook to turn me into a breeding vessel.

I stared at them. A sudden, violent cramp ripped through my abdomen.

Evander’s kick earlier had ruptured the tumor growing inside me.

Warm, thick blood pooled in my stomach, masking the physical pain with a terrifying numbness.

My breathing slowed down.

I remembered what the oncologist at hopsital had told me yesterday, pushing the terminal scan across his desk.

Stomach cancer. Stage four. It has eaten through the lining. You have, at best, 19 days left to live.

18 days until my body completely withered away. 18 days until I died.

I looked at Cassian's expensive suit. I looked at Evander’s smug, righteous face.

They thought they had me perfectly trapped.

I stopped fighting for air. I let my tense shoulders drop completely slack.

I wiped the blood from my mouth with the back of my trembling hand. I slowly looked up at the two men who had ruined my life.

And I smiled.

"Sure," I said quietly. "I'll go."