Chapter 3
The morning after the gala, the penthouse felt like a mausoleum. I needed to breathe. I needed music. I pressed my palm to the biometric scanner of the soundproof studio—the gilded cage within my gilded cage. The heavy door hissed open.
The suffocating scent of vanilla and tuberose hit me before the visual did.
Sarah sat at my mixing console. Her manicured finger rested on the mouse. On the dual monitors, a loading bar crawled toward one hundred percent. The prompt above it read: *Permanently delete master files?*
"No!" The scream tore from my throat, raw and jagged. I lunged forward, shoving her shoulder away from the desk.
Sarah didn't even flinch. She just turned her head, a slow, venomous smirk stretching across her glossy lips. "Oops. Slipped."
Footsteps thundered down the hallway. Dylan filled the doorway, his jaw tight, eyes darting between us.
Instantly, Sarah’s smirk vanished. Her lower lip trembled, and tears spilled over her lashes with terrifying precision. "Dylan," she choked out, shrinking back against the leather chair. "I was just trying to surprise her. I was backing up her files to a hard drive so she wouldn't lose them, and she just... she attacked me!"
I stared at the empty progress bar, my chest heaving. "She deleted everything! Months of work—"
"Enough." Dylan’s voice wasn't a shout; it was a blade. He stepped between us, shielding Sarah with his body. He looked at me, his eyes devoid of anything resembling a husband's warmth. "Look at yourself, Clare. You're hysterical. Unstable."
"Dylan, please, look at the screen—"
He gripped my arm, his fingers biting into my flesh, and steered me out of the room. "The studio is off-limits until you can control your hormones. I won't have you assaulting our guests." The door clicked shut, the biometric lock flashing a final, definitive red.
I retreated to my bedroom, my hands trembling as I dialed the Seattle Heart Institute. I needed to authorize the new immunosuppressant therapy for my mother. It was the only tether to sanity I had left.
"Mrs. West," the billing administrator's voice crackled, tight with discomfort. "I'm sorry, but the black card... it declined."
The phone slipped a fraction in my sweaty grip. "That's impossible. Run it again."
"I have. Three times."
I didn't wait. I marched straight to Dylan’s study, shoving the heavy oak doors open. He sat behind his mahogany desk, casually swirling a glass of amber whiskey. He didn't look surprised.
"My card," I demanded, the heat in my chest warring with the ice in my veins. "You cut off my mother's treatment."
Dylan took a slow sip, his gaze mapping the frantic rise and fall of my chest. "I paused it. A necessary recalibration." He slid a pristine, legal document across the polished wood. "Your mother's care is a privilege, Clare. One that is now contingent on your good behavior. No more outbursts. No more attacking Sarah."
I stared at the paper. It was a transfer of rights. "You want my music royalties? The songs I wrote?"
"I want compliance," he corrected softly, tapping a heavy gold pen against the contract. "Sign it, and the hospital gets their wire transfer."
My stomach turned violently. I picked up the pen, the metal cold and heavy, and scrawled my name. I was selling my soul, piece by piece, to keep my mother breathing.
That night, sleep was a ghost. The penthouse was suffocatingly dark. I wrapped a cashmere shawl over my swelling belly and slipped into the cavernous library, seeking the comfort of old paper and shadows. I curled into the velvet alcove behind the towering bookshelves, resting my head against the cool mahogany.
Minutes later, the heavy double doors clicked open. A slice of yellow hallway light pierced the gloom.
"I'm sick of playing house with her, Dylan," Sarah's voice hissed, the sugary facade entirely stripped away. "She looks at me like I'm the intruder."
My breath caught in my throat. I pressed my hand over my mouth, shrinking deeper into the velvet.
Dylan’s low, rhythmic footsteps approached the center of the room. The clink of a glass. "Patience, Sarah. We're almost at the finish line."
"It's been months! Why did you even have to marry her?"
The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush bone. When Dylan finally spoke, the velvet threat in his voice was gone, replaced by a chilling, hollow pragmatism.
"I only married her to make old man Martin suffer. To watch his precious daughter pay for what he did to my family." A match struck, the brief flare illuminating the harsh angles of his face through the gap in the books. "Once the baby is born, we'll take custody. I'll have my lawyers declare her mentally unfit—she's already providing plenty of evidence of instability. Then, we toss her out."
Ice flooded my veins. The air in my lungs crystallized.
"And then?" Sarah murmured, her voice breathless with anticipation.
"Then, it's just us."
From my hiding place, I watched Dylan pull Sarah against his chest. His hand, the same hand that wore my wedding band, tangled in her hair as he brought his mouth down on hers.
A silent, violent sob tore through my chest. My knees gave out, and I slid down the wall, my hands wrapping protectively around my unborn child. The gilded cage wasn't just a prison. It was an execution block. And my time was running out.
You may also like
