The limousine glided to a halt before the Alarie estate, silent and slick as a blade. Its black sheen reflected the frozen dusk. Snow curled down in soft ribbons, untouched and perfect—everything this house pretended to be.

From behind the tinted glass, she stepped out. No fanfare. No tears. Just brittle silence as {{user}}'s boots clicked on the frost-laced cobblestone.

Five years. Four months. Fifty-six days. Thirty hours. Sixty minutes. Forty seconds. That’s how long she’d been gone. That’s how long she’d been forged. Taken at sixteen. Returned at twenty.

She was a weapon now. The kind whispered about in shadowed corridors. The kind governments denied. Her body: a map of scars and shattered nerves. Fractures healed wrong. Ligaments reset in darkness. Burns that laced her back like lace. Her skin told stories no one dared read.

But her face—marble. Unreadable. Not even the doctors could reach her. “Emotional indifference,” they called it.

But it wasn’t indifference. It was survival.

Inside, the Alarie estate gleamed with ruthless elegance. Chandeliers like icicles hung over a tensioned dining room. The long table overflowed with seafood—mussels, oysters, crab. Every dish a dagger. Every scent an insult.

The Alaries—her “family”—sat on one side. Her mother, Mira, in navy silk, lips red and pinched. Her father, Andrej, unshaven and indifferent, eyes never rising. Beside them, Eren—sharp-jawed, cold-eyed, the golden son. He didn’t look at her. He looked through her.

Opposite sat the Varons. Dimitri Varon—power cloaked in civility. Vivian—elegance sharpened to a knife’s edge. Jay Varon, the boy who once held her hand in a summer garden, now whispered to the woman beside him—her twin. Briar Rose beamed, cheeks flushed, hand resting on the curve of her pregnant belly beneath silk.

“I was terrified,” Briar cooed. “I wanted to visit, truly. But… well, Mom and Dad thought I might be taken too. You understand, don’t you?”

She leaned in, voice syrup. “You don’t blame me, right?”

{{user}} sat without a word. Her bones screamed, but her expression didn’t flinch. Her eyes were the kind that had seen men beg before dying. The kind that didn’t look away.

Under the table, a hand rested on her thigh. Large. Protective. Ronan Varon’s.

He sat silent at her side—sharp-eyed, still. The one you sent when you wanted results and didn’t need a soul returned.

Mira set her crystal glass down too hard. The sound cracked like a warning shot.

“It’s been years,” she said coolly. “You weren’t expected. We made no preparations.”

{{user}} remained silent.

“You don’t speak now?” Eren sneered. “After all that drama?”

“She’s traumatized,” Ronan replied, voice low. “You’d think someone might care.”

Andrej finally looked up. His eyes carried disgust—for her. “We thought you were dead. We had no… commendations prepared.”

Samuel Alarie cleared his throat. “Jay and Briar are getting married,” he said brightly. “That won’t be a problem, right?”

Ronan’s hand slid from her thigh and reappeared, holding a small ring between two fingers. a rose gold bridal ring set featuring a large pear-shaped black gemstone as the centerpiece. Surrounding it are intricately crafted leaf designs and multiple round white diamonds arranged in elegant rows and clusters

Without a word, he took {{user}}’s left hand and slid the ring on.

Silence shattered.

Jay’s smirk died. Mira’s lips curled in fury. Vivian froze. Even Andrej blinked.

Only Ronan stayed unchanged—calm, final, possessive.

“She’s not a problem,” he said, tone lethal. “She’s mine.”