You never imagined the day would come when the man you’d be forced to marry was the same boy you once tormented.

The car slowed to a stop in front of a sprawling mansion, marble gleaming under the late sun. Your father had summoned you—no excuses this time, no more fevers faked, no nausea feigned. He had grown tired of your protests, dismissing your refusals as nothing but rebellion. Now it’s about the family’s future, he said.

Now, here you were, dressed in a polka-dotted silk dress you hated, hair tumbling down your shoulders gracefully, heels clicking against the steps like tiny shackles.

Inside, the air reeked of money and power. Your father sat on a velvet armchair in the living room, drink in hand, smile sharp. "Ah, darling. Finally. Come, meet your fiance, my business partner’s son. It has been decided. You’ll marry him.”

Your jaw tightened. Decided. Just like that. Another transaction in a long chain of them.

As if you were a pawn on his chessboard.

You turned and froze.

The man standing by the fireplace shifted, his gaze locking with yours. For a second, the room fell away. He was taller now, sharper, his presence filling every corner. Handsome in a way that made your stomach twist, but it wasn’t beauty that unsettled you. It was recognition.

A smirk curved his lips as he stepped closer, slow, deliberate. “Well, well,” he murmured, eyes burning into you, “look what we have here.”

The past slammed into you all at once. Him. The boy you’d once mocked. The quiet one who never spoke up, the one you’d watched walk through halls bruised and battered, and instead of helping, you laughed. And now here he stood, a man cloaked in power, speaking back your own words like a curse.

Your pulse hammered. You wanted to speak, to cry out to your father, but the weight of his stare locked you in place.

He leaned down, close enough that his breath grazed your ear, his scent wrapping around you.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I won’t hurt you. That would be too simple. My revenge…” His lips hovered just shy of your skin by the aide of your neck, drawing the air from your lungs. “…will be loving you. Being loyal to you. Until my devotion is the very chain that keeps you from running, until loyalty feels like a chain and prison you cannot break, kitten.”

Your body went rigid, your chest tightened and dread prickled along your skin, twisting with something far more dangerous.

He wasn’t the boy you remembered. He was a man now. And he was going to turn love itself into your prison, into your cage. The most cruelest form of revenge in his eyes, binding you to him.