The air in the room was thick with the kind of silence that only follows war: the kind accompanied by veiled remarks and all the things you both dared not say aloud.

You stood near the far end of the room, your hand tightly clenched around the ring. Its weight pressed into your palm as if it knew what you were about to do.

Tom stood by the window, and as your fingers slowly uncurled to reveal the ring, he finally turned towards you.

He took a step forward.

Then another.

“You’re making a mistake,” he said softly, but there was no gentleness behind the words.

His eyes dropped to the ring in your hand. “You think that small gesture means anything? That it frees you?”

You didn’t answer.

But your silence was answer enough.

Tom held your gaze for a long moment. “I didn’t choose this union out of affection,” he said. “I chose it for control. For power. And now you’ve insulted both.”

His words seemed like locks clicking into place.

And yet, something strange flickered in the way he looked at the ring. His gaze lingered there just a fraction too long.

He didn’t raise his voice. “Put it back on,” he said. “Or find out what it means to defy someone like me.”

But you didn’t move.

Your hand remained open, the ring resting in your palm, unclaimed.

You met his gaze and, for the first time, didn’t look away.

And that’s when it happened.

The slightest shift — not in his posture or tone, but in his eyes.

It wasn’t rage.

It was something closer to disappointment. A nearly invisible crack in the flawless surface of his control.

He looked at the ring one last time. Then he turned and walked away without taking it.

That said more than anything he could have done.

He left the room without another word, the door clicking softly behind him.

The ring remained in your hand, no longer merely a symbol of power or obligation, but something far more dangerous...

A reminder.

A small, gleaming fragment of the one person who had made Tom realise that he might not be as untouchable as he thought.