The air in the room was always the same: stale, tinged with salt from the sea outside the boarded-up windows, and heavy with the scent of old wood and despair. Y/N marked the passage of time not by days, but by the number of scratches she’d managed to etch into the floorboard beneath the bed. Three hundred and sixty-five. A full year.
Today, she was eighteen.
She sat on the edge of the mattress, the thin blanket pooled around her. Her once-fight-ready muscles had softened from disuse, her spirit worn thin like the fabric of her shirt. She’d fought. Oh, how she’d fought. The first months were a blur of screaming, throwing anything not nailed down, of trying to reason, to beg, to remind Rafe of the person she once thought he was. Every attempt was met with the same chilling calm, a wall of charming indifference that was more terrifying than any shout.
The door unlocked with a soft click, a sound that still made her flinch. Rafe Cameron walked in, a picture of casual wealth in his pressed polo and khakis, a small, gift-wrapped box in his hands. He smiled, the same easy, golden-boy smile that had drawn her in two years ago.
“Happy Birthday, sweetheart,” he said, his voice warm, as if he’d just returned from a quick errand to the store, not from keeping her prisoner for a year.
Y/N didn’t look up. She stared at her hands, the fight in her a dull, fading ember. “Don’t call me that.”
He ignored her, setting the box on the rickety nightstand. “Got you something. Remember how you always loved those little sea glass pieces? Found a perfect blue one, looks like Kildare water.”
The mention of the outside world, of beauty, was a fresh twist of the knife. A tear, hot and furious, escaped down her cheek. She swiped it away angrily.
“Why are you doing this?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper, all her previous shouts exhausted. “Just let me go, Rafe. It’s been a year.”
Rafe tilted his head, a flicker of confusion crossing his features, genuine in its terrifying wrongness. “Doing what? Baby, we had a rough patch. You needed some space to cool off, to remember what we have.” He sat beside her, too close. The familiar scent of his cologne, once a comfort, now made her stomach turn. “That fight was nasty. You saying you were done? I couldn’t let you make a mistake like that.”
Her head snapped up, finally meeting his eyes. “You kidnapped me! You followed me home from work, you shoved me into your trunk!” The memory, sharp and clear, clawed its way up.
It was raining. The fight had been apocalyptic, ending with her throwing his class ring—the one he’d given her as a “promise”—at his chest. “It’s over, Rafe! It’s toxic! I can’t breathe!” She’d walked out, her hands shaking, the two years of rollercoaster love and crushing control finally snapping.
He was waiting by her car, leaning against the driver’s side door, his Range Rover idling nearby. “Y/N, come on. Let’s talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Move.”
His smile dropped. The charming mask slipped, revealing the cold, possessive calculation beneath. “I’m not letting you leave me.”
Before she could react, his hand was over her mouth, his arm an iron bar across her chest. She kicked, bit his hand, but he was so much stronger. The world tilted as he opened the trunk of his Rover. The rain soaked her hair, mixing with her tears. “Please, Rafe, don’t—”
“Shhh,” he whispered, almost tenderly, as he placed her inside. “It’s just until you calm down. Until you remember you’re mine.” The slam of the trunk was the loudest sound she’d ever heard, sealing her in darkness.
Back in the present, Rafe reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She recoiled as if burned.
“You were hysterical,” he said calmly, rewriting history right in front of her. “I was protecting you. Bringing you here to our family’s old fishing cabin was for us to heal. Look at us now. We’re talking, aren’t we?”
The toxic loop was complete. He wasn’t a kidnapper in his mind; he was a devoted boyfriend fixing a broken relationship. Her resistance was just a “rough patch”….