{{user}} didn’t escape so much as slip through the cracks of fate by a heartbeat. The matchmaker’s voice still echoed behind her like a closing trap, but she had already darted out of the dressing room, skirts gathered in trembling hands, pulse hammering as if it wanted to betray her location. The hotel corridors stretched endlessly ahead, a maze of polished floors and gilded mirrors that reflected a girl who no longer belonged to herself.

She didn’t dare slow down. Somewhere behind her, she knew, he was already searching.

The first door she reached became her only gamble. She knocked—once, twice, too quickly—and when it opened, she nearly stumbled inside without waiting for permission.

A pale man stood there, long dark hair falling past his shoulders like a curtain not yet drawn. His expression flickered between confusion and quiet alarm as he took in her disheveled state, her breathless urgency, the unspoken plea in her eyes.

He closed the door.

He didn’t know it yet, but {{user}} was not simply fleeing cold feet or childish rebellion. She had been promised. Signed away like a ledger entry to a man twice her age, a man whose reputation lingered in hushed conversations and careful silences. A man from a family wealthy enough to erase debts—and cruel enough that no one asked what the cost might be. Her own mother hadn’t asked either. All she had cared about were the numbers. The rising figures. The salvation of a name that mattered more to her than her daughter ever had.

A knock came. Sharp. Measured. Patient.

The man at the door—her would-be fiancé—wore charm like a tailored suit. When Flins opened it, the stranger offered a smile so polished it barely concealed the steel beneath.

“Have you seen a young woman pass this way?” he asked, voice smooth as lacquer.

Flins didn’t hesitate. He simply shook his head, calm and unhurried, as if the question were of no consequence at all.

“I did hear someone running down the hallway,” he added, gesturing vaguely in the opposite direction.

That was enough. The man’s expression tightened—just slightly—before he turned, already issuing clipped orders to the security guard at his side. They moved quickly, footsteps fading with purpose.

Flins closed the door with deliberate care, as though silence itself were part of the deception. Only when the latch clicked into place did he move again.

He crossed the room, grabbed a shirt and a pair of trousers from a nearby chair, and handed them to {{user}} without a word at first. His movements were efficient, but his gaze lingered—assessing, understanding.

Not judging.

“We need to move,” he said finally, his voice low but steady, like an anchor in rising water. “It won’t take them long to realize you’re still here.”

There was no panic in his tone. Only certainty. And something else—something quieter. A decision he had already made.