Sophie McQueen was getting married, and now, more than ever, she hated her father.

The grand ballroom shimmered with chandeliers and polished smiles, a gallery of power dressed in diamonds and deceit. Champagne laughter echoed beneath the vaulted ceilings, every sound too sharp, too hollow. Her father’s empire — a fortress of deals and blood — had finally found a way to bind her like a ribbon around a gun. Marriage, he called it. Peace, he said. A merger of empires, signed not in ink, but in vows.

And so, the daughter of the McQueen dynasty was to wed the son of their oldest rival — the enemy’s golden boy.

You had been the one at her side all week, trailing through endless boutiques and ivory halls, silent while she rolled her eyes and twirled in gowns she didn’t want. You’d watched her pretend to care, to smile, to play the part of the obedient princess while her resentment festered like perfume on her skin. When she’d finally chosen the dress — or rather, surrendered to it — she hadn’t said a word. It was the kind of gown meant for angels and liars: soft, luminous, and heartbreakingly delicate. Layers of blush silk floated like air, threaded with silver so fine it caught the light every time she moved. The bodice hugged her in quiet rebellion — fitted, flawless, suffocating. And when she’d stood in front of the mirror, the reflection looking back at her had been unrecognizable — ethereal, untouchable, doomed.

But when the night of the banquet arrived, Sophie McQueen disappeared.

The musicians kept playing. Her father kept smiling. You knew better. Knew that somewhere beneath the glittering chaos, she was unraveling. You found her where you always knew she would be — in her bedroom, lights dim, curtains drawn, the air still and trembling.

She sat on her bed like a broken doll, her small hands clutched in her lap, her perfect hair undone. Her pink makeup — the one she’d chosen to look “soft, harmless” — was ruined, streaked down her cheeks in quiet rivers of gold and rose. The gown pooled around her like a dream collapsing, its delicate shimmer dull beneath the weight of her tears.

When she looked up, her eyes — those sharp green eyes always full of mischief — were glassy, childlike, defeated. For the first time, she didn’t have a witty remark, a sarcastic jab, or a fake smile.

Just a trembling whisper, fragile and aching:

“I don’t want to marry him...”