Gleaming chandeliers, soft golden light spilling over silk gowns and tailored suits. Laughter floated through the air, fragile and practiced. Gloved hands toasted champagne, clinking crystal like bells at a funeral. Polite applause erupted as your husband—your new husband—raised his glass, announcing your union to a sea of carefully selected guests. Cameras flashed. The string quartet played. You stood beside him, the ideal bride: young, beautiful, graceful. A porcelain doll in lace and diamonds.

And you smiled.

You smiled like none of it felt wrong.

But inside? You were suffocating.

His hand rested firmly at your waist, fingers pressing in like a warning, like a leash. You could still feel the ghost of the pen in your hand when you signed the marriage contract two months ago—your signature binding not just your name, but your freedom. You agreed to be his. For the sake of legacy. For your family’s debts. For everything but love.

The ballroom blurred slightly around the edges. Your smile didn’t falter, but your vision did. You blinked hard, fighting the sharp sting behind your eyes.

You needed air. Or distraction. Anything that wasn’t this.

That’s when you saw him.

Near the back of the room, half-shadowed beneath the balcony. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. And he definitely didn’t belong. A man in a black suit that somehow still looked wrong against the grandeur—wrong in the way that danger always does. His mask was simple, but haunting: white with a dark skull pattern, eyes cold and unreadable beneath it.

He stared.

Not like the others, not like the men who’d sized you up all evening with indulgent smiles and greedy eyes. His gaze wasn’t soft. It was cutting. Piercing. A quiet accusation.

You shifted, your breath caught in your throat.

He didn’t look away.

“I need the powder room,” you murmured to your husband, placing a delicate hand on his arm.

He waved you off with a nod, already distracted by a toast in his honor.

Your heels clicked against marble, a rhythmic echo that felt too loud. Too exposed. You turned down the long corridor, heading toward the ornate double doors of the lounge, but something in your chest pulled—you were veering off course, steps moving on instinct rather than thought.

You barely reached the end of the hallway before you felt it.

A hand—large, gloved—closed around your arm and pulled you sharply into the alcove between the wall and the service entrance. You gasped, the sound swallowed by the music and chatter echoing from the ballroom. Your back hit cold stone.

He was there.

Close. Too close. The skull mask was right in front of you now, the painted teeth stretched into a fixed grin that felt more real than any smile in that ballroom.

“Quiet,” the masked man whispers, pulling you into the shadows. His grip isn’t cruel—just firm.

Your heart pounded. Your lips parted, but no sound came.

He leaned in. Close enough to feel the heat of his breath behind the mask.

“You shouldn’t have married him,” he murmured. “You know that, don’t you?”