Chapter Seven - Suzy
I wake to sunlight so clean it feels fake—soaked silk sheets, the scent of lemon polish and something faintly floral on the air.
For one dizzy moment, I could almost believe I’ve been rescued.
The mattress is the softest thing I’ve ever felt, the pillows downy, the room a high-ceilinged haven of quiet opulence.
There are no sirens, no shouting, no cold stinging concrete.
I close my eyes and let myself float on that hope for a single heartbeat.
Then I see the door. Heavy, old, locked tight. The windows are sealed, curtains drawn back just far enough for sunlight but not for freedom. Through a panel of frosted glass, I glimpse a silhouette—tall, unmoving. Security, not sanctuary. The cage has changed, but it’s still a cage.
My heart thunders, a hollow bird in my chest, and every muscle tenses for a fight that’s already lost.
I scan the room for exits: bathroom, window, maybe a vent I could squeeze through. There’s nothing. Just luxury draped over lockdown. I dig my fingers into the sheets, will myself not to panic, not to cry, not to show the crack that Leon is surely waiting for.
Two women enter, neither familiar. Their uniforms are black, their faces blank, every movement efficient and unhurried. They don’t ask before touching me—pulling back the sheets, ushering me to the en suite, hands on my arms and shoulders like I’m a child or a doll.
I try to jerk away, but they hold me steady with practiced strength. They wash my hair with lavender-scented water, shape my brows, scrub every trace of yesterday’s mascara from beneath my eyes.
My skin feels raw, not just from the cuffs but from the forced intimacy, the way they handle me as if prepping a prize animal for auction.
The bath is warm, the towels plush. I wish I could enjoy it—wish I could trick myself into thinking I’m a guest here, not inventory.
Every touch is too impersonal, every brush of a comb a reminder that my choices are gone. I bite my lip, taste blood, and keep my eyes fixed on the ceiling.
When I’m clean and polished, they dress me. Black again—always black. A dress that fits like it was made for me, smooth and liquid, cool against skin that still stings from plastic cuffs.
One of them steps back to admire the effect, the other fastening shoes with steady hands.
There’s no softness in their voices, no accidental kindness.
They move me through each step with silent determination, and I realize with a chill that this isn’t the first time they’ve done this. Maybe not even the hundredth.
The last step is a necklace: black beads, cold as ice, that close tight around my throat.
It’s heavier than it looks, the clasp biting, the length just short enough to remind me it’s there with every swallow.
I try to unfasten it—my fingers fumbling over the tiny lock, nails scraping the metal—but it doesn’t budge.
“What is this?” I whisper. My voice is too thin, too lost for my own liking. The older woman shakes her head, her eyes flicking away.
“Don’t,” she says softly. That’s all. Just “don’t.” As if anything more would cost her.
I want to rip it off, to throw something, to scream. Instead, I sit on the edge of the bed, hands tight in my lap, swallowing the burn behind my eyes. I can’t give them tears. Not here, not now.
The door opens with a hiss of hydraulics. Leon stands in the threshold—clean-shaven, immaculate, his presence a spear in the plush hush. His eyes find me, and for a moment I see something flicker: regret, maybe, or just calculation. He doesn’t look away from the necklace.
“You’re coming with me tonight,” he says, voice low and flat. “Don’t test me.” It’s not a threat. It’s a guarantee. He waits until I nod—just once, small and tight—then steps aside as the women retreat.
After he’s gone, a woman with a sharper voice enters—mid-forties, crisp lab coat, hands too smooth to be anything but a professional fixer.
She explains, in a tone reserved for paperwork and warnings: “The necklace contains a micro-dose injector. If you try to run, or tamper with the lock, or if your vitals spike past a certain threshold”—she lifts a tablet, shows a bland medical diagram—“the mechanism triggers. Fast-acting. Untraceable. We’d prefer not to use it, but we will. ”
I stare at her, fury boiling up, hot and helpless.
“You’re animals,” I say, but my voice cracks.
I’m not sure who I’m talking to anymore—her, Leon, my father, the whole sick game.
She only shrugs, checks her watch, and leaves me with nothing but the echo of my own heartbeat and the weight of the collar.
Alone again, I stare at my reflection in the window—hair glossy, lips tinted, every part of me manicured and managed. I look like a woman ready to step onto a stage, not a bargaining chip.
But that’s what I am now: a hostage dressed up for ransom. A message in a silk envelope, waiting to be delivered. They’ve taken everything—my choices, my dignity, my chance to fight—and replaced it with poison I can’t even see.
I won’t cry. I refuse. As the light fades and the shadows deepen in the corners of my gilded cage, I realize the truth. I’ve never felt less like myself. I’m being prepared for someone else’s war, someone else’s victory.
Tonight, I’ll play their part. I’ll wear their dress, walk at Leon’s side, let my father and his enemies decide my value.
Inside, beneath the silk and steel and poison, I promise myself this: the minute I find the weak point—the crack in the lock, the split in Leon’s armor, the moment my father looks away—I’ll be ready.
I’ll make them regret thinking I could ever be owned.
***
I’m dressed like a weapon—sharp black silk, smoky eyes, lips painted the color of bruised cherries.
The necklace sits heavy on my throat, the pressure constant, impossible to forget.
The driver opens the door, and I step out into a world that smells like power and champagne, every surface polished until it blinds.
The gala sprawls behind glass walls—one of those palaces of excess where even the waiters wear thousand-euro smiles and no one ever says what they really mean.
Leon stays close, a shadow draped in bespoke wool and midnight intent. His hand never quite touches, but the warning is always there, a promise in the tension between us. Cameras flash as we move through the crowd—tabloid hounds, security men, business rivals sniffing for blood.
I keep my chin high, smile for no one, and let the cold steel of my anger hold my posture upright.
All around me, laughter peals and crystal clinks, the scent of gardenia and sweat and nerves hanging heavy as smoke.
Every eye is on us. I see myself reflected in every surface—hostage in a dress, a black collar winking with threat. I want to scream. Instead, I become what they expect: beautiful, inscrutable, impossible to read.
Then I see him.
My father, Marcus White stands with his jaw set in that stubborn line I know better than my own. His suit is immaculate, but his eyes are shadowed, flicking from my face to the collar and back again.
For a heartbeat, I’m a child again, desperate for his approval, for the illusion that he could fix this. I want to run to him. I want to rage and sob and make him see me—not just as a bargaining chip or disappointment, but as a daughter who learned every lesson he never meant to teach.
The necklace presses its warning against my skin. I can’t risk it. I can only stand there, mouth dry, heart pounding, as Leon brings me to his side.
They greet each other in low, formal tones, the kind of conversation that could pass for polite if you weren’t listening for the knives under the velvet.
“You know the terms,” Leon murmurs, voice pitched so I can only catch fragments—“untouched… return… consequences.”
Dad’s face drains, then hardens. He looks at me, through me, as if trying to see the cost in the set of my shoulders. I see the exact moment he decides what I’m worth tonight.
Leon’s hand rests at my arm; it’s gentle, but I know better. I’m leashed, and he holds the other end. Every glance, every word, is a negotiation. Around us, the party spins on, oblivious.
It goes on forever. Every conversation is a performance, every introduction a test. I meet the gaze of the city’s vultures—old men with predator’s smiles, women weighed down in diamonds—and I refuse to look away.
They want to see me flinch. I won’t. I let the humiliation burn, forging it into armor. I can feel it, the knowledge passing between them: that’s her, the White girl, the one with the leash.
The weight of that necklace is unbearable. I watch my father retreat into conversation, his eyes darting toward me and away, never once softening. I wonder if he even wants me back—or just wants not to lose.
When it’s finally over, Leon’s hand at my elbow guides me out. The photographers snap their last shots; the cold night air stings my skin, washing away the perfume and noise but leaving the shame.
The car is silent, the drive back endless. Every turn of the wheel winds the necklace tighter around my throat.
Inside the house, something in me finally snaps. The doors aren’t even closed before I whirl on him, the words spilling out before I can stop them.
“You paraded me like an animal!” My voice shakes with rage. “Do you even care what you’re doing? I was your leverage. Your hostage. You put me on display for my father like I was property!”
Leon closes the door, his face a mask. “It was necessary.”
“Necessary?” I spit the word. “You humiliated me. You made me into a threat and a warning and a fucking prize. I’m not a thing you can trade for your brother.”
He doesn’t blink, his gaze flint and calculation. “Your father understands the stakes now. He’s not going to stall, or bluff. This was the only way to make sure he listened.”
I shove him, both hands on his chest. He barely moves, but the shock of the contact crackles between us—static and fire, too close, too charged.
“You think this is about tactics? You think I’m just a message in a dress?” My voice cracks, throat raw. “I’m not your pawn.”
He catches my wrists before I can hit him again, his grip bruising but careful. He yanks me close, so close I can feel the heat of his breath, the tension coiled in every muscle.
“You’re not a pawn,” he grits out. “You’re a bomb. I can’t turn my back on you for a second.”
I twist, struggling, fury and shame and something hot and bright sparking under my skin. For one dizzy second, our faces are so close I can feel the brush of his lips, the heat of his pulse, the air between us thick enough to drown in.
My anger flares, and his matches it—hunger and hate and desperate, ragged want twisting together until neither of us is sure which way is up.
I want to kiss him and scream at him, want to break free and crash back into him at the same time. My breath hitches; his gaze falls to my mouth. I see the moment he almost gives in, the fracture in his composure.
But I tear myself away, breaking his hold, stumbling back. My chest heaves; my cheeks burn.
We stare at each other, both of us wild, rattled, stunned by how close we came to crossing that impossible line. For a second, I see something vulnerable in his eyes—a question, maybe, or regret.
Then the moment snaps. I turn away, pressing a hand to my collar, choking back everything I can’t say.