Chapter 15
The Bride
H unger claws at my insides like a living thing, scraping against my ribs from within. My stomach no longer growls—it’s moved beyond that to a silent, hollow ache that pulses with each heartbeat.
The metal bars pressed against my back have gone from cold to warm to cold again as night became day became night. Three days. Seventy-two hours of captivity marked by bathroom breaks, daily showers, and the slow-building certainty that I will not die here.
Not in this cage. Not at his hands.
I shift on the thin blanket he gave me yesterday, the only barrier between my naked body and the carpeted floor. The fabric has absorbed my sweat, my tears, and probably part of my soul.
The stench of confinement clings to my skin like mildew—like something inside me has begun to rot in this cage, and I’m still breathing through it.
Every inhale tastes faintly of stale air and metal, and it coats my tongue until I can’t remember what clean air feels like. A body is just a vessel. Mine is becoming a mausoleum.
Every muscle aches from curling on myself to conserve heat, every joint stiff from too many hours in the same narrow space. The blanket holds the shape of my body like an accusation, a press ed flower rotting in its frame.
Yesterday, I ate two granola bars after inspecting the wrappers for tampering—pressing along the seams, examining the glue, checking for needle marks. I still remember how badly my hands shook as I tore them open.
The sweetness hit my tongue like a drug, and I had to force myself to eat slowly, to savor what might be my only meal for another day. I won’t beg for more. I refuse to give him that power.
Jack sits in the chair by the window, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Smoke curls around his face like a living veil, obscuring his features in a gray haze. The bottle beside him is almost empty, and his movements have the loose, unpredictable quality of a man several drinks in.
He mutters to himself occasionally—fragments about consequences and deserving this —whatever this is. His wedding ring catches the light when he lifts the bottle to his lips. We’re married. The thought still feels foreign, impossible.
And if I’m completely honest, scary in a bad way.
“My dad used to drink like that,” I say, breaking the silence between us. My voice sounds strange after hours without use—rough, but steadier than I expected. “He’d go through a bottle a night after my mother died.”
“Don’t engage unless necessary,” my father’s voice whispers in my memory. “Observe first. Words give away leverage.”
He taught me that silence is a form of control. If you want to understand someone, watch them when they think no one’s looking. Watch long enough, and patterns emerge. Weaknesses reveal themselves.
Jack’s eyes flick toward me, narrowing slightly. “Don’t remember asking about your daddy issues,” he says, but there’s something in his tone—a flicker of interest beneath the contempt.
I mentally catalog the data point. Subject responds to family references. Potential emotional trigger.
“Just making conversation,” I shrug, careful to keep my posture relaxed despite the ache in my shoulders. “Three days is a long time to sit with nothing to do.”
He takes another long drag of his cigarette, exhaling smoke in my direction. “You weren’t so chatty yesterday. Or the day before.” His eyes track over my body, clinical rather than lustful. Assessing.
“I was still processing being kidnapped and caged like an animal then,” I reply, keeping my tone even. “Today I’m bored.”
Jack laughs, a sharp, bitter sound with no humor in it. “Bored,” he repeats. He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “You’re a strange fucking woman, Eve.”
I tilt my head slightly. “And you’re a strange fucking captor. Most kidnappers have demands. Ransom. Sexual gratification.” I pause, watching him carefully. “What do you want from me, Jack?”
“Justice,” he says automatically, too quickly. A rehearsed answer that’s most definitely not the whole truth.
I file this away. “For what?” I push, gently but persistently.
His jaw tightens, a muscle jumping beneath the stubble. “You know for what.”
“Ruby,” I say softly. Another data point; his tension spikes when his sister is mentioned. “I didn’t kill her, Jack.”
“You let her die.” The bottle clanks against the wood as he sets it down too hard. “You knew what was happening. What Valentine was planning. And you did nothing.”
I remain silent for a moment, letting his accusation hang in the air between us. His breathing has quickened, and the rhythm of his smoking has accelerated. He draws harder, holds the smoke longer, like he’s keeping the words he wants to spit from crossing the bars between us.
Controlled anger.
“So this is punishment,” I observe, gesturing at the cage with one hand. “Not justice. There’s a difference.”
Jack stands abruptly, crossing to the cage in three long strides. He crouches down, bringing his face level with mine, separated only by the metal bars. “What’s the difference, Dr. Death?” he asks, voice dangerously soft. “Educate me.”
I don’t flinch, though every instinct screams to back away from the predator in front of me. “Justice restores balance,” I explain, meeting his gaze steadily. “Punishment is about power. About mak ing yourself feel better.”
A flash of something crosses his face—uncertainty, or perhaps recognition. “And what makes you think I want to feel better?”
Excellent question. The subject demonstrates self-awareness. More complex than the initial assessment.
It’s the first time I’ve really seen him without a mask—metaphorically speaking, of course. There’s no threat in his voice, no performance—only something raw and unguarded that slips through before he can catch it.
“Because you’re drinking yourself into oblivion every day,” I point out. “Because you’re chain-smoking even though I’ve seen the nicotine patches in your bathroom cabinet. Alcohol and nicotine are two of the most common vices known to soothe people.”
His eyes widen slightly as though he’s surprised I’ve noticed that much. Or maybe it’s because I’ve dared to voice it, to pull something private into the open where he can’t hide behind smoke and liquor.
The silence stretches between us, taut as piano wire, vibrating with all the things he’ll never admit out loud. I can almost hear them, those words rotting at the back of his throat, waiting for something sharp enough to cut them loose.
“Did you know there’s an urban myth that common shop-bought cigarettes have the same diameter as the average female nipple?
” I ask, which gets his attention. “Some people speculate it’s a clever ruse by the cigarette companies.
A way to make every drag a ghost of suckling.
Triggering the same comfort response we learned at our mother’s breast.”
I let the words linger, watching his gaze drop to my breasts and catch there, like something in him has snagged on the image. His breathing shifts—not louder, but slower, heavier. As if he’s aware I’m watching the way he looks at me.
“Maybe it’s just a myth. But your vices all start with your mouth, Jack. You’ve trained yourself to crave things you can put to your lips. Nicotine, alcohol, maybe even people. It’s not just the hit you’re after. It’s the way it soothes something in you… even if it never lasts.”
His mouth curves, but it’s not a smile—it’s t he kind of expression that warns you not to mistake amusement for softness. “Careful, Little Bride,” he says, voice low. “You keep talking like that, I might have to prove how many other ways this mouth can keep itself busy.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask softly, changing tactics. “I’m a good listener.”
He blinks, and for just a second, I glimpse the broken man beneath the monster—the grieving brother, the lost soul. Then the mask slips back into place, and he’s standing, moving away from the cage.
“Nice try,” he says, voice hardening again. “But I’m not going to sit here and pour my heart out to you like we’re at a fucking slumber party.”
But he already has, just a little. And now I know, Jack Knight is still in the clutches of grief. Deep, catastrophic grief. The kind that alcohol can’t touch, that revenge can’t fill. He didn’t marry me just to punish me. He did it because an enemy in a cage is better than solitude.
I watch him return to his chair, to his bottle and his cigarettes. To his slow self-destruction. The room watches us like a silent confessor while shadows crawl slowly along the walls. This house isn’t haunted by ghosts—it’s haunted by us.
Somewhere beneath my hunger and my fear, a cold certainty forms, and a plan takes shape. I will be the wife he never expected. I will be the one person who sees through his rage to the broken man beneath.
And when he finally trusts me—when he believes he’s broken me—I will destroy him with the same methodical precision my father taught me to use in dissecting the human mind.
Jack thinks he’s the captor and I’m the captive. But cages work both ways. And I’ve just begun my study of the creature on the other side of these bars.
I let ten minutes pass in silence, watching Jack return to his brooding. I’m so exhausted I almost fall asleep while I watch him lower his guard. He’s not the only one who has barely been sleeping.
At first, it was the fear of what he’d do to me that kept me awake. But after he fell asleep while smoking, I’ve been forcing myself to stay awake when he passes out. Just in case.
“So what now, Dr. Death?” he drawls. “No longer bored?”
I shrug. “I am, but you don’t seem like you wan t to talk.”
“You could tell me about your tattoo,” he says. He points at the ink wrapped around my upper right thigh, making me look down at the black garter I love so much.
It’s both feminine and gothic in its design. The lace is finely detailed, inked with the illusion of layered texture, scalloped edges, mesh threading, and shadowed depth.
At the front, centered over the strongest part of the muscle, is a large black satin bow with its tails curling down my skin to mid-thigh. Tiny inked beads and charms dangle beneath the lace, delicate but exact. The tattoo is both decorative and coverage.
Tilting my head to the side, I ask, “Will you tell me about yours?”
From what I’ve seen, Jack has only one tattoo.
A pumpkin that lives on his left arm, specifically on his deltoid.
It’s gothic, jagged, orange, and mean-looking.
When I first noticed it, I almost scoffed out loud.
But it’s kind of growing on me. Wait… no.
I mean that it suits him. That’s what I mean.
“Not a fucking chance,” he scoffs.
I nod, expecting as much.
Silence stretches between us again, but there’s something calm about it. It’s not as heavy as before, and there’s no menace. It just is. That must mean his guard is lowering, the liquor’s doing its work. Time to push him some more.