Chapter 1 #3
My nostrils flared as I tore myself out of his grip and spun to face him.
“I am not a Doll,” I snapped, the word scraping on old scars.
My pulse hammered, loud in my ears. I had spent too much of my life being hollowed out, stripped of name and will and worth, turned into something ornamental and quiet.
Then I spent two fucking years with Halden being beaten into the opposite.
Both were shriveled versions of who I actually wanted to be.
“I’ve been conditioned to have that part of me ripped away,” I continued, my voice tight. “So no. You’re not understood.”
He stepped closer. “I assumed as much.” From the inside of his jacket, he pulled something small and white, round enough to disappear between his fingers. My stomach twisted. “This will help,” he said.
I stared at it. “A pill?”
“You’ll remain lucid, still be able to take in everything I need you to see,” he replied calmly, “but you’ll be more relaxed. The dinner will pass quicker.”
Something cold and furious unfurled inside my chest. “Absolutely not,” I breathed. “You want to drug me?”
“It’s an option.” He slipped it back into his pocket as if it meant nothing at all. “Play docile or be docile, Arden. I don’t care how you manage it, only that it’s done. If you ruin this—”
“You’ll kill Creed,” I cut in, my jaw clenched so hard it ached. “I get it.”
His gaze lingered on me for a moment, unreadable. Then he moved past me. “Let’s go.”
I hurried after him as he pressed a concealed button for an elevator.
The doors slid shut, the descent swift and silent, and then we were spilling out onto a crowded sidewalk as if the building had simply exhaled us into the city.
Manhattan hit me all at once. Sound, motion, light.
Too much after the hush of the parlor. My breath caught, a shiver racing through me just as Alexander closed his hand around my wrist and steered me toward a waiting limo.
One moment I was blinking against the city, the next I was being folded into leather and tinted glass, placed neatly into the seat across from him.
The door shut. The world dulled. The limo slid into traffic with practiced ease.
And I’d never felt emptier.
Alexander poured himself a fresh glass of brandy as if nothing had changed. The familiar amber caught the light, and the association landed hard in my gut. Viktor’s drink. Of course it was. I slouched back into the seat, its luxury doing nothing to soften the tightness in my chest.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“This?” He lifted his glass slightly, one brow arching as the city lights raced across his face.
The gold chain at his throat caught and released the glow with each passing streetlamp, his arm draped along the back of the seat.
“I have no intention of enduring a dinner with Buyers without alcohol.” He tipped his chin toward the bottle of brandy. “Can I make you a glass?”
I stared at him, the hum of the engine vibrating through the floor.
“Yes,” I said, because liquid courage felt like the least dangerous thing in that moment.
“But that isn’t what I was asking, and you know it.
You didn’t have to make marriage part of any of this.
You know that holding Creed over my head is enough to make me compliant, so why the ring? ”
He poured me a glass and passed it over.
Our fingers brushed, brief and accidental, and I recoiled, lifting the drink to my mouth and taking a cautious sip.
Strangely enough, Alexander seemed to recoil too.
Frowning, the burn of the brandy flared across my tongue.
It had been a long time since I’d tasted hard liquor, but the sting was familiar.
There was something defiant in letting the taste belong to me too.
I wondered if that was why he was drinking it.
“The specifics of the marriage won’t make any sense to you until I’ve shown you what I need to,” he said cryptically.
“Creed,” I pushed, changing directions in an attempt to get something out of him I could use. “Why do you have the mark? Who are you to Viktor?”
He watched me for a long moment. “Those are two very different questions,” he said, “with two very long answers.”
“But you were his, weren’t you?”
“Yes.” That was all he offered. His gaze stayed on me, heavy and unblinking, and for the first time since I’d met him, he looked unsettled.
“And?” I pressed.
“And you think sharing a past with the same monster makes us kin,” he said sharply. “That it gives us something to bond over.”
My stomach twisted. “I just want to understand what this is.” I gestured between us, at the space, the ring, the glass in my hand, all of it.
“This is a transaction,” he said flatly. “I bought you. Start acting like it.”
My brow furrowed. “No.”
“A fan of that word, aren’t you?” he muttered, annoyed. “I thought for sure it would’ve been erased from your vocabulary.”
I gripped my glass. “This is you then? That fake charming asshole from before was just an act?”
“I had to start somewhere. Usually it works on people.” He shrugged and swiveled the liquor in his glass. “But you made it clear quickly that it wouldn’t so I adjusted.”
“As in this too isn’t you?”
“As in why do you care who I really am, Arden?” he wondered. “Would it really change anything? I’m not going to release Creed.”
I bit down on my tongue. He had a point.
I guess it’d just always been my job to know the men surrounding me.
Buyers. Creed. It didn’t make a difference.
They all shaped and molded me, and I found my comfort in at least knowing exactly who I was dealing with at all times.
I had to force the next words. I remember how I trembled in my seat, confused and angry, watching him watch me. “Give me something,” I said.
“Why?” he pushed.
“Because I need it.” I flexed my fingers around the glass. “Because part of me is holding out hope that I’m not sitting across from another hell.”
Alexander ran his hand over his mouth, dropping his gaze to his brandy.
Then he shook his head and drained his drink in one swallow.
“I can’t do that,” he managed before he knocked twice on the divider.
The limo slowed, coming to a smooth stop.
“We’re here,” he said. “Last chance for the pill. Once we step out of this car, you don’t get to fight me anymore. ”
I downed the rest of the brandy and shoved past him onto the sidewalk.
The world tilted, just slightly, and I stumbled with a quiet grunt.
Despite his adamant need to refrain from touching me, he caught me instantly, his arm locking around me with practiced ease, steering me forward as if I’d meant for it to happen.
My stomach tightened when his hand slid lower, but I was also acutely aware of how performative it was.
I could feel just how tense every muscle in his arm was, the mere act of holding me stressing him out in a very similar way to my own anxiety for the situation.
A Buyer wouldn’t act like that, but an asset would, a product.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. You think sharing a past with the same monster makes us kin.
Maybe some part of me did. I couldn’t help it.
I didn’t want to trust him, and I didn’t fully, but I felt a certain piece of myself thaw just slightly.
“I mean it, Arden,” he murmured, leaning in as he guided me toward the revolving door where a doorman waited. “I’ll do my best to stay restrained, but they expect ownership from me. I’ll have to touch you until we’re back at the car. Don’t leave my side at any point.”
I nodded. I…believed him. That part was a necessary act, and at least for now, I was willing to play the part to get my answers.
Inside, everything gleamed brightly, marble veined with gold stretching out beneath our feet.
Chandeliers spilled warm light across polished stone, and I caught fractured pieces of myself in every reflective surface as we moved.
Alexander’s hand settled at the small of my back, firm and unmistakably guiding now.
Each step I took was calibrated to his, my heels tapping softly against floors that had likely cost more than Viktor’s entire estate.
Men in tailored suits passed us, some alone, some with women at their sides who didn’t look at the art or the space or each other.
They stared straight ahead, faces smooth and vacant, jewelry catching the light at their throats and wrists like decorative restraints.
Dolls.
Faint horror trickled down my spine. There were…Why were there so many of them? Surely Viktor’s operation couldn’t be producing Dolls that quickly?
We moved through layers of indulgence, each corridor more excessive than the last. A private dining hall waited at the end, its doors open.
A single long table dominated the space, dark wood polished until it gleamed, positioned beneath a massive oil painting that loomed across the far wall.
The men seated there were unmistakable. Buyers.
I knew it by the way they held themselves.
Conversation stopped as we entered. Their attention slid over me without shame, lingering and slow.
Some looked curious, others openly interested, and a few barely looked at all, their indifference somehow worse, like I was one more interchangeable body.
I could feel myself shrinking under it, instinct screaming for cover where none existed.
Alexander didn’t pull out a chair for me.
He sat first, then caught me and dragged me down onto his lap, knocking the breath from my lungs.
His arm locked around my waist, firm and unyielding.
I tensed, ready to fight, but he leaned close.
“Doll,” he said quietly, and I ground my teeth, nostrils flaring.