Chapter 27 Zara
Sixteen sunrises.
That’s how long it’s been since I was put in this room. Counting the sunrises helps me keep track of what day it is and gives me something to do in this fucked up prison.
The routine hasn’t changed.
Food appears on the tray by the door at eight.
Dishes disappear an hour later. Clothes are laundered and returned, folded with military precision.
A small bouquet of fresh flowers shows up every three days, always in a different color scheme.
Lavender and white. Then blush and cream. Most recently, blood-red tulips.
But no one speaks to me. The guard stands silent when I open the door. Sometimes I talk to him, begging for someone to just respond to me. The silence is deafening.
At first, I tried to break the monotony. I worked out. Stretched. Punched the wall once, hard enough that I think I fractured a knuckle. I wanted to feel something other than the crawling quiet.
But it’s harder now. I find myself staring longer. Letting time drift. The days blur if I don’t keep counting. Sixteen sunrises. Thirty-two meals. No voices. No footsteps that stop outside my door unless they’re carrying linens or food.
I wonder if they’re just waiting for me to rot inside this cage alone.
But more than anything, I wonder if Theo is looking for me. His face is still the one I can’t shake. The one thought that pushes its way through the fog when I start to forget what the hell I’m fighting for.
I’m not sure which version of me he’d find if he walked through that door now—the girl with secrets and sass, or the one who’s started whispering to herself just to feel a vibration in the air.
I hate what this place is doing to me.
So I start talking again. Aloud. To the ceiling. To the walls. I narrate my mornings like I’m on a cooking show. I critique the tray’s presentation like a judge in a baking competition. I mock the floral arrangements for being more passive aggressive than the men in this house.
I dare the cameras—if there are any—to show my father how little he’s actually accomplished.
They think they’re wearing me down, but I’ve lived too long under the thumb of Lachlan Kavanagh to be surprised by this kind of warfare.
Silence is just another kind of weapon. And I’ve been through enough to know how to survive it. So I wait. I whisper my plans when the lights are off. I map out the layout of the room in my head.
At one point, I hid a sharpened spoon handle under the mattress, not because I thought it would save me, but because it reminded me that I might be able to fight if I needed to. But that was found the second I returned my tray incomplete.
When I close my eyes, I don’t let myself dream of rescue. That seems too far-fetched.
I dream of the moment the locks fail. The moment I hear screaming down the hall. The moment blood stains the carpet and someone—anyone—says my name.
They want me broken.
But I'm of Kavanagh blood too.
And they’re going to regret forgetting that.
I know something’s different the moment the footsteps pause outside my door longer than usual.
I sit on the edge of the bed, arms crossed, muscles stiff. The door clicks open without a knock, and for the first time in seventeen days, I’m not alone with my own mind.
Two women step inside—one older, silver-streaked hair pinned tightly, the other is the young woman who I see every day, eyes downcast, carrying a garment bag like it holds a corpse. Both wear black. Neither says a word.
I stand as they begin setting up. A portable mirror is wheeled in, a collapsible standing screen unfurled in the corner. The older woman places a thick, cream-colored bag on a hook on the closet door.
I stare at it, already knowing what’s inside.
“I didn’t request anything,” I say, voice dry, brittle. “Not a damn thing. Not a dress. Not a circus.”
No response.
The younger woman unzips the bag and pulls out an ivory dress with lace so delicate it might as well be spiderwebs. She moves like her soul isn’t present, like she’s doing this under threat. Maybe she is.
“Do either of you speak?” I demand, voice sharper now. “Do you have names?”
Still nothing.
They guide me behind the screen, their hands quick, clinical, lifting my arms, removing my clothes like I’m a mannequin. I resist the urge to push them off me. It would be pointless. I’d be facing one of the men waiting outside my door.
The dress slides over my body like water. It fits too well. Tailored without ever having measured me in person.
The older woman nods once at the fit, then steps away to retrieve a small box. She unties the ribbon and lifts the lid like it’s sacred. Inside, nestled in cream velvet, is a ring—yellow gold, sharp with emeralds that catch the light like they’ve drawn blood before.
And beneath it…a note.
My stomach turns as she hands it to me. No envelope. Just folded stationery embossed with Anthony Falco’s name
My hands shake as I unfold it. I don’t read it aloud, don’t dare give the words oxygen. But they burn into my eyes anyway.
Zara,
You don’t deserve white—your virginity was gone long before I ever had the chance to lay claim—but with ivory, I can enjoy the lie.
You’ll wear this for me, like the whore you’ve proven yourself to be. Lace and silk wrapped around a body that was promised to me, even if you spent years selling it to whoever would pay.
You can scream. You can fight. You can bleed. None of it changes where you belong.
At my side. On your knees. In my bed.
The dress is just the beginning.
—A.F.
The note slips from my fingers and flutters to the floor.
The older woman lifts it again, smooths the corner, and sets it neatly on the desk like it doesn’t reek of ownership and threat.
“I’m not marrying him,” I whisper. “Do you hear me? I’m not marrying that psychopath.”
No response.
My chest tightens.
“Do you speak?” My voice cracks. “Do you? Please. Just…say something. Anything. Look at me. I’m still a person.”
The younger woman flinches. But her eyes stay lowered. She doesn’t respond. Neither does the other.
“Say my name,” I whisper. “Please. Just remind me I still exist.”
Silence.
They pack the dress, the ring, the box. Fold the screen. Wheel out the mirror. Back through the door like I’m just another task on their list.
When the door closes again, it feels like the air goes with them.
I slide to the floor, trembling in a way I can’t control anymore.
This is what they want. They want me broken. Compliant. Beautiful and hollow. A shell of a woman in ivory lace. They want to break me with silence, with building dread. And it’s working.
I try to scream, but it comes out choked and weak. Sobs wreck me as I begin to drift into surrender.
The truth is sinking in, that no one, not even myself, can save me this time.