Waking up in the Obsidian Spire felt like waking up in a tomb.
I sat up, the silk sheets sliding off my shoulders. The room was massive, larger than my entire apartment back in the city. The walls were floor-to-ceiling glass, offering a panoramic view of the skyline. But from the one-hundred-and-tenth floor, the people below were just dots. The cars were just streams of light. It was beautiful, and it was terrifyingly lonely.
I checked the door. Locked, of course. Not with a key, but with a biometric pad that blinked red at me.
For the first hour, I paced. I looked for a phone, a computer, anything. The room was bare. No clothes (except a robe laid out on the chair), no books, no electronics. Just a bed, a bathroom, and the view.
I was a bird in a gilded cage, hanging a half-mile above the earth.
Around noon, a chime sounded. The door clicked open.
I jumped back, clutching the robe around me.
A woman walked in. She was young, maybe a few years older than me, dressed in a crisp black uniform. She moved with the same eerie, fluid silence as Damian. She didn't look at me. She didn't smile.
"Mr. Tian requests your presence for lunch," she said. Her voice was monotone.
"I'm not hungry," I said, my voice raspy. "And tell him I'm not eating with a kidnapper."
She paused, finally turning her head to look at me. Her eyes were blank. "Mr. Tian says you will eat, or he will hook you up to an IV. He prefers you to keep your strength. It is... inconvenient when pets wither away."
She turned and walked back out, leaving the door open behind her—an obvious command.
I swallowed my pride. My stomach was twisting into knots, but the thought of an IV needle in my arm was enough to make me move. I followed her out into the main living area.
The penthouse was even more imposing in the daylight. It was a sea of white marble and black leather. Damian was sitting at a long dining table, his back to the view, working on a tablet. He was wearing a different suit today—steel grey this time.
He didn't look up as I approached.
"Sit," he said, not taking his eyes off the screen.
I sat opposite him. There was a bowl of soup and a glass of water in front of me. It smelled like chicken noodle soup—homemade. It was jarringly normal.
"Eat."
I picked up the spoon. "Is my father looking for me?"
Damian scrolled down on his tablet. "He is."
"Are you going to let me talk to him?"
"No."
"Why?" I slammed the spoon down, soup splashing onto the pristine table. "You have me! You have the leverage! Why won't you tell him you have me so he can surrender or whatever it is you want?"
Damian finally looked up.
"Because," he said, his voice bored, "your father is a cockroach. If I tell him I have you, he will try to bargain. He will offer money he doesn't have. He will try to cheat me. It's tedious."
He tapped the screen of his tablet and slid it across the table toward me.
"Look."
I hesitated, then looked down.
It was a news feed. Vance Global Stock Tanks Amid Cybersecurity Crisis.CEO Alexander Vance Under Investigation for Fraud.
"My father isn't a fraud," I snapped, though my voice wavered. "He built that company from the ground up."
"He built it on the bones of my family," Damian said calmly. "And now, I am taking it apart. Brick by brick. I've frozen his assets. I've leaked his offshore accounts to the FBI. I've hacked his servers and erased his client list."
He leaned back, steepling his fingers. "By the time he realizes you are missing, he won't have a dime left to pay a ransom. He will be destitute. He will be in prison. That is how you destroy a man like Alexander Vance. You don't just kill him. You make him watch his legacy turn to dust."
I stared at the screen, horror rising in my throat. He wasn't just talking; he was doing it. He was dismantling my father's life while eating soup.
"You're a monster," I whispered.
"I am a consequence," he corrected. "Now eat. You have a long day ahead."
"What are you talking about?"
He stood up, adjusting his cufflinks. "We are going out. There is a charity gala tonight at the museum. Your father will be there, begging for investors. I want a front-row seat."
"You want me to go with you? To a party?"
"I want you to stand by my side," he said, walking toward me. He stopped behind my chair, his hands resting on the back of it. "I want you to smile. I want you to look beautiful. And I want him to see you. I want him to see his daughter standing with the man who destroyed him."
He leaned down, his lips brushing my ear.
"I want him to wonder if you're with me willingly. I want him to question if his own flesh and blood has betrayed him. Psychological warfare, Elena. It's far more effective than bombs."
He pulled away. "You have one hour to get ready. The closet in your room is stocked. Wear the red dress."
He walked away toward his office without looking back.
I sat there, the soup turning cold in front of me. He was going to drag me to a gala, force me to play the happy partner while he crushed my father in front of the world.
He expected me to break. He expected me to cry.
I looked back at the tablet, at the headline screaming about my father's downfall. I thought about the boy hiding in the cupboard. I thought about the look in Damian's eyes when he talked about his sister.
I picked up the spoon and took a bite of the soup. It was delicious.
I would go to the gala. I would wear the red dress. But I wasn't going to be his pawn. If he wanted to break my father, he was going to have to go through me.
And maybe, just maybe, I could find a way to break through the wall of ice around Damian's heart before he burned everything