LILY'S POV
The video wouldn't stop replaying.
Everywhere I looked — on the news, social media, gossip blogs — it was there. The image of Amara in that breathtaking gown, standing beside the man the world called Alexander Voss, while cameras flashed like lightning around her fragile smile.
My thumb trembled as I scrolled past the same headline again and again:
"THE MERGER OF POWER AND BEAUTY — ALEXANDER VOSS WEDS AMARA STONE IN AN EXCLUSIVE CEREMONY."
It made me sick.
I should've been happy for her — every girl's dream, right? The diamonds, the silk veil, the chandelier that looked like stars. But all I saw was the girl who used to sneak noodles into my dorm room at midnight and laugh until she cried. The girl who dreamed of writing, of traveling, of marrying someone who looked at her like she was sunlight.
Now, she looked like she was melting under it.
My heart ached so bad, I pressed my palm to my chest like it could hold me together.
"She looked so… fragile," I whispered.
Noah looked up from his phone, his expression shadowed. "You saw her eyes?"
I nodded. "Yeah. Like she wasn't even there."
He leaned back against my couch, exhaling deeply. The TV muted the world with its silent replay of the wedding. Reporters gushed about the partnership between Voss Enterprises and Stone Corporation — the most powerful merger of the year.
They didn't talk about the bride. They talked about the deal.
Amara's father smiled too wide in every photo, gripping Alexander's hand like a man who just sold his soul and got a receipt for it.
"Do you think she'll be okay?" I finally asked, the question breaking something inside me.
Noah's silence told me what I already feared.
"She's strong," he said eventually, his voice quiet. "But this… this is different, Lily. That man—"
He didn't finish. He didn't have to.
Everyone knew Alexander Voss's reputation. Cold. Calculated. Untouchable. A man who didn't smile unless it benefitted him.
And now he was Amara's husband.
I rubbed my arm, shivering though the air wasn't cold. "She didn't even look at him during the vows."
"She didn't have to," Noah muttered bitterly. "He wasn't looking at her either."
We sat in silence for a long time, the kind that fills a room with ghosts of things unsaid.
I thought about last night — how we had tried to cheer her up before the wedding. How we had laughed and drank and tried to pretend the world wasn't about to take her away from herself.
Her laugh had sounded forced, her eyes glassy with tears she never shed.
And then she'd hugged me like it was goodbye.
"She's really married now," I said softly, staring at the glittering ring on the TV screen. "No backing out. No undoing it."
Noah sighed. "Her father made sure of that."
I swallowed hard, blinking fast. "She deserves love, not a contract."
"She'll find her way," he said. "She always does."
But the way he said it… even he didn't believe it.
I turned my head toward the window. Outside, the city lights blurred like tears. Somewhere, in one of those towers, she was there — locked in a penthouse with a man who didn't love her.
And the thought crushed me.
So I whispered the only prayer I could muster.
"Please don't lose yourself, Amara. Please."
---
NOAH'S POV
The rain started the moment Lily fell asleep on the couch.
Her phone still glowed faintly in her hand — a picture of Amara frozen on the wedding aisle, eyes lowered, veil cascading like smoke.
I sat there for a while, just watching the rain hit the glass, and tried to quiet the storm in my head.
I'd known Amara since we were teenagers — too proud, too bright, too real for the kind of world her father lived in. She had that fire that made you want to believe in things again. And now she was trapped in a life built on money, not meaning.
I ran a hand through my hair, exhaling. "Damn it, Amara…"
I remembered the last message she'd sent me before the wedding.
"Promise me you'll take care of Lily if things go wrong."
Things.
Not if I'm unhappy. Not if I'm scared.
She had said if things go wrong.
That wasn't a bride. That was someone walking into a battlefield.
I got up and turned off the TV, the silence suddenly deafening.
There was something about the way Alexander had looked at her during the ceremony — not admiration, not affection, but… possession. Like she was another piece of property to be signed under his name.
I'd seen that look before — in business sharks, in men who thought control was the same thing as power.
He had money.
He had her father's loyalty.
And now, he had her.
A bitter laugh escaped me. "What a damn empire."
I poured a glass of whiskey and stared at the amber liquid, thinking about all the ways life had gone wrong for her.
If I had the power, I would've stopped the wedding. I would've dragged her out of that hall and told her she didn't have to live like this. That love isn't meant to hurt this much before it even starts.
But I didn't.
No one did.
Because Amara Stone was no longer just a girl. She was a symbol. A merger. A tool.
I finished the drink and set the glass down hard.
Somewhere deep inside, I knew — this wasn't the end of her story. Amara was too stubborn to disappear quietly into someone else's life.
The world could cage her, shame her, rewrite her name — but it couldn't kill what was underneath.
She'd rise again. Maybe not now. Maybe not soon.
But when she did, she'd burn everything that tried to break her.
And God help Alexander Stone when that day came.