AMARA'S POV
The penthouse is beautiful — cold, glass, marble, and silence. It smells faintly of cedar and power. Every surface gleams. Every corner whispers, you don't belong here.
I've been here for three days. Three days of pretending to be fine. Three days of hearing my own heartbeat echo against the walls. Three days of not seeing him.
Alexander Voss. My husband.
He leaves early, comes home late, and when he does, the air thickens — like the building itself knows how to hold its breath.
I tried exploring the place once, but the staff move like ghosts — polite, distant, obedient to him, not to me. Even my footsteps sound foreign here. My things look out of place, too soft against his world of glass and steel.
Tonight, I cook. Not because I want to, but because it's the only thing that feels human. The smell of pasta fills the kitchen, warm and homey, a small rebellion against the sterile perfection of his world.
I'm pouring sauce into a bowl when the elevator hums — soft, low, expensive.
He's home.
I don't turn around, but I feel him. His presence is too sharp to ignore.
"Playing house already?" His voice slides through the air, smooth, deep, condescending.
I set the spoon down, hard enough for it to clatter. "At least someone should act like they live here."
He steps closer, jacket still on, tie loosened, every movement deliberate. "You're here to fill a role, Amara. Not to redecorate my life."
I spin to face him, heat rising to my chest. "A role? What do you want me to do, then? Stand by the window like a trophy?"
His lips twitch — not a smile, something sharper. "You'd have to earn the title of a trophy first."
That hits. It burns. But I don't look away. "You're right. Because I'd rather be anything than another lifeless ornament in your museum of control."
The air cracks between us.
He walks toward me, slow, steady, eyes darkening with something I can't name,anger, challenge, maybe curiosity. I refuse to back away, even though my heart is hammering.
He stops a breath away, his scent all around me — wood, smoke, danger. "You forget yourself too easily," he murmurs.
"And you overestimate your power," I fire back. "You think a ring gives you control over me?"
His eyes narrow. "That ring means everything, Amara. You bear my name now. You live in my house. You follow my rules."
I take a step closer, chin tilted up. "I'll live in your house. But I'll never follow your rules."
Something flickers in his gaze — brief, almost a smirk — then gone. "Careful," he says, voice low, almost intimate. "Defiance can be dangerous here."
"Then maybe you shouldn't have married someone who bites back."
For a moment, the silence is electric. His jaw tightens, his hand flexes at his side. It's like we're both waiting for the other to blink.
Then he turns away — smooth, cold. "Eat your dinner, Mrs. Voss," he says quietly. "You'll need your strength. Tomorrow, you start learning what being my wife really means."
The sound of his footsteps fades down the hall.
I stand there, trembling, furious, alive.
For the first time since the wedding, I feel something real again — not fear, not submission, but fire.
If he thinks I'll break easily, he's wrong.
This cage has teeth.