The Blackwood estate glittered like a lie.
Crystal chandeliers the size of small moons hung above marble floors imported from Italy. Gold-lined walls reflected wealth so loudly it almost screamed. Every corner of the mansion smelled of money—polished wood, expensive cologne, and power that had never known hunger.
This was LEO Blackwood's world.
LEO was ruinously handsome in the way men from dangerous families always were. Dark hair cut with careless precision, eyes sharp and cold like a man who'd never been told no, and a body built from discipline and dominance. He wore tailored suits like armor and cruelty like second nature. The Blackwood name followed him everywhere whispered with fear, envy, and obedience.
And standing at the gates of that empire was Elara Finch.
Elara owned exactly three things:
a torn backpack,
a pair of worn sneakers,
and a small, shaking cat named Ash, who was the only soul that had never abandoned her.
She came from nothing so deep it barely counted as a past. No father. A mother buried in debt and illness. No relatives. No safety net. Just hope—thin, exhausted, and stubborn.
When Dominic Blackwood found her, Elara was sleeping on a hospital bench with Ash tucked inside her jacket.
He paid every bill.
Then he said, calmly, "You will marry my son."
LEO laughed when he heard.
"You dragged a street girl into my life?" he scoffed. "She'll break within a week."
The wedding was obscene in its luxury.
Diamonds glittered on Elara's borrowed dress. Cameras flashed. LEO looked devastating beside her tall, sharp-jawed, perfectly controlled. When he leaned down during the vows, his voice was silk and poison.
Chapter 2
Welcome to hell, little wife."
Marriage with Leo was torture wrapped in luxury.
He was emotionally brutal cold silence one moment, possessive dominance the next. He controlled the house, the staff, and every breath of the world she now lived in. He treated her like a mistake his father forced him to wear.
Elara responded the only way she knew how.
With chaos.
She renamed his perfectly trained dog Princess.
She fed Ash gourmet steak meant for him.
She once asked the staff, loudly, "Does he always brood like a depressed billionaire bat?"
Leo despised her laughter.
It cracked his control.
"You're unbearable," he told her.
"And you're allergic to joy," she replied sweetly.
He was toxic jealous, domineering, emotionally closed off. He hated that she had nothing to lose and everything to say. Hated that she walked barefoot across marble floors like she belonged there.
Yet slowly, dangerously… he noticed.
How she spoke to his staff with warmth.
How she protected her cat like it was her child.
How she laughed even when the world had crushed her.
Their fights turned heated.
Their silences turned heavy.
Their attraction turned violent and undeniable.
Then Elara learned the truth.
She wasn't chosen for love.
She was chosen because she had no one.
No family.
No power.
No escape.
So she tried to leave.
Chapter 3
Leo found her at dawn, standing at the gates with Ash in her arms.
"If you go," he said hoarsely, "you take the only thing in this house that feels real."
She looked at him the toxic man, the golden cage, the boy raised by monsters.
"Then choose me," she said. "Not your father. Not your empire."
And for the first time in his life…Leo Blackwood let the world burn.
THE END