Chapter 1: The Night Everything Broke
The first flashbulb went off as Dream Hale's heel snapped on the marble steps of the courthouse.
It wasn't the broken shoe that shattered her world. It was the sight of her father, his proud shoulders stooped, hands cuffed behind his back, being led through a throng of shouting reporters. His eyes, wide with a betrayal she didn't understand, found hers for a single, gut-wrenching second before he was shoved into a black van. "Arthur Hale arrested for corporate espionage and fraud! Billions lost!" The headlines were already screaming from phones held high, a digital mob hungry for her family's carcass.
Her phone vibrated against her ribs, a frantic, persistent hum. The hospital. Her mother's oncologist. Critical. Surgery now. Where is the payment?
A cold wind sliced through her thin blouse. It carried the scent of rain and ruin. She stood, paralyzed, as the two anchors of her life were ripped away simultaneously—one to a cell, the other to a mortal gamble she couldn't afford. The savings were frozen. The accounts, seized. The friends, ghosts.
"Miss Hale." The voice was not loud, but it cut through the chaos like a scalpel.
She turned. A man stood beside a car so sleek and black it seemed to drink the light. He was taller than the chaos, his presence carving a bubble of silence around them. Tom Blackthorn. Even in her fog, she knew him. The tech titan. The "King of Ruin." His face was a study in controlled brutality—sharp jaw, ice-grey eyes, hair the colour of a raven's wing. He looked at her not with pity, but with the assessing gaze of a collector finding a distressed, but valuable, asset.
"Get in," he said. It wasn't a request.
Her pride, a tattered flag, tried to rally. "I don't—"
"Your mother's surgery at St. Augustine's is scheduled in three hours. The bail hearing for your father is tomorrow morning. The media has convicted him. You have no money, no allies, and in forty-eight hours, you will have no reputation left to sell." He listed her disasters without inflection. "I am offering you a solution. Get in."
The price of refusal was her mother's life. Dream tasted blood where she'd bitten her cheek. She got in.
The car was a tomb of leather and silence. It moved soundlessly through the rain-slicked streets, away from the public execution.
"What do you want?" Her voice was a stranger's, hollow.
Tom didn't look at her. He watched the city blur past. "I require a wife. You require capital and protection. Our needs are… compatible."
A laugh, sharp and hysterical, bubbled in her throat. "A wife? You have a queue of socialites begging for the role."
"I require a specific wife. One with a ruined name, desperate enough to agree to my terms, and intelligent enough to not embarrass me. One tied to the Hale scandal." His gaze finally swung to her, pinning her to the seat. "You are uniquely qualified."
"This is monstrous."
"It is transactional," he corrected. "A merger. In return for your compliance, I will ensure your mother receives the best care, paid in full. I will deploy my legal team to your father's case. I will shield you from the wolves. You will want for nothing materially."
"And what does my 'compliance' entail?"
"Marriage. A public performance of devotion. You will live in my home, attend my functions, and act as my devoted spouse. You will cease all independent legal or financial actions regarding your family's case. You will, for all intents and purposes, belong to me."
The word belong landed like a brand.
"For how long?"
"Until I am satisfied."
"And what satisfies you?" she whispered.
A ghost of something dark flickered in his eyes. "Revenge."
The car glided to a stop inside a private underground garage. He led her to a penthouse that was less a home and more a monument to cold power—all steel, glass, and bleak art. In the stark, silent living room, a single document lay on a frosted glass table.
"The contract," he said.
Dream's eyes scanned the clauses, each one a shackle:
· Clause 2.1: The marriage will be legally binding for a minimum of three (3) years.
· Clause 3.4: The Wife will reside at the Husband's primary residence and will not spend more than seven (7) consecutive nights elsewhere without written consent.
· Clause 5.2: The Wife will provide public displays of affection and loyalty as reasonably requested by the Husband for media and social purposes.
· Clause 7.1: The Husband will provide a monthly allowance and cover all living, medical, and legal expenses as outlined in Schedule A.
· Clause 8.3: Any offspring resulting from this union will be the sole legal responsibility of the Husband, with the Wife retaining limited, pre-negotiated visitation rights. (The words offspring and visitation swam before her eyes, cold and clinical).
· Clause 10.1: Breach of contract by the Wife will result in immediate termination of all financial and legal support, and the forfeiture of the trust fund established for her mother's ongoing care.
It was a blueprint for a beautiful, gilded cage. Her freedom for their lives.
He held out a pen. The barrel was cold platinum.
"Why me?" she asked, her last, feeble stand. "Why this revenge?"
For the first time, emotion cracked his icy façade—a ripple of pure, undiluted hatred. "Your father took something from me. Now, I take something from him." His eyes raked over her, from her broken shoe to her tear-tracked face. "His precious daughter."
The truth was a vice around her heart. She was not a person to him. She was a vessel for his vengeance, a living, breathing punishment for her father's sins. The humiliation was absolute, a bitter ash in her mouth.
Her phone buzzed again. The hospital. Time running out.
She saw her mother's smile. She saw her father's lost eyes.
She took the pen. Her hand did not shake. In that moment, a new, cold core formed inside her. If this was a war, she would learn to fight in his world. She would take his money, his protection, and she would use it to find the truth. To destroy him back.
She signed her name. Dream Hale.
He watched the ink dry, a predator seeing the trap snap shut. A faint, cruel smile touched his lips. "Good."
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a intimate, terrifying murmur that brushed against her ear. "Memorize the clauses, Dream. Especially Clause 8.3."
He straightened, his presence once again filling the room with a threatening calm. "Because once you sign," he said, picking up the contract, his ice-grey eyes holding hers with possessive finality, "you belong to me. Every part of you. Forever."
---Her signature was a slash of defiance on the pristine page.
He collected the contract, his fingers brushing hers—a touch that felt like a brand. A ghost of something unsettling flickered in his icy gaze. Not triumph. Something darker, hungrier.
"Welcome to your gilded cage, Mrs. Blackthorn," he said, the name sounding like a curse and a vow. "Let's see how long it takes for you to hate me as much as I intend to make you."
The war was declared. But as he walked away, leaving her alone in the cavernous penthouse, Dream felt the first, terrifying tremor of a truth she would deny for months: the most dangerous battle wouldn't be for her freedom.
It would be for her heart.