Chapter 1
The first thing I feel is cold.
It shivers across my skin in a slow, creeping wave, waking me before I’m ready. My eyelashes flutter, heavy and stuck together, and the world comes into focus in blurred shapes—gold light, velvet shadows, the faint hum of something expensive and quiet.
A chandelier glows overhead.
A room I’ve never seen.
Sheets softer than anything I own.
My pulse spikes.
I sit up too fast. A sharp pain slices behind my eyes—like someone drove a needle into my skull and twisted. My breath tears out in a gasp.
Then I see him.
A man sits in a chair beside the bed, elbows on his knees, head bowed like he’s praying or mourning or deciding which part of me to break first. The dim light catches the sharp cut of his jaw, the ink dipping beneath the collar of his black shirt, the tension carved into his shoulders.
Slowly… he lifts his head.
And the world snaps into something terrifying.
His eyes.
Dark.
Intense.
Familiar in a way that makes my stomach twist.
He stands, rising with controlled, dangerous grace. He moves like power is a language he was raised in.
“Miranda.” His voice is low, roughened at the edges. “You’re awake.”
I go still.
My name in his mouth feels too intimate.
“Who are you?” I whisper.
He freezes. Just barely—but I see it. A flicker of something. Pain? Anger? Shock?
He steps closer. “Miranda… it’s me.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know you.”
His jaw clenches so tightly I hear it click.
“You do,” he murmurs. “You’re just… confused.”
Confused?
Confused doesn’t begin to cover the ice crawling across my spine.
My hands bunch the sheets—and that’s when I see it.
A ring.
A wedding ring.
A delicate band of gold circled around my finger like it belongs there, like it’s been there. Like I put it on myself.
My heart stops.
“What—” My voice cracks. “What is this?”
He looks down at the ring, then at me with something unreadable.
“You’re my wife, Miranda.”
The air disappears from my lungs.
“No,” I breathe. “No, I would remember—”
“You were in an accident,” he cuts in, stepping closer, too close. “You hit your head. You lost time.”
“I don’t— I don’t remember getting married. I don’t even know your name.”
He swallows, and for a moment the strong façade trembles.
“I’m Ken,” he says softly. “Your husband.”
Husband.
The word slices through the room like a blade.
My pulse drums in my ears. He’s lying. He has to be lying. I would never marry a stranger. I would never marry a man who looks at me like he’s standing on the edge of losing everything.
I scramble back on the bed. “Take me home.”
His expression hardens instantly. “This is your home.”
“No. No it’s not.” I shake my head, panic rising like fire in my throat. “I want my phone. I want to call someone. I want to—”
“Miranda.” His voice snaps through the air, firm and lethal. “You’re safe here. That’s all that matters.”
Safe?
I look into his eyes and I don’t see safety.
I see storms.
Secrets.
A man who’s holding on by a thread.
“I don’t believe you,” I whisper.
Ken closes his eyes slowly… and when he opens them again, something inside him is devastated.
“I didn’t want you to wake up like this,” he murmurs. “I prayed you wouldn’t.”
A chill creeps over me.
“Why?” I ask.
His throat works, like he’s swallowing a truth too heavy to speak.
“Because,” he says quietly, “the man you actually married is gone.”
I stare at him.
My voice trembles. “Gone? What do you mean gone?”
The shadows behind him seem to grow darker.
Ken steps even closer, his hand lifting—hesitating—before brushing a stray strand of hair from my cheek with a gentleness that doesn’t fit his dangerous body.
“Cyrus,” he whispers. “My twin. My brother. Your… husband.”
My stomach drops.
Twin.
Husband.
Missing.
Ken leans in, voice low, steady, deadly.
“And until we find him, Miranda… I promised him I’d protect you. No matter what.”
I stare at him, my pulse pounding violently against my ribs.
His hand is still on my cheek.
His breath is too close.
His eyes burn with a truth I don’t want to believe.
I don’t remember saying anything.
I don’t remember moving.
But Ken’s next words break the world open.
“They took your memories to get to him. And if they find out you’re awake—”
He shakes his head.
“They’ll finish what they started.”
My blood runs cold.
And just when fear sinks its teeth into me—
A phone on the table beside him lights up.
A single message.
From an unknown number.
I have Cyrus.
And I want the bride back.
Ken grabs the phone, his face going lethal.
I gasp.
“Ken—what does it say?”
He turns slowly, his eyes darker than the room.
“It means,” he says, voice ice and fire, “we’re out of time.”
--see you in the next chapter.
