Prologue
I stared at the tray of food, steaming, aromatic, perfectly plated. My body was hungry, but my soul recoiled.
Because this wasn’t dinner. It was a reminder.
A reminder that I wasn’t a guest here.
I was a possession.
The door creaked open again.
But this time, it wasn’t a maid with a tray. It was four women.
They moved together, silent, elegant, too graceful to be ordinary. The faint scent of expensive perfume followed them, a ghost of luxury masking something rotten underneath.
All four of them were beautiful…. devastatingly beautiful but not in the way beauty is meant to be. They were the kind of beautiful that looked expensive, deliberate, like porcelain dolls displayed on a shelf, polished until nothing human remained.
Their smiles didn’t reach their eyes.
The woman in front moved differently, older, more self-assured, the kind of confidence that came not from pride, but from having surrendered long ago. She was in her early thirties, maybe a few years younger than him, with chestnut hair pinned into an elegant knot and lips painted blood-red. The diamond on her finger sparkled with a weight that made my stomach twist.
“So…” she said, her English tinged with a faint Slavic accent. “You’re the new one.”
I blinked, throat too tight to speak. My voice had abandoned me the second she stepped into the room.
She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she smiled… slow and razor-sharp, and extended her hand like a queen greeting a subject. “I’m Elena Petrović. His first wife and before you start your new life here. You must know a few things.”
She continued but my life has already turned upside down hearing her first word.
“Our fathers sealed our marriage to unite the Albanian and Serbian syndicates. A perfect alliance.” Her smile turned brittle. “Or so I thought.”
The air left my lungs. “First… wife?” I whispered, barely breathing.
She laughed. Not kindly. Not even mockingly. It was a sound that spoke of broken dreams and bitter acceptance. “Oh, darling… you didn’t really think you were the only one, did you?”
Before I could reply, another woman stepped forward. Younger, mid-twenties maybe, with the same piercing eyes as Elena, but sharper, colder. Her beauty was almost surgical.
“And I,” she said, brushing back her long dark hair, “am Milena. Elena’s younger sister. He decided one Petrović daughter wasn’t enough. He wanted me too, though he had me before my sister on her wedding bed.” She chuckled, a dead, hollow sound. “And what he wants… he takes.”
The room swayed. My stomach churned and lips parted in disbelief.
The words takes echoed in my skull like a curse.
The third woman stepped forward. She was breathtaking, tall, statuesque, with caramel skin and eyes like polished amber. Her accent was French, her voice melodic, almost too soft for the words she spoke.“I’m Camille. I was a model in Paris. Dior. Milan. New York.” She smiled faintly, but there was no joy in it. “Until he saw me walk down a runway. Now, I walk inside these walls without anything.”
My breath caught. Each story was worse than the last. Each one a warning. A prophecy.
Then the fourth stepped out from behind the others. She was the youngest, barely nineteen with trembling hands and doe-like eyes that refused to meet mine. Her voice cracked when she spoke.“I’m Sofia,” she whispered. “I was studying literature in Prague. I’d never even met him before until two years ago he decided… I belonged to him.”
A chill ran through me so cold it felt like it reached my bones. She must be a minor at that time. What kind of monster is he?
They weren’t wives.They were proof.Proof that once he set his eyes on you, there was no escape.Proof that your name, your past, your dreams, all of it vanished the moment he decided you were his.
I was all lost thinking about the doom waiting for me ahead when Elena’s voice brought me back.
“So,” Elena said, clapping her hands once, the sound sharp and merciless. “Now that introductions are over…”
Her gaze dragged over me slowly from my bare feet to my face. “It’s time we get you ready.”
“Ready?” I managed to whisper.
Camille crossed to a large gift box that I hadn't noticed yet in the room and flipped it open. The sight punched the air from my lungs.
Inside lay a piece of lingerie, blood maroon lace and silk, indecent and sinful that barely hide anything but display everything, the kind of thing meant to be torn off rather than worn.
“This,” Elena said, lifting it with two fingers as if it were sacred, “is what he wants you in tonight.”
“Tonight?” My heart thundered. “What’s happening tonight?”
Though I know what must happen but still I was trying to tell myself that maybe it's just a bad dream and when I'll wake up it disappears.
But no it's not. This will be my reality. A walking nightmare.
Milena’s smile was wicked, but her eyes… her eyes were empty. “Tonight, sweetie, your husband comes to claim what’s his.”
The words hit me like a blow to the chest. “No… I…”
