Chapter 3 The Terms Of Her Cage

• She remembered the day she said I do like it had been carved into her bones.
• The chapel had smelled of lilies—his mother’s choice, not hers. Her gown had fit perfectly, not because it was tailored to her taste, but because it had been measured for display. Her father’s proud grin. The gold ring pressed onto her finger. The ghost of a kiss Lucien had placed on her lips, cold and rehearsed.
• She’d smiled through all of it.
• Because she thought she was finally going to be chosen.
• It had been two years since that day.
• Seven hundred and thirty nights of quiet tears. Of waiting up in bed for a husband who never came. Of letting herself be used like an accessory, paraded at formal dinners and ignored behind closed doors. Of being the obedient wife he married not for love—but for leverage.
• Lucien Moretti had never wanted a partner.
• He wanted a contract.
• He wanted control.
• And her family—desperate to form an alliance with the Moretti empire—had offered her up like a gift with a ribbon around her throat.
• She was the prettiest thing they had. The most docile. Raised to smile and sit still and speak softly.
• He had accepted her hand without even looking at her.
• And she had accepted his cruelty like it was penance for something she couldn’t name.
• The terms were clear. No divorce. No scandal. Appearances must be maintained. She was to give him children eventually—when he was ready. Until then, her body was his, but her heart was not his concern.
• She agreed.
• Because deep down… she believed she could make him love her.
• Lucien was cold, yes. Brutal. Unapologetic. But she’d seen the way he touched his dog—just once, when he thought no one was looking. She saw the way his hand lingered, gentle, threading through the coarse fur. She told herself if he can love something… he can love me.
• She spent the first year trying.
• Waking early to cook him breakfast he never touched. Buying books he might like. Learning everything about the business so she could ask smart questions—he never answered them. She waited at the door for him every night.
• Sometimes he used her. Sometimes he didn’t.
• But never once did he kiss her like a husband.
• Never once did he look at her like a man who saw his wife.
• She learned, over time, that Lucien kept a rotation of women—none of them were kept long. None of them slept in his bed. They were for pleasure.
• She was for image.
• But still, she stayed. She obeyed. She endured.
• Because she loved the idea of him.
• She loved the promise she made. The home she wanted to build. The children she wanted to raise. She loved the dreams she’d scribbled into journals when she was just a girl with a fragile heart and the belief that kindness could melt ice.
• But kindness didn’t melt Lucien.
• It cracked her.
• Each night he passed her by. Each time he shoved her to her knees. Each time he told her she was nothing but something warm to fuck when the stress got too high or the liquor too strong. Each time she heard other women laughing in the halls, his name moaned on their lips while she sat waiting for a crumb of affection.
• She died a little.
• And he knew it.
• Because he wanted her broken.
• A pretty, quiet thing he could command with a look.
• A doll.
• A pet.
• A wife in title, a slave in truth.
• He called her sweetheart in front of the cameras. Told the press how grateful he was for a woman so composed, so elegant. How her silence was a reflection of her respect for his leadership.
• They never saw the bruises he left.
• The ones that didn’t show on skin.
• They never heard her cry into the pillows at night, whispering prayers she didn’t believe in anymore.
• They never saw the way she folded his shirts with trembling fingers, hoping maybe—maybe—that one day he’d wear one and think of her.
• He never did.
• He never remembered anniversaries. Never said thank you. Never noticed when she’d dress up for him or lay herself out like an offering in their bedroom. He walked past her like she was furniture.
• But still, she tried.
• Because if she stopped trying—if she admitted to herself that he’d never love her—what would she be?
• Just a girl sold into a marriage where love was never part of the deal.
• Just a wife who let herself be erased.
• Tonight, she sat curled in a chair by the window, his discarded tie still clenched in her fist. She hadn’t heard him come home, but the scent of sex wasn’t hers clung to the air like perfume.
• She didn’t ask where he’d been.
• She never did anymore.
• Instead, she stared at the dark sky, the city glittering like broken glass in the distance.
• Her world.
• Her cage.
• And somewhere deep inside her, a whisper was forming. Quiet. Dangerous.
• Not yet a rebellion.
• But maybe…
• A warning.
• One day, she’d stop hoping.
• And when she did—
• Lucien Moretti would learn what he’d really created.
• Not a pet.
• But a queen with nothing left to lose.