Chapter 25 New Hands-on Deck

• The silence in the car was a tangible entity, pressing down on Isabelle like a physical weight. The air inside the sleek black sedan, with its leather interior that smelled of expensive cologne and polished wood, was thick with unspoken words, the echoes of their fight at the gala still reverberating in the space between them. It felt like a battlefield, the casualties of their clash strewn across the opulent velvet carpet of the charity event.
• Liam remained stoic, his gaze fixed on the road ahead. He was a statue, sculpted from granite, with a heart made of ice, at least according to the whispers that had reached Isabelle's ears tonight. Whispers of a man who, despite his fortune and charm, carried a chilling emptiness within him. Whispers that painted him as a predator, a man who wore his wealth like a mask, a man who used people like chess pieces, discarding them with a careless shrug.
• Isabelle, her heart a heavy stone in her chest, steeled herself against the gnawing fear that had taken root within her. This was all a part of the contract, the one her mother had so eagerly signed, a contract that had sold her, her dreams, and her future, to this man. The gala had been a showcase, a display of Liam's power, and she, his trophy wife. Now, she felt like a pawn in a game she didn't understand, a game she hadn't even agreed to play.