The morning light crept over the mansion’s vast windows, but Selena felt no warmth in it. The air was still, too still—like the moments before a storm, when tension crackles just beneath the surface. She stood at the window of her bedroom, arms crossed tightly across her chest, watching the sun climb with mechanical precision. Another day in a beautiful prison.
Alec had left her no phone, no contact with the outside world. Her calendar was dictated by his whims—her meals, her attire, her movements, all carefully controlled. Yet something inside her was changing. It was quiet, slow, like a flower blooming in the dead of winter. Resistance.
She had begun cataloguing his routines. His wine of choice. The way he spoke when he lied. How he responded when she looked at him with something like
