Chapter 1
His hand was already on my arm before I could get both feet on the floor. That's how fast it happened. One minute I was half-sitting on the edge of the white bed, the lace of my nightgown twisted around my knees, and the next his fingers had locked around my upper arm, thumb pressed hard into the soft underside where it would bruise. The grip wasn't rough in a sloppy way. It was practiced. Controlled. The silver chain of his pocket watch caught the warm light from the lamps and glinted every time he adjusted his hold, and that little flash felt more threatening than the squeeze itself.
Behind him, she was shouting. I could see her over his shoulder in the mirror above the dresser, her dark hair pinned up, her cream dress buttoned to her throat, the emerald brooch pinned dead center like a warning light. Her mouth was open, her hands half-raised, not quite touching him, not quite pulling me. She was saying something sharp and pleading at once, but his back was to her and his eyes never left me. He held me like I was something that had already been decided, and the contradiction hit me harder than anything — her panic getting louder while his calm got tighter.
My name is Claire and I was twenty-two that morning in a house that wasn't mine.
The bedroom was too perfect to fight in. Thick carpet that swallowed sound. Heavy drapes pulled back to let in that golden, expensive light. The sheets were still white and smooth except where I'd been sitting, and the air smelled like his cologne and furniture polish. When I tried to pull back, my shoulder twisted and a hot, deep throb shot down my left side. It wasn't from his grip. It was underneath, in the skin itself, a burning ache right on the slope where my nightgown strap had slipped. I hadn't hit anything. I hadn't fallen. But my body remembered something my mind didn't.
I looked down without thinking. The lace trim had shifted. The skin there was unmarked, pale, but it felt wrong — too warm, too tight, as if something had dragged just under the surface and left heat behind. I sucked in a breath and my hand came up to cover it on instinct. His fingers tightened again when I moved.
"This is for your own protection," he said. His voice was low and even. He didn't look at the woman behind him.
I stared at his hand on my arm. The knuckles were thick, the nails trimmed flat. I knew that lie for what it was.
"You're hurting me," I said.
"Let her go," she said right after, her voice thin and cracking at the edge. "Please. You're scaring her."
He didn't let go. The hallway door was still closed, but I could hear the house beyond it — the faint tick of a clock, the hum of the air conditioning, the kind of silence an opulent place makes when it's holding its breath. His grip said he was already moving me toward that door whether I stood or not. My shoulder pulsed again, hotter this time, and for half a second I wasn't in that bedroom at all. I felt a flash of cold air, a bare chest against my back, and two hands joined so tight the light between them seemed to branch like veins. Then it was gone.
The older woman stepped closer. Her pearl earrings swung when she moved. "If you drag her out there like this, everyone will see," she whispered, and it wasn't a threat, it was a plea for him to think.
May you like
He finally looked at her. Then back at me. His other hand came up to take my wrist, to get a better hold, and my left shoulder gave another sharp throb that made me wince. Somewhere far from this room, I swear I felt an echo answer it — a burn on a wrist that wasn't mine.
His hand shifted toward the door handle. I hadn't stood yet. I hadn't agreed. The latch was inches from his fingers and the hallway beyond was about to swallow us whole.
