The boardroom of Doren Tech was a temple of glass, steel, and high-stakes silence. Outside, the skyline of Vancouver was partially obscured by a low-hanging mist, but inside, the atmosphere was clinical. Dermin sat at the head of the table, his eyes tracking a projected spreadsheet of international acquisitions. Around him, twelve of the most powerful financial minds in the country held their breath, waiting for his critique.
Dermin simply stared, his mind a machine of pure logic.
Then, the private phone in his pocket—the one only three people in the world had the number to—vibrated.
He frowned, a microscopic fracture in his composure. He signaled for the CFO to pause the presentation and stepped toward the floor-to-ceiling window.
"Speak," he said.
"Mr. Doren... it's Mrs. Evans," the head maid's voice was hysterical, thin and reedy over the line. "The mistress... she's locked herself in the secondary bathroom. There's... there's blood, sir. She's harmed herself. She cut her wrist with a piece of the vanity mirror she smashed."
The air in the boardroom seemed to thin until he couldn't breathe. His knuckles whitened around the device. His facial expression changed—it simply became a mask of terrifying, frozen marble.
"Call my personal physician. Dr. Aris. Tell him if he isn't at the estate in ten minutes, I'll fire him," Dermin said, his voice a low, lethal whisper. "And do not let her bleed out. Do you understand? Use a tourniquet. Do whatever you have to."
He hung up and grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and walked toward the double doors.
"Mr. Doren?" the Chairman of the Board stammered, standing up. "We are in the middle of the quarterly review. This acquisition—"
"I have other businesses to handle," Dermin barked, not even turning his head.
He vanished through the doors, leaving the most powerful men in the city whispering in his wake. What could make him walk out? A crash in the Nikkei? A government subpoena? None of them imagined it was a woman with a broken piece of glass and a decade of pain.
The drive back to the mansion was a blur of illegal speeds and white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. When Dermin burst into the master suite, the air smelled of antiseptic and iron.
Dr. Aris was just packing his bag. On the bed, Hannah sat propped up against the headboard. Her face was the color of parchment, her eyes sunken and dark. Her left wrist was encased in a thick, snowy-white bandage, the gauze already showing a faint, pink bloom of seeping blood.
Dermin waited until the doctor left before he exploded.
"What were you thinking?" He didn't yell; he roared. He paced the length of the room, his shadow flickering against the walls like a trapped beast. "Do you think this is a game? Do you think your life is something you can just throw away to spite me?"
Hannah looked at him with a hollow, terrifyingly calm gaze. "I'd rather die than be your wife, Dermin. I'd rather be in a coffin than in this house. You won't let me leave. You won't let me find a job. You've turned me into a pet. A bird in a cage."
"I am trying to protect you!" Dermin shouted, stopping at the foot of the bed. "Why can't you just stay? Why can't you learn to live with me? We were friends once, Hannah. Before all these. Before the night everything went to hell. We were the only two people in the world who understood each other. Why can't we find that again?"
"Friends?" Hannah's laugh was a jagged, broken thing. She struggled to sit up straighter, the effort making her wince as her wrist throbbed. "We were young, Dermin. That boy is dead. You killed him the moment you stepped out of that hotel room and let the door click shut behind you. We will never go back. I hate you. I hate you to the very core of my being. Every breath I take in this room feels like I'm inhaling ash."
She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a low, trembling hiss. "If you don't give me my freedom, if you don't let me go out and earn that hundred million so I can buy my way out of this nightmare, I will find another way. I missed the artery this time. Next time, I won't."
Dermin's face darkened, a muscle in his jaw working violently. "You want a job? You think the world is waiting for you with open arms? You're an ex-convict, Hannah. The moment they run your background check, the door slams in your face. Outside is not safe for someone with your record. People are cruel. They will treat you like trash."
The word ex-convict hit Hannah like a physical lash. The rage that had been simmering in her blood since she woke up finally boiled over.
"Don't you call me that!" she screamed.
She lunged off the bed, her movements clumsy and fueled by pure, unadulterated spite. She threw herself at him, her tiny fists raining blows against his chest, his shoulders, his arms. "Don't you dare use that word! You're the cause of it! You're the reason I have that label! You sat in your towers while I was being processed like a piece of meat!"
Dermin stood like a statue of granite, taking every hit. He simply looked down at her with an expression of profound, aching sorrow that he tried to hide behind his cold eyes.
"Hannah, stop," he said quietly. "You're going to hurt yourself. Watch out for your wrist."
"I don't care about my wrist! I want to hurt you!" she sobbed, her blows losing their strength as exhaustion began to take over. She hammered her fists against his chest until her knuckles ached, but it was like hitting a mountain. "I want you to feel what I felt! I want you to be the one everyone looks at with disgust!"
Dermin let her vent. He let her scream and strike him until her breaths became ragged, sobbing gasps. Only when she began to stumble, her legs giving out from the sheer physical and emotional drain, did he move.
He caught her by the waist, his large hands steadying her, pulling her back from the edge of a collapse.
Hannah's skin crawled at the touch. The heat of his palms through her thin gown felt like a betrayal. She stiffened, her eyes wide and wet with tears.
"Get... off," she whispered, her voice trembling. "I told you. Don't touch me."
She shoved against his chest with the last of her strength, setting herself free from his grip. She scrambled back toward the bed, clutching her bandaged wrist to her chest as if it were a wounded animal.
Dermin stood in the center of the room, his hands hanging uselessly at his sides. He looked at the red marks on his chest where she had struck him, and then he looked at the woman who would rather bleed to death than spend a single night in his arms.
"Fine," he said, his voice sounding hollow and old. "If a job is what you want... if that is the only way you'll stop trying to kill yourself... I'll give you a job. But it will be on my terms."
Hannah looked at him, her eyes flickering with a tiny, suspicious spark of hope. "Your terms?"
"You'll see in the morning," Dermin said. He turned and walked toward the door, his silhouette looking lonelier than she had ever seen it. "Try to sleep, Hannah. And for God's sake... stay alive."