Chapter 1

My husband, Damian, used my family’s fortune to become a god in the tech world. But he only ever worshipped one person: his childhood sweetheart.

When she shed a tear, he promised vengeance.

He dragged me, pregnant and pleading, to the top floor of his glass tower. He called it my “reflection chamber.” I called it a coffin. He sealed me inside the cold, humming metal and walked away.

My last breath was a prayer for the child he would never know.

I thought that was the end. But in the darkness, I opened my eyes. I was no longer in the cabinet. I was standing beside it, watching.

A ghost, trapped in his world.

Just then, his assistant’s voice crackled through the phone in his hand. “Mr. Blackwood… Mrs. Blackwood… shows no vital signs.”

I watched my husband’s face, waiting for the flicker of horror, of regret. Instead, a slow, cruel smile touched his lips.

“She’s playing games,” he murmured, his eyes glittering with a chilling light. “Contact the crematorium. If she wants to play dead, we’ll show her the consequences.”

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1

“The petulant heiress hasn’t made a scene. Has she finally learned her lesson? Is she ready to obey?”

“I knew it. A woman like that only understands force. She needs to be broken before she can be remade.”

But Leo, Damian’s assistant, went rigid.

“Mr. Blackwood, I don’t believe… Mrs. Blackwood has been released.”

Damian’s jaw tightened for a fraction of a second before his mask of indifference slipped back on. “Fine. Let her contemplate her insubordination for a few more days. A little silence will do her good.”

Leo looked like he was swallowing razors. His face was pale, his hands trembling slightly. Finally, he managed, “Sir, there’s a stench… coming from the server room on the top floor. Shouldn’t you… check on it?”

Damian’s voice dropped, turning sharp and cold. “A stench? That’s biological. Elara is a survivor. To keep her system running, she’d crawl through hell. The human body is a machine; when it breaks down, it smells. It’s the smell of weakness, Leo. Nothing more.”

Leo opened his mouth, but Damian cut him off with a look of pure disgust. “Don’t speak of it again. I’ll let her out tomorrow. She’s had days to learn her place. If she begs Sera for forgiveness, on her knees, I’ll consider this matter closed.”

As the words left his lips, Seraphina glided into the office, a vision in silk and cashmere.

Damian’s gaze melted, the hard edges softening into something possessive and warm.

“Did the nightmares come back, little bird?” He pulled her onto his lap, his large hands bracketing her tiny waist. His touch was a stark contrast to the violence I had felt from those same hands. “Don’t worry. I’ve already dealt with Elara. I’m going to make her feel ten times the terror you felt.”

He buried his face in her platinum hair, inhaling her expensive scent. It was a perfume I had bought for her last Christmas.

“You’re so good to me, Damian.” Sera squirmed against him, her voice a breathy whisper. “She must have learned her lesson. I just want an apology. I never wanted her hurt. She won’t hate me for this, will she?”

Watching them, the tension coiling between their bodies, I laughed. No one heard it.

I was dead, after all.

In that final, crushing moment of darkness and suffocation, my soul tore itself free from my body’s cold, metallic tomb.

I could see the dark stain of blood seeping from beneath the server cabinet’s heavy door. It was a deep, ugly crimson against the polished concrete floor.

I could see the heavy industrial padlock securing it, a promise to imprison me forever. The brass gleamed under the humming emergency lights.

Even as a ghost, the memory of that suffocating blackness made me flinch.

Meanwhile, Damian was murmuring into Sera’s ear.

“Another nightmare? Don’t worry. I’m never leaving your side.” His thumb stroked the delicate skin of her cheek. “I’m sorry you endured that, Sera.”

“Did you know she’s a fighter? She’d do anything to survive. So fragile, yet she dared to harm you. I have to make her pay.”

The shock was so profound, I couldn’t even form a tear.

Damian was right. I did want to live.

The server cabinet was a narrow coffin. To force me inside, he had shattered my arm against the steel frame. The sharp crack of bone echoed in the cold, sterile room.

I fought the pain, tried to find a way out. When I knew it was hopeless, I conserved my energy, my breath, my hope.

But in his rage, he had forgotten I was pregnant.

The contorted position pressed on my womb, an agony that stole my reason. A sharp, unrelenting pain that eclipsed everything else. I could do nothing.

In my last moments, the will to live was a fire.

I screamed, clawed at the unyielding metal, my nails breaking against the seams, but his voice on the other side was a blade of ice. “You’re scared now? Imagine how helpless Sera felt. Suffer in there and learn your place.”

I could only accept the blame for a crime I didn’t commit, hoping he’d show mercy. Then the warmth of blood slicked my thighs, and my strength bled away with it. My world narrowed to the sound of my own ragged breathing and the steady hum of the servers around me.

Through a dizzying haze, I heard his final command. “She’s too loud. Still doesn’t understand the rules. Lock it. Let her think in silence.”

I pleaded, my voice a raw croak, but it was useless. All I heard was the heavy click of the padlock.

Then, silence.