Everyone's attention was drawn to Ellaya when she arrived at the party wearing a black gown that hung down to her ankles and revealed her long leg through a slit in it. She was a stunning woman in addition to being a star. It had been a while since she had seen her crew members, they welcomed her. The celebration was in full swing, and drinks were being served. With Eva, she sat on the couch and drank her soft drink."Where is Mia, Eva?" Ellaya enquired while surveying her surroundings.Eva said, sipping her drink, "She has a date tonight.""Date, who? With a hopeful expression, she asked, hoping it was not the man she was envisioning. "I am not sure if the man who visited her every day is the same one.""Iden is what you mean." she asked with scowl."Yes, Eva gave a nod."A burning question tormented her: "Why the hell am I feeling this way? Forcing me to feel this way, who the hell is he? She was so furious that she wanted to give him a black eye. "Ellaya, could you please tell me
As Ellaya entered the villa, she gasped in shock and peered at the man seated in the living room with his head bowed, his elbow resting on his thighs, and his head in his hands. He appeared feral, akin to a lion with wounds. He got up and approached her slowly; his hair was disheveled, his coat was thrown on the floor, his shirt buttons were broken, and he was sheeting. His eyes were red and his nose was fanned.Her heart raced at the sound of his slow steps, her palms perspired, and her legs remained planted. 'He said he was only an assistant, but his aura was that of a king. He said, "You are a queen, Ellaya; I am a slave," but I feel as if he is a king and I am a bird in his cage. Why am I feeling this way when he is near me?' She stared at his irate face, lost in contemplation.Bringing her out of her trance, he grabbed her arm, spun her around, and caged her between the wall and his arms. "Ellaya, stay away from him", he commanded in a deep, fierce voice. After a brief pause, sh
"Oh, come on, Laaya. How long are you going to ignore me?" She went into the kitchen, and Iden trailed behind. Sitting on the kitchen island chair, she waited for Lily to bring her coffee and breakfast without saying word to him or even looking at him. He sat across from her as well. Lily placed her breakfast and coffee on the table. Ellaya scowled, her lips turning downward as she looked at the coffee. The word sorry floated over the coffee, and ketchup was used to draw a smile on the sandwich. She lifted her head and gave Lily a glare. Lily bent her head and glanced at Iden. Ellaya understood whose craft it was. She got up and walked out without taking a sip of her coffee or a bite of her breakfast. Iden got up as well and trailed behind her. Lina and Lily were staring at them as if they were the weirdest people ever to walk the planet.She sat in the car and gave James the order to drive, but Iden sat down next to her before he could revved the engine."Ain't you accompanying M
Without taking her eyes off of him, Ellaya managed to break free from him she stepped back, averting her gaze from Iden again, before turning to open the door as Austin stood grinning and holding a bouquet. Iden glanced at him and then at Ellaya, furrowing his brows and puckering his lips before turning and walking away.Austin brought Ellaya a bouquet, which she put in a vase before going outside with him. "Who was that man?" While seated in the driver's seat, Austin inquired."He is Mr. Raun's assistant". She answered while glancing at his room's window.He gave her a frown but said nothing. "What is wrong?". She asked, flinching her eyes at him."Somewhere, I think I may have seen him?""Where?""I am not sure, I mean I cannot recall right now, let's go and forget about him". He cranked the engine and made no further attempt to bring up the subject.She was greeted by the group of hotel's managers and all of his hotel employees in an upscale hotel." Welcome, Miss Stone, we ar
"What" he gripped her tighter "Ellaya, this is the first time someone has touched you, which is why you are feeling this way. It is fine, everything will be fine; you will get used to it." He held her face and attempted to kiss her, but was thrown to the ground before he could even do so.Iden took hold of his color, pulled him, and punched him once more.HOW. DARE. YOU. MOTHER. FUCKER . Kapow, he struck him, furious.Austin regained consciousness after a moment and struck him in the chest, causing him to stumble back. As Iden's shadow bodyguard pointed their gun at Austin from a distance, he lifted his eyebrows and motioned for them to stay out of his way. Austine charged him once more, grinning and wiping the blood from his lower lip, but Iden blocked the blow and struck instead. "Did you not hear what she said?" KAPOW"She does not want you to touch her you mother fucker" . KAPOW"She does not want to marry you a fucking bastard". KAPOW"How the fuck you dare touch her, you fucki
Ellaya woke up the following morning to her phone ringing nonstop. Glancing away from her sleep, she extended her hand to grab her phone. Her phone exploded as soon as she pressed the green button, and a sharp voice called out from the other side "Ellaya, how did it happen and why were you not in contact with us last night?" Her mother's stern voice sounded in her ear, confusing her. "Mama, what happened and what I did not tell you?" her confused brows knit."Oh my sweetheart, I know you do not want your parents to worry, but please don't; everything will work out just fine. I wish I could be with you right now.""Mama..." she was interrupted."You are a star; you just need to control your image. It is okay, my darling, do not cry so much."Ellaya was staring at her phone, unable to make sense of what her mother was saying or what was happening. Her voice came through as she put her phone back to her ear."Austine's parents will be arriving shortly, so you can go and relax.Oh, my s
"Ellaya, are you ready?" Iden grabbed her arms and looked at her, concerned.Ellaya nodded her head and pressed her lips firmly. Two women assisting her in handling her gown, and the other two helping her with her microphone.Her naturally purple hair, worn loose, complemented her purple long gown perfectly, bringing out the brilliant purple in her eyes. Iden told her that she looked like the most beautiful woman in the world and forbade her from using any artificial lenses or makeup to cover up her natural skin tone and hair colors. Her pink skin was glowing with a hint of shiny makeup. And there she stood looking like a goddess."Ellaya" Iden said, gazing into her purple eyes, "You do not have to be nervous okay.""All I am worried about is that they might think I am endorsing a cartoon character at this charity event, or that they might throw tomatoes and rotten eggs at me for looking like a purple princess". Ellaya repeated her statement nth time while biting her inner cheek.Iden
She turned to look around; she could only hear screams and loud footsteps in the empty hallway. She slowly walked while holding her gown and trying to make sense of what was going on. The farther she walked, the more distinct the creams and heavy footsteps were. She looked around for people but was unable to locate even one. She picked up her pace quickly but was startled by a burning smell that she could not identify. She was terrified and wanted to enter the party hall, but a thick cloud of smoke obscured her vision, making it feel burning. She wondered where the cloud of smoke was coming from as she turned to look at her left and saw a huge flame shoot out of one of the guest rooms. She felt the flames roar angrily towards her face and fell down with a scream, avoiding a near-death experience. She realized the hotel was on fire, she broke out into a cold sweat "The hotel is on fire, shit, shit, oh god, please save us". She muttered. She knew she had to flee, but her body w
“This is the video we pulled,” Angelo said, turning the laptop toward Iden. He hit play. Young Ellaya hurled a glass of wine at Leo. Her voice sliced through the air like a blade. “You sewer rat! You don’t belong here! You should’ve died in the gutter you crawled out of!” Her finger jabbed toward his face, trembling. “You’re dirt-poor—and that’s exactly what you deserve! You should die like the scum you are!” Then, louder—each syllable laced with venom: “You’re poor—and that’s all you’ll ever be. Die in it.” Iden’s jaw locked. He didn’t blink. Couldn’t. His stomach twisted into a slow, suffocating knot. He’d seen this video so many times, it was seared into his memory. Burned in rage. It was the reason he hated her—or tried to. Failed to. But this clip, this moment... it was the beginning of everything. He had sworn over his friend’s grave to destroy her. And he did—masterfully. “She’s yelling at Leo,” Angelo said. “That’s what the clip shows. And we all believ
She smirked as she shoved a stray book off her lap. “You know… you don’t have to be the Don. You can just be who you are.” Iden tilted his head slightly, lips twitching into a faint smile—small, but real. “You’re the only one who gets to say that.” And in that moment—grief shadowing his eyes, the scent of blood still faint on his shirt—he smiled. He rubbed her hair playfully, gently mussing the strands like he used to when they were kids. “Really?” she grinned, sitting cross-legged on her bed. “Okay… if you say so. But I can tell you mine.” She beamed, reaching for a thick leather diary. “I used to keep memos, you know? I’d write down everything I enjoyed. The places I loved, food I liked, people I met. Kinda old school.” Iden sat down beside her, intrigued despite himself. Her glittering eyes—so full of life—reminded him of someone else. Someone who once laughed shyly and smiled like an idiot. Ellaya. His gaze drifted from his sister to the window, where night pressed it
Days passed like smoke—slipping through fingers, vanishing before they could be held. Time didn’t move forward; it bled. Minutes dragged like hours, and weeks collapsed in on themselves. Iden didn’t sleep. He didn’t eat. He sat in silence, trapped in his own mind, spiraling deeper into a storm of memories and questions. The moon became his only witness. Some nights, he watched the stars, others, the rain. Most nights, he simply stared into the void, heart thundering beneath skin that no longer felt like his own. A storm churned in his chest—loud, endless, and hungry. He saw her face in every shadow. Heard her voice in every silence. Her scent still clung to his lungs like smoke from a fire he could never put out. It had been a week since the blast. A week of searching. A week without answers. She wasn’t listed among the dead. But she wasn’t among the living either. She was missing. And Iden knew—deep in the part of his soul that still burned for her—she was alive. Hidi
The room was breathtaking—paneled in dark mahogany, steeped in the scent of old paper and aged wood. Floor-to-ceiling shelves held leather-bound books, their spines gilded and cracked with time. But it was the massive oil painting that stole Ellaya’s breath. A woman with wild purple hair and luminous skin smiled down at them. Her eyes—familiar, haunting—seemed to follow Ellaya across the room. She froze. The resemblance was undeniable. Same striking bone structure. Same purple irises. But the woman in the painting looked lighter—freer. Her smile held none of the weight Ellaya carried. None of the pain. Photos cluttered every surface. In one, the woman stood beside a tall, devastatingly handsome man—mid-laugh, hand wrapped around her waist. Their wedding photo. They looked hopelessly in love. Another showed them cradling a baby. The man's eyes brimmed with pride. The woman’s arms curled around the infant like a shield. The baby… was her. There was no mistaking it. Ellaya stagge
Ellaya didn’t remember when they moved her. One moment, she was in her cell—cracked walls, the stench of sweat and rusted iron, a tray of untouched food rotting in the corner. The next, she woke in hell. Not the metaphorical kind. The real one. The kind where screaming and silence existed in the same breath. Where punishment wasn’t given for madness—it was fed to it. You weren’t treated. You were drowned. The asylum was never quiet. Men laughed at the ceiling. Women whispered to the walls. Eyes followed her—hungry, hollow. Human only in name. She didn’t scream. Didn’t fight. She just watched. Watched them drag limp bodies behind rusted doors marked “TREATMENT.” Watched them come back quieter. Emptier. Sometimes not at all. They said she was dangerous. Deranged. A monster in a pretty shell. She didn’t correct them. Let them think she was mad. Let them forget she existed. At least then, no one expected her to survive. She’d already buried herself inside. What was left to
The room hummed with tension. Blue light from dozens of monitors painted ghostly shapes across Angelo’s office. Cables tangled like veins across the floor, machines blinked like they were breathing. The sharp scent of hot metal, sweat, and cigarette smoke hung thick in the air. “Everything’s set,” Kai reported, voice clipped. “Cameras, medics, chopper in the air. Our men are spread across the asylum. She's walking into the lion’s mouth.” Iden stepped into the room, slow and silent. This was the war room. It looked like one. A place where lives were traded, decisions signed in blood. He moved to the center of the chaos, eyes drawn to the wall of screens. Every angle of the massive asylum flickered in shaky grain. Corridors lined with flickering lights. Rooms filled with twitching shadows—patients, doctors, ghosts. The asylum was a tomb disguised as a hospital. Built on illegal records and rotting experiments. A hellhole. A cover for human trafficking, organ harvesting, un
It had been a week. And their plan—cold, calculated, inhumane—was working.The medication laced into her system had done more than sedate her. It blurred the edges of time, pulling her into hallucinations stitched from trauma and shadows. She saw things that never happened. Heard voices that whispered lies in familiar tones. Faces from the past flickered before her eyes, only to vanish like smoke. And when she spoke, it was to people long gone.Kai gave the daily reports, short and clinical. “She’s deteriorating. Fast. The hallucinations are getting worse.”But Iden, arms folded and gaze fixed on the monitor, wasn’t convinced the drugs were fully to blame. “Or maybe it’s not the meds,” he said quietly. “Maybe it’s just her past… clawing its way out.”“Does it matter?” Kai muttered. “She’s breaking. That’s the goal.”It didn’t sit right with Iden. Nothing about this did. But the truth was, it was working.His eyes locked on the screen in front of him. There she was—sitting on the cold
*If she chooses never to return to your life… you’ll let her go.* The words dug into Iden’s chest like nails, each syllable burrowing beneath skin and bone until all that remained was a hollow ache. His mother's voice echoed long after she was gone, like a ghost haunting the edges of his sanity. He collapsed backward onto the bed, limbs flung carelessly like a marionette with severed strings. His arm dangled limply off the edge. The bedsheet twisted under him, bunching like the knots in his chest. His eyes didn’t move. Not even to blink. "Princess..." The word escaped his lips in a breathless rasp—more of a ghost than a name. *You are my knight in shining armor, my hero.* "I'm not," he choked, barely above a whisper. "I never was." His throat tightened. He swallowed hard, but it didn’t help—the guilt still rose like bile. "I’m the fucking monster, Laaya," he muttered, fist tightening in the bedsheet. "You should’ve avoided me. Hid from me. Run as far as you could."
“No. She’s not willing to meet anyone. We tried.”Arthur’s raspy voice hit Iden like another bolt to the ribs—sharp and cold.“If we want this plan to work,” Arthur continued, “we have to pull her to our side. She’s not just sitting in that cell. She’s slipping further every day.”Kai took a long sip from his glass and slammed a stack of photos onto the table. The room dimly buzzed with the hum of old lights, one flickering above the table like it couldn't make up its mind.Iden didn’t speak. His thumb rubbed anxiously over the back of his folded hand, a small movement that betrayed the storm inside him. His eyes locked on the photos.Ellaya.Clad in dull prisoner grays. Knees to her chest. Eyes not looking—just staring.At the wall.At the floor.At food she never touched.Empty. Hollowed out.Always alone.Always in the corner.Always sad.Always broken.A tremor slid through Iden’s spine. He had pulled monsters from holes and made them bleed in ways they didn’t think possible.But