The house was silent that night.
The kind of silence that stretched too long and settled deep into the walls, it was heavy and unmoving.
Ava sat by her desk, her bare feet resting against the cold floor, a single lamp casting a pool of golden light across the stack of invitations laid before her.
Ten perfect ivory cards.
Ten empty spaces meant for names that didn’t exist.
She stared at them for a long time, her pen motionless in her hand.
The ink had already dried on the tip, but she couldn’t bring herself to write anything.
Each blank line felt like a reminder of everything she’d lost, of everyone who was gone.
She traced her fingertip over the embossed letters The Wedding of Damian Cross and Ava Sinclair and felt something twist painfully inside her chest.
It was all real now.
Every part of it.
The dress in her room.
The veil Clara insisted she try on tomorrow.
The photographs that would soon decorate magazines.
And yet, none of it belonged to her, not truly.
Not even her name, printed so neatly beside his, looked like her anymore.
Ava inhaled shakily and reached for her pen.
Her hand hovered over the first card.
One name came to her mind , one she couldn’t stop seeing no matter how much she tried to forget.
Lily.
She wrote it slowly, her handwriting trembling slightly, the black ink cutting sharply against the ivory surface.
Just one name.
Her sister’s.
When she finished, she stared at it for a long time, her vision blurring with tears.
She imagined Lily’s laugh, the way her eyes lit up when she talked about the future.
She imagined what it would be like if she were here teasing Ava about the dress, whispering that everything would be okay.
But she wasn’t here.
And the only reason Ava was standing in this gilded cage was because Lily had vanished.
Her tears slipped quietly down her cheek and fell onto the paper, the ink smudging slightly where the drop landed.
She brushed it away with her sleeve, whispering under her breath,
“I’m doing this for you, Lily… please let it be worth it.” This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
Her voice broke on the last word.
The lamp flickered once, dimming slightly before returning to its soft glow.
Outside, the wind moved against the windows, whispering through the trees beyond the estate.
Ava leaned back in her chair and looked around the vast, silent room.
It was beautiful, too beautiful.
Every inch of it designed for comfort, for perfection.
But it felt like a museum, not a home.
She pressed the pen to her lips, her thoughts spiraling.
She didn’t even know if Lily was alive.
She didn’t know what Damian truly wanted from her or what he was hiding behind that calm, cold face of his.
Every time she thought she understood him, he became more unreadable and more dangerous.
And yet, beneath all that, there were moments.
Fleeting ones.
A flicker of something human in his eyes.
A softness she wasn’t supposed to notice but always did.
She hated herself for it.
Ava let out a soft, tired laugh.
“Perfect bride,” she whispered to no one.
“For a man who doesn’t even see me.”
The words hung in the air, fragile and bitter.
She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the table.
When she finally stood, she left the single written invitation apart from the others, as though it were sacred.
As though Lily might somehow see it.
_______________
Down the hall, in his office, Damian sat behind his desk.
The monitors on the wall flickered with the silent feed of security cameras.
The hallways, gardens, empty rooms.
He wasn’t watching them.
His mind was somewhere else entirely.
Her words from earlier still echoed in his head “What happens when the bride doesn’t have a single soul to witness it?”
Something he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in a long time.
He leaned back in his chair and exhaled, loosening the top button of his shirt.
For years, control had been the only thing he understood.
Discipline, precision, structure, those were his weapons.
The armor that kept everything else buried.
But tonight, that armor didn’t feel as unbreakable as before.
He had watched her all day, her silence at breakfast, the way she forced herself to stand still during the photographs, the flicker of defiance in her eyes even when she was exhausted.
He knew what she thought of him.
that he was cold and ruthless.
The man who had trapped her in this house.
and used her situation for his own personal gains.
And maybe she wasn’t wrong.
Damian rubbed his temple, his jaw tightening.
He had built this entire life around control, but every time he saw her, it slipped a little.
He reached for the folder on his desk the one labeled with Lily’s name and opened it.
Photographs, reports, sightings that led nowhere.
It was all still there, mocking him.
How was he going to give her answers about her sister when he didn’t have answers too.
He had thought bringing Ava here, keeping her close, would make things easier, that he could protect her from who took her sister, while searching quietly for the truth.
But instead, it had turned into something else, the perfect plan he had orchestrated in his mind wasn’t as perfect as he had expected it to be..
On one of the screens, he saw movement, the faint outline of Ava passing through the hall on her way back to her room.
Her head was bowed slightly, her hair loose around her shoulders.
She looked… fragile.
He turned away quickly.
Damian stood and walked to the window, his esate stretching endlessly below him.
He could have everything, power, wealth, respect and yet the image of her eyes when she said “I have no one” was the only thing he could think about.
He hated that it made him feel anything.
The clock ticked quietly behind him, marking the minutes until dawn.
The house remained still, both of them locked in their own corners of silence, she with her grief, and he with his guilt