Across the table, Kyra was still staring at me with an expression that made goosebumps rise along my arms.
The scratch Kianda had given her earlier had already disappeared completely, but whatever humiliation she had suffered had clearly remained, and judging from the fury in her eyes, she hadn’t forgotten that I was the reason her uncle had reacted so violently.
“This is ridiculous,” she finally said.
“She doesn’t even belong here.” I stiffened at her words, but before I could respond, Kianda casually reached toward my plate and placed another piece of food in front of me.
“Eat.” I stared down at the food, then slowly looked at Kyra before turning my eyes toward Kianda.
She immediately closed her mouth.
I couldn’t help wondering whether she had suddenly remembered what had happened to her face the last time she challenged him.
Ann, meanwhile, had remained unusually quiet.
She sat beside Kieran with her hands folded tightly in her lap, occasionally glancing toward Kianda with an expression I couldn’t quite understand.
There was still something strange in her eyes, almost as though she couldn’t comprehend why the man she had greeted so warmly earlier had treated her with such hostility.
Kieran noticed her staring.
“Ann,” he said quietly.
She immediately turned toward him.
“Don’t.” Her expression changed, and she lowered her eyes without another word.
I watched the exchange carefully but kept my questions to myself.
There were already too many strange things happening around me, and I had absolutely no desire to become involved in another mystery when I was still trying to understand the ones I already had.
Eventually, an older man seated at the far end of the table gathered enough courage to speak.
“Kianda.” The entire table seemed to tense again.
Kianda didn’t even look at him.
“What?” The man hesitated before glancing toward me.
“May I ask why you brought the girl here?” Kianda slowly raised his eyes.
“No.” The answer came so quickly and so casually that the man immediately fell silent.
Kellan covered his mouth, but I could still see the amusement in his eyes.
I turned toward Kianda, completely bewildered.
“You could at least tell them who I am,” I muttered.
He looked at me as though the answer should have been obvious.
“They know enough.” “I don’t think they do.” His lips curved into a faint smile.
“They know you’re mine.” My spoon slipped from my fingers.
It struck the plate with a sharp clatter that seemed ridiculously loud in the silence that followed.
Heat immediately rushed into my face, and I stared at Kianda in disbelief.
“Can you stop saying things like that?” “No.” The answer was so effortless that Kellan finally burst into laughter.
Kieran’s expression darkened again, while Kyra looked as though she wanted to throw something directly at me.
Ann’s face had gone noticeably pale, and the older members of the family exchanged cautious glances without daring to say anything.
I looked around the table and slowly realized that I wasn’t the only confused person there.
They were confused too.
The difference was that they seemed to be afraid of the answer.
I lowered my gaze again, trying to make sense of how my life had somehow become this complicated.
I had entered the Kessan estate believing I was being brought here to marry Kieran.
Instead, I had discovered Ann, been accused of hurting her, escaped from the room where I had been imprisoned, somehow ended up in Kianda’s cage, and then been dragged to breakfast by a man who had decided to chain me beside him while casually declaring that I belonged to him.
Now he had nearly destroyed Kieran in front of his entire family because of something as simple as an insult directed at me.
I looked down at the chains around my wrists.
I had no idea what kind of family I had been dragged into, but as I looked around that table and saw the fear, confusion, anger, and silence written across their faces, I was beginning to suspect that I had somehow become the biggest problem this family had ever had to deal with.
“And from today onward, no one should call me by my name.
It should be only Rida,” Kianda muttered as he examined the food on my plate, his eyes moving over the dishes as though he were personally checking whether I had eaten enough.
I lowered my gaze toward the enormous meal in front of me, feeling almost overwhelmed by the amount of food that had been placed there.
Even if I had been starving all night, there was no way I could have finished all of it, especially with the atmosphere surrounding the table making it nearly impossible to swallow another bite.
Nobody seemed willing to say anything after what had happened earlier, and everyone at the table appeared to be watching Kianda carefully, as though the smallest mistake could provoke another confrontation.
Darien Kessan, Kianda’s older brother, was eventually the first to break the uncomfortable silence.
He had lived many years longer than Kianda and, simply because of his age and position within the family, would ordinarily have been someone others treated with considerable respect.
Yet age meant very little when it came to his younger brother.
Everyone in the family knew that whatever authority Darien possessed, whatever influence he held, and whatever position he occupied within the Kessan family, none of it could compare to Kianda when it came to power and supremacy.
“Brother, it can’t be that after six months of staying in the shadows without seeing any of us, you suddenly return only to become hostile toward your own family because of a woman!” Darien finally said, choosing his words carefully as though he were trying to reason with someone who could turn the entire room upside down at the slightest provocation.
Kianda slowly raised his eyes toward him, and the faint amusement that had been resting on his face disappeared for a moment.
“Not because of a woman,” he replied calmly.
“Did I ever tell you it was a woman?
Where exactly were you looking when you decided she was a woman?” His gaze shifted toward me before moving slowly across everyone else seated at the table, and almost immediately, every pair of eyes dropped toward the plates in front of them.
Nobody dared answer him.
After seeing what he had done to Kieran, nobody seemed particularly interested in discovering what would happen if they challenged him again.
“All right…” Darien muttered after a moment, lifting one hand slightly in surrender.
“Let’s just have breakfast.” He clearly had no intention of allowing another fight to break out at the table, and judging by the cautious way he watched his younger brother, he had already noticed that Kianda seemed different from the man he remembered.
Six months had passed since they had last seen him, and whatever had happened during that time appeared to have made him even more unpredictable.
Darien was certainly not foolish enough to test how far that unpredictability could go, so he wisely chose to end the argument before it could become another disaster.
I quietly continued eating, although I could barely concentrate on the food in front of me.
After a few more sips and several spoonfuls, I finally reached the point where my stomach could take no more.
Between the food itself and the unbearable tension filling the room, I felt completely full, and there was no way I could force myself to continue.
“I guess I’m full,” I finally murmured, my voice barely audible as my attention drifted toward the chains around my wrists.
The sight of them immediately reminded me of the reality I had been trying not to think about since I sat down at the table.
There was no point pretending anymore.
I had been brought into this family against my will, and now I was being led around by chains as though I were an object that belonged to someone else.
Whether I understood it or not, whether I accepted it or fought against it, I truly seemed to belong to Kianda now.
“Oooh?
That’s better…” Kianda murmured, apparently satisfied that I had eaten enough.
His attention then shifted toward the rest of the table, and something about his expression changed as he looked at everyone watching me.
“I don’t like their eyes.” He rose from his chair, and I instinctively stood as soon as he reached for the chains.