Chapter 2 The Uninvited Bride

The interior of the Lincoln was silent, hermetically sealed against the world. The driver kept glancing in the rearview mirror, his eyes narrowing every time they caught hers. He was looking for the addict, the crazy girl.

He found only a statue.

Athena watched the landscape blur. In her other life, she had opened this door and rolled out onto the highway three miles back. She had broken her arm and humiliated Caesar in front of the entire city.

She dug her fingernails into her palms. The sharp sting grounded her. Not this time.

The car slowed as it passed through the wrought-iron gates. Williamson Manor loomed ahead, a sprawling beast of dark stone and gothic arches. It looked less like a home and more like a fortress designed to keep people out. Or keep them in.

The car stopped. The driver didn't move to open her door.

Athena didn't wait. She pushed the door open, the cool air biting at her bare arms.

A row of maids stood by the entrance. They didn't bow. They nudged each other, whispering, eyes darting over her dress with open disdain.

"She actually came?" one muttered.

Then, a sound cut through the whispers. A mechanical whir. Low, consistent, approaching from the shadows of the grand foyer.

Athena's breath hitched.

He emerged from the darkness. Caesar Williamson.

He sat in a wheelchair that looked more like a command center than a medical device. A heavy wool blanket covered his legs. His face was pale, the skin drawn tight over sharp angles, giving him a skeletal, predatory look.

But his eyes. They were dark voids, filled with a mixture of exhaustion and a lethal, simmering rage.

He stopped ten feet away. He was waiting for her to recoil. He was waiting for the look of disgust he had seen on every other face in New York.

Athena's heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat of grief and impossible joy. It wasn't fear. The man in her memory was mangled in a fiery wreck, a ghost she had mourned for mere moments before her own death. But this man... he was alive. The tyrant she had once fled was now the hero she had failed. The guilt was a physical weight, pressing down on her lungs, making it hard to breathe. She saw the man who had driven into hell for her, and all she could think was, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

She walked up the stone steps.

Derik Hickman, the head of security, stepped in front of Caesar. His hand rested casually, yet threateningly, on the Taser at his belt.

"Miss Madden," Derik warned. "Stop right there."

Athena didn't look at Derik. She locked eyes with Caesar. She stopped three steps away from his chair.

The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating. The maids held their breath, waiting for the explosion.

"I'm hungry," Athena said. Her voice was steady, but it was a desperate anchor in a sea of emotion, a simple, mundane request to keep herself from shattering. "Is there dinner?"

Derik blinked, his professional mask slipping for a fraction of a second. Behind him, a maid's jaw actually dropped.

Caesar's fingers tightened on the armrest of his chair. His knuckles turned the color of bone. He studied her, searching for the lie, for the trap.

"You didn't go to the pier," Caesar said. His voice was a rasp, like stones grinding together. It was the voice of a man who hadn't used it for kindness in a long time.

"The wind was too strong," Athena lied, her gaze unflinching. "I get cold easily."

It was a terrible lie. They both knew it. But she was here, standing in his doorway, asking for food instead of freedom.

Caesar stared at her for a long moment. He looked at her scrubbed-clean face, the white dress that made her look like a sacrifice walking willingly to the altar.

"Let her in," he said.

Derik looked down at his boss, confused, but he stepped aside.

Athena crossed the threshold. The air inside the manor was ten degrees colder than outside. It smelled of lemon polish and loneliness.

The driver dumped her suitcase just inside the door and walked away without a word. The maids dispersed, ignoring the bag. It was a test. A petty, small-minded test to see if the "princess" would break.

Athena didn't ask for help. She grabbed the handle and hauled the heavy case across the marble floor. The wheels clattered loudly, echoing in the vast, empty hall.

At the elevator, Caesar stopped. He turned his chair slightly.

He watched her struggle with the bag. For a second, a flicker of something raw-pain, perhaps, or longing-crossed his face. But it vanished as quickly as it appeared, replaced by the mask of the tyrant.

The elevator doors closed, swallowing him whole.