Chapter 3

Gemma Bruce POV:

"Elias, don't!" The plea was ripped from my throat, raw with a terror he knew intimately. The heavy door clicked shut, the sound echoing the final closing of a tomb. Darkness swallowed me whole.

My breath hitched, my lungs screaming for air that was suddenly too thick to inhale. The walls, I could feel them, pressing in on me, stealing my oxygen, crushing my bones. My palms grew slick with sweat as I fumbled against the smooth, cold steel of the door.

"Please, let me out," I begged, my voice a pathetic whimper against the soundproofed metal. "Elias, please."

Silence.

He knew what this did to me. He was the one who found me, hyperventilating and clawing at the walls of a stuck elevator just a year into our marriage. He had held me for hours afterward, murmuring promises that he would never let me feel that trapped again. "I'm your safe place, Gemma," he had whispered into my hair. "I'll always protect you."

Another lie. A beautiful, poisonous lie.

The memory of the fire at my old studio surged back-the acrid smell of smoke, the suffocating heat, the terrifying realization that the back door was bolted shut. I' d been trapped then, too, convinced I was going to die. Elias had been my savior, my hero who kicked down the door and carried me into the clean, cool night air.

And now, the hero had become the monster. He had locked me in the dark, using my deepest fear as his weapon.

A faint scratching sound came from the other side of the door. My head snapped up. Was it one of the staff? Clara?

"Hello?" I called out, pressing my ear against the cold steel. "Is someone there?"

The scratching stopped, replaced by a low, feminine chuckle. It was a sound that slithered under my skin and made my blood run cold.

Juli.

"He's not coming for you, you know," her voice was a silken taunt, muffled by the thick door. "He's with me. Tending to me."

A fresh wave of panic, hot and suffocating, washed over me. "What do you want?" I gasped.

"What do I want?" Her laugh was sharper this time. "I want what's mine. I want my life back. I want him back. And you, my dear placeholder, are just a means to an end. Once he has what he needs from your father, you'll be discarded like the rest of the trash."

"You're insane," I sobbed, sliding down the door to huddle on the floor.

"Am I? He just locked his pregnant wife, the woman supposedly carrying his child, in a room that he knows terrifies her, all because I coughed a few times. Who do you think he loves, Gemma?"

The truth of her words was a physical blow. I wrapped my arms around my knees, trying to make myself smaller, trying to disappear. The air was thinning, the darkness pressing down. Black spots danced in front of my eyes.

"Please," I whispered to the empty dark. "The baby."

I don't know how long I was in there. It could have been minutes or hours. Time ceased to have meaning. My mind was a maelstrom of terror, a looping reel of smoke and locked doors and Elias' s cold, unforgiving face. Just as my vision began to tunnel completely, I heard the hiss of the door unlocking.

Light flooded the small space, blinding me. I scrambled backward, shielding my eyes. When my vision cleared, Juli was standing in the doorway, a triumphant smirk playing on her lips. Elias was nowhere to be seen.

"Time's up," she said coolly. "Don't worry, I told him you were just being dramatic. He's so wonderfully gullible when it comes to my well-being."

The sight of her, so smug and victorious, ignited a spark of rage through my fear. "Get away from me," I choked out, stumbling to my feet.

She took a step into the room, her smile widening. "You have nothing, you know. He belongs to me. This house, his name, his future-it was all supposed to be mine. You're just a parasite he had to tolerate to get the cure."

Something inside me snapped. I lunged forward, not to hurt her, but to push her out of my space, to get her away from me. "Leave me alone!" I screamed.

My hands barely made contact with her shoulders, a desperate shove born of terror. But Juli was a performer. She let out a piercing shriek and threw herself backward, collapsing onto the library floor in a heap.

"Gemma, no!"

Elias' s voice roared from the end of the hall. He had seen it. He had seen me push her. He ran to us, his face contorted in a mask of fury. He didn't even glance at me. He knelt beside Juli, gathering her into his arms.

"Are you okay? Did she hurt you?" he murmured, his voice laced with frantic concern.

"I-I don't know," Juli whimpered, clutching her arm. "She just... she just attacked me. She said I was trying to steal you from her."

"She's lying!" I cried, my voice shaking. "She was taunting me! She faked the allergy attack, Elias, she's trying to get rid of me!"

Elias slowly raised his head, and the look in his eyes stopped my heart. It was a look of pure, unadulterated loathing.

"You push a sick woman to the floor and then you have the audacity to lie about it?" he snarled, his voice dangerously low.

"I didn't-"

"Enough!" he thundered, rising to his feet and advancing on me. "I have had enough of your jealousy and your theatrics."

He grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into my flesh like talons. "Juli is a guest in this house. She is my friend, and she is sick. You will treat her with respect, or so help me God, Gemma, you will regret it."

Tears streamed down my face, hot and furious. "She's not your friend! She's the woman you love! The woman you're planning to use my father to save!"

His face went pale, his grip tightening until I whimpered in pain. For a terrifying second, I saw a flicker of something in his eyes-shock? Fear? But it was gone as quickly as it came, replaced by an icy rage.

"You will go to your room," he said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "And you will stay there until you can learn to behave like a civilized human being and not a jealous shrew."

He released my arm with a shove, and I stumbled back. He turned his back on me completely, bending down to lift Juli into his arms as if she were a precious, broken doll.

"I've got you," he murmured to her, his voice once again soft and full of care. "I won't let her hurt you again."

He carried her down the hall, away from me, leaving me alone with the crushing weight of his contempt and the chilling realization that I was no longer a wife in this house. I was a prisoner, and my warden and my tormentor were now living under the same roof.