Velvet Chains: Bound to the Don

The crystal chandelier above me glinted too harshly, mocking the storm brewing in my heart. My father's study was redolent of aged leather and expensive cigars, but I sensed as if I were caught in the midst of a blizzard.

His words were the blade cutting through the silence.

"You will marry Nathaniel D'Arcy."

They were clean, sharp words—words delivered with the finality of a death sentence.

My teacup clattered against its saucer, betraying me. I wrapped my fingers tighter around the porcelain, hoping the tremble in my hands would not find their way to my voice. "Marry?" The word stuck in my throat. I forced it out. "Father, no. I—"

"Silence." His glare sliced across the room, freezing me in place.

The word cut short the protest that seared at the back of my throat. My father didn't need to yell. One word would do it. One word, and he could turn me into the small, shaking child of my past.

I looked at my mother. She was beside him, back as stiff as a ramrod, pearls glinting against alabaster. But her eyes—her eyes flicked from mine as though beholding me was more than she could stand. As though she agreed, but could not muster the courage to inform me.

My chest burned. I hurt to shout. I wanted to stand, to toss the tea, to demand my liberty. But my father's lips curled in warning, and I knew if I made a sound, he'd annihilate me with words that cut like knives.

"Father," I whispered, almost unheard.

"Please. I don't even know him."

"You will," he replied ruthlessly.

"I—" I sealed my throat shut. I had to try. "He's… he's ten years older than me. I'm only twenty-one. This isn't right."

His expression firm, a vein throbbing in his temple. "Life isn't fair, Serena. This marriage is necessary. For us. For our reputation. For the company."

Always the company. My father's empire, the empire that had consumed every waking second of his life, every fragment of my mother's pride, and now… me.

"But I don't want.."

"Enough!" His fist smacked down on the highly polished mahogany desk. The sound boomed through me, like thunder. The crystals of the chandeliers chimed a light reprise in its echo, laughing at my fear.

I flinched but struggled myself back to sitting upright. I was no longer a child. He could not shut me up forever.

He's thirty-one," I breathed, my voice cracking into desperation. "And he's. he's Nathaniel D'Arcy. Everyone knows what his reputation is. He's ruthless. Cold. People say.."

"People say what I let them say." My father's voice was smooth and quiet, a soothing calm that made me shiver. "You will not listen to rumor. You will obey."

Obey. The word fell like lead into my gut.

I begged my mother again, a silent scream screaming from my eyes: Stop. Please. Rescue me.

But she looked down at her clasped hands. Her knuckles went white against the pearls on her wrist.

My heart shattered. She would not rescue me. She never did.

The walls closed in on me, claustrophobic. I recalled the sketchbook hidden under my bed, filled with dresses I would never design, trips I would never take. I recalled friends I had allowed to slip away, smothered by my father's strictures. I recalled liberty—once—flying out of my reach like smoke.

And I recalled the man whose name now cursed me. Nathaniel D'Arcy.

I had heard the stories. Everyone had. He was the youngest CEO to build an empire from ashes, ruthless in boardrooms, merciless in contracts. They called him the Ice King because nothing touched him, nothing moved him. He was untouchable.

And now, he would be mine. Or worse.

I would be his.

A laugh so bitter it tore in my throat, but I swallowed it. My father would never understand the reason for this. Marriage was a decision, wasn't it? Love, at least a little?

To me, it was an agreement. Signed in blood I did not agree to lose.

"Father—" I tried again, gentler this time, bargaining. "Please. Let me finish school first. Let me.."

"You'll finish nothing if you defy me."

His words cut more deeply than I had expected. For under the brutality, there was always the reality: in his world, my life was not my own. It was his, and the family honor's.

Tears stung my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. Crying would only please him. He despised weakness.

"Why me?" The words spilled out, desperate. "Why Nathaniel D'Arcy? You have other connections. You have power, to start with. Why sacrifice me?"

My father leaned back in his chair, fingers entwined. His gaze was sharp, calculating. "Because he asked for you."

My blood ran cold.

"He… asked for me?" My voice cracked.

He did not nod. Did not explain. He did not need to. The hardness of his tone spoke louder than anything: Nathaniel D'Arcy had asked for me.

Why?

I had never seen him. Never heard him. Never even shared the same space. Why would a man such as he—a man who could have any woman, ask for me?

Fear knotted hard in my belly. Fear, and something sinister. A creeping suggestion of curiosity that made my skin crawl.

The grandfather clock by the wall ticked seven, each ring shaking my bones.

My father looked at the clock. "He comes tonight."

The words slammed into me harder than any blow.

“Tonight?” My voice cracked again. “No..you can’t mean..”

“You’ll greet him properly,” my father cut me off. “This arrangement begins now. You’ll smile, you’ll behave, and you’ll prove yourself worthy of the D’Arcy name. Do not embarrass me, Serena.”

I swallowed hard. My hands clenched around the edge of the chair, nails digging into the wood.

Tonight.

I thought I had weeks, months to scheme, to plan, to dream of escape. Tonight, though, my fate walked in through that doorway.

The atmosphere shifted. Heavy footsteps reverberated down the corridor. My heart thumped, my breathing too quick.

A crash at the front door.

I tensed up.

My father rose suavely, fastening his cufflinks as if for any regular business meeting. My mother prepared herself, pearls softly clinking against the collarbone of her gown.

The butler rushed to the door to open it.

And then—he stood there.

Nathaniel D'Arcy.

The world spun on its axis.

He towered in the doorway, his wide shoulders and height blocking most of the light, his tailored clothes defining lines as sharp as the line of his jaw. Dark hair swept neatly across his forehead, not a single strand misplaced. His very presence consumed the room, stealing the air from my lungs.

But it were his eyes that took the breath from my body. Cold, grey, unyielding. A glacier trapped inside human skin.

He looked around the room once. His eyes moved over my father, flicked to my mother, and then—lay upon me.

For one bright, glittering moment, his eyes locked with mine.

One, frozen glance.

Hot enough to brand bone.

Unimpressed. Assessing. Final.

And in that glance, I heard the doors of my cage slam shut.