Axel's words hung between us like a loaded gun. "Marry me."
I stared at him, my mind struggling to process what he had just said.
He was a stranger I only knew by name. He was a man as ruthless as he was powerful, and he was offering me marriage—not love, not comfort, but an alliance for mutual benefit.
I should have laughed in his face. I should have walked away.
But I didn't. Because deep down, beneath the humiliation, the pain, and the burning betrayal, there was something else.
Something dark. Something that wanted revenge.
I swallowed hard. "You want me to marry you just to ruin my family?"
Axel smirked. "Doesn't the idea tempt you?"
It did. More than I wanted to admit.
I thought of my father's cold eyes, my mother's silence and Cassandra's smug smile as she took my place at the altar.
They discarded me. They used me and then threw me away like I was nothing.
But what if I became something they could never ignore?
