Adrian had seen contracts worth billions, but never one like this.
The document lay on the polished oak table between them, its clauses written in cold, clinical language that seemed designed to choke the life out of both parties.
The fountain pen, black and heavy, gleamed beside the papers like an executioner's blade.
Marriage within six months.
No divorce for a minimum of five years.
Full public commitment as husband and wife.
All assets and inheritances tied to the success of the union.
The words stared back at him like iron bars.
Adrian leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking under his weight.
He skimmed through the clauses, lips curling in disdain. "This isn't marriage," he muttered, the words laced with bitterness. "It's imprisonment."
Across him, Selena's gaze traced the same sentences.
She sat with her back perfectly straight, her fingers interlaced tightly on her lap as though she feared they might betray her trembling.
Her throat tightened as she whispered, just loud enough for him to hear, "Imprisonment dressed in gold."
Their words, sharp and low, hung in the silence between them, unheard or ignored by their parents, who sat proudly at opposite ends of the table.
Sir Edward Knight swirled the amber liquid in his glass with measured grace, satisfaction in every gesture.
Beside him, Mrs. Hayes smoothed invisible creases from her skirt, her pearls catching the light like trophies.
To them, this was no trap, It was a triumph.
Adrian's jaw worked as he forced his gaze back to the page.
He had signed away deals that dictated the future of entire corporations, but never his own freedom.
Yet here he was, expected to bend, to ink his name into a contract that stripped him bare of choice.
His hand closed over the pen, for a second, he considered snapping it in half, shattering the smug expressions opposite him.
But instead, he pressed the nib to paper. His name cut across the page with a savage flourish, Adrian Knight.
The pen bit into the surface as if his defiance could etch itself into permanence.
He tossed the pen down, the clatter startling in the tense room.
Selena stared at the signature as though it were a blade pressed to her throat. The pen now lay before her, black and weighty, daring her to pick it up. Her fingers hovered above it, trembling despite her effort to steady them.
She swallowed, her mind screaming, "Don't!, don't do this!!".
She could see the door. She could imagine herself rising, walking out, leaving this performance behind forever.
If she ran fast enough, she might make it out before anyone realized what she had done.
But then her mother's voice, sharp and unyielding, echoed through her mind.
"If you don't do this, everything collapses; The debts, the estates, everything your father built, we'll lose it all. And it will be your fault."
Her chest was constricted. With fingers that felt suddenly foreign, she closed around the pen.
The nib touched the paper.
Her name spilled, fragile and reluctant, across the line, Selena Hayes.
The contract was sealed.
She released the pen as though it burned her skin, her eyes fixed on the page.
Her mother exhaled with relief, murmuring something about "duty" and "honor."
Opposite her, Sir Edward raised his glass, the corners of his mouth twitching upward in satisfaction.
But Selena felt only the silence pressing against her ears.
Adrian shifted, his gaze narrowing as he studied her. The tremor in her hands. The flicker of defiance hidden beneath her composure.
She wasn't just trapped, he realized, she was suffocating. And yet she signed anyway.
Something in that struck him deeper than he expected.
Still, it was his father's expression that unsettled him most.
Sir Edward's smirk wasn't relief, it was possession. The kind of look a man wore when a chess piece had fallen exactly where he wanted it.
Adrian's teeth clenched. He knew his father too well to believe this was only about legacy.
Later, as they stepped out of the hall, away from the glowing approval of their parents, Selena's voice cut through the heavy quiet. "Tell me, Adrian…" She hesitated, as though weighing whether to risk the question.
Her eyes, shadowed and uncertain, found his. "Do you trust your father?"
Adrian froze, caught off guard. No one ever asked him that so directly. "Not in the slightest," he admitted after a pause, his tone flat, almost bitter.
Selena's breath left her in a shaky rush. "Then we have the same problem." smiling a little.
For a moment, their eyes held, two unwilling pawns bound to the same board.
Then Selena turned away, her gown whispering against the marble floor as she disappeared down the corridor.
Adrian remained, jaw tight, the faint echo of her words gnawing at him.
~
That night, long after she had gone, the mansion lay draped in shadows.
The moonlight spilled through tall windows, silvering the floorboards, and the silence was broken only by the faint tick of the grandfather clock.
Adrian moved like a shadow himself, slipping through corridors he knew too well.
He had been sneaking into forbidden rooms since he was a boy, searching for secrets, testing the limits of Edward Knight's control. Tonight was no different.
His father's study loomed at the end of the hall. The heavy oak door was locked, of course, it always was, but Adrian carried the kind of confidence that came from years of rebellion.
A bent paperclip, a twist, and the tumblers yielded with a soft click.
The study smelled of leather, smoke, and old power. Bookshelves lined the walls, their spines whispering promises of authority and history.
Behind the massive desk, the fire had died, leaving only embers glowing faintly.
Adrian's eyes landed on the drawer where the contract had been placed. He knelt, working quickly. The lock gave way under his practiced hands.
Inside lay the folder, neat and untouched. He drew it out, flipping it open. The marriage agreement stared back at him, their signatures stark against the page.
For a moment, he stared at Selena's name, her delicate script binding her to this farce. A strange twist pulled at his chest.
But then something else caught his eye. Beneath the folder, hidden but not carefully enough, lay a second envelope. Thick, cream-colored, sealed in crimson wax.
Adrian froze. His father's seal, the Knight crest pressed deep into the wax, glistened faintly under the low light.
This was no ordinary document.
His hand hovered above it, pulse quickening. Every instinct screamed at him to leave it alone. But curiosity, sharp and insistent, was stronger.
The envelope was heavier than expected, its edges rough beneath his fingertips.
He turned it over, searching for a clue, a marking, anything that would betray what lay inside. Nothing, Just the weight of secrets.
His thumb slid to the edge of the wax. He could break it, He should break it.
But before he could act, a floorboard groaned behind him.
Adrian's muscles locked.
And then came the voice, smooth, cold, and laced with quiet triumph from behind.
"Looking for something, son?"