“—her—this. I am not marrying anyone out of their pity,” I say to my father.

He just shrugs his shoulders. “It’s not out of pity. It’s time for you to get married and have your own family. You are twenty-seven years old and I want to see you happy.” I look at him as if he’s grown two heads.

“Doesn’t matter to me. I’ll do what I want. She is nothing to me. I’ll go to my mistresses, and if she tries to stop me then fine — I’ll torture her and kill her before I take her virginity,” I tell him plainly. I’m a straightforward man; truth is truth.

My father rolls his eyes and stands. He heads for the door, then pauses and says, “Just don’t do something you’ll regret later.” With that he leaves.

I bang my fist on the table in anger. Who is he to tell me what to do?

At last my marriage day is over; now there’s only one thing left to take care of — her.

I walk to her room and open the door. She’s nowhere to be seen. I move to the balcony and find her gazing at the view, lost in it as if she hasn’t noticed me. Alex and Peter kept saying she looked beautiful, but I hadn’t looked at her all day — now I finally see what they meant.

Even in her hiding clothes and hijab she looks perfectly gorgeous.

I place my hand lightly on her shoulder. She snaps back to reality, takes two steps away and says, “Stay away from me. W-what are you doing here?”

The words remind me of my reality. My eyes darken; I say what I’m supposed to and leave.

She seems oddly pleased when I tell her I don’t want her.

I go to my office. My friends are there and look up as I enter.

“So how’d it go? Did she yell at you or throw things at you when you said what you meant?” Alex asks after a moment.

“No. Nothing like that,” I say.

Peter looks up from his computer. “Man, that’s not possible. Don’t lie.”

I tell them what happened. “Yes — she actually seemed happy to be away from me.”

“Then what are you doing here? Maybe she doesn’t want you because she’s in love with someone else,” Alex suggests. That makes me angry. I stand. “Shut up,” I say, and head straight back to her room.

I will find out myself.

After she slapped Ashley, my friends told me I should do something about her. She’s a threat. I thought, and I found a way to break her open emotionally. I did it; she opened up.

I woke up beside her one morning and considered confessing, but I forced myself to be realistic. I said the right things — emotional lines — and she melted. Even if I couldn’t take her virginity, I took her heart. She fell into my trap.

But it was a game. And now I can’t get her to leave me alone. Every time I close my eyes I see her smile. Damn it — when I saw her winking and hugging that boy I lost it. When she said he was her brother I felt strangely relieved.

It hurts when she called me her trainer, not her husband. Why am I so hurt and disappointed? I got what I wanted — yet leaving her now would break me into pieces.

I gave it to her: only she can break me. I fell into my own trap.

Frustrated, I left her alone that day.

When I got home, I sent Alex and Peter to fetch her, but they came back empty-handed. She had been taken — all because of me. I’d left her, and someone took advantage of a girl walking alone. How could I be so stupid not to remember she didn’t have her phone or money?

I tore through the house in a fury. Peter hacked cameras around the stadium and my neighborhood; Alex led a team to investigate on the ground. After four or five hours, Alex returned with nothing.

Where are you? I ask in my head. What if she left me? Then her face from yesterday flashed in my mind — the face she made when I had Ashley on my office table and I — had been hard on her. She stopped herself from crying then; I could not forget that expression. I had been satisfied with myself for breaking her. That look made me smile yesterday — today I cry thinking about it. I was a fool.

I start throwing things, trying to shake off regret and frustration. Eventually I fall to my knees and a tear escapes. All I want now is to find her and tell her everything. To apologize. If she wants a divorce I’ll give it. I’ll let her go if she wants, but I will apologize until she forgives me.

The office door opens. Alex and Peter walk in. Alex clears his throat. “You have to watch this,” he says, pointing at the laptop Peter holds.

“It’s about her,” Peter adds.

I take the laptop and watch the footage.

“It’s CCTV from a club,” Peter says.

I see her come in terrified, and a man pull her and beat her. Blood — it’s all I can see. I will save her no matter what. How dare he put his hands on someone who belongs to me?

But that isn’t all. When he bangs her head on the wall, her expression changes: terrified to hard. Her eyes promise something deadly when she looks at him.

Sana’s POV

I open my eyes and find myself in a dark, cold room with no windows and only a locked door.

I don’t know where I am and I don’t want to know.

After what I saw in his office, I let the thread of life slip from my hands. I don’t know if I want to live anymore.

I gave him my heart, accepted him as my husband after what he’d done, and yet he left me. I cry because my worst nightmare has come true.

The door opens and I snap back to the present. Two men stand over me with a girl between them. They whisper and throw the girl toward me.

The man I thought was the boss grabs my hair beneath my hijab and pulls me up.

“You know your husband has crossed borders to look for you,” he says. I stare at him, dumbfounded.

“Please don't let him take me,” I beg, tears streaming down my face.

He looks for a moment and throws me away. “Why would I listen to you when money can walk to me if I make an agreement with him? There is no use for you.” His eyes show the same disgust I saw when I first stood up to him.

I lose the strength to cry or speak. I sit on the cold floor like a lifeless body. I have entered the deepest hollow. My head and body ache; my back bleeds.

If I pass out this time I’m not sure I’ll wake up. But I will not give up yet — I want to ask him why. What did I ever do to him?

It’s been two days since anyone came near us or spoke to us.

They haven’t given us anything to eat. There’s only a pot of muddy water. I have lost hope of seeing him again.

Maybe he sold me for money. Why else would he waste money on me if he didn’t even want me?

My thoughts are cut off by the sound of someone slamming the door open.

Five men fill the doorway.

“Here’s your money,” a familiar voice says.

“Alex — take them away,” Leo orders.

Hands grab me before I can fully faint. I don’t know what happens after that; all I know is one thing: I am the dark light — the mafia’s possession.

They drag me along, half-conscious, until everything fades into a black hole of pain and the world narrows to the ache in my head and the metallic taste of blood in my mouth.

When I come to, I’m somewhere else — another cold room. My body is bruised; my back stings where I hit the wall. The cut on my leg burns when I try to move.

There is no kindness here. Only the hollow thuds of men passing by and the occasional muttered bargain about money and favors.

Days blur. Sometimes the men put a bowl of something that smells like broth in front of us; sometimes they don’t. The water in the pot is still muddy. My body grows weaker, but my questions don’t stop.

Why? What did I ever do to deserve this? Did he really send me away like this?

Every time I try to keep my spirit alive, it gets smaller, but a small ember remains — an ember that remembers how to be defiant.

One night, footsteps stop outside the door. Men talk quietly. A hand grabs my hair and drags me into a brighter room. My eyes burn at the sudden light.

There he is — Leo. He looks at me for a long, cold moment. But something in his gaze is not the same as before. There’s a flicker of… curiosity? Regret? I can’t tell.

He doesn’t say much. He orders me to be brought to his house. The men shove me forward like luggage. I stumble, bleeding, exhausted, but I am alive.

Back at his house, they throw me into a small servant room. A maid shuts the door. I lean against the wall, trembling. The memories of the club, the gunshot, the cold concrete — they all sit like stones in my chest.

I am the dark light. The phrase echoes: the mafia’s possession. It is a stunning, bitter thing to hear yourself named like an object.

Still — somewhere beneath the bruises — something hardens. The flash I saw in the club before everything went black comes back: my own eyes, steady and dangerous. I remember how I had looked at that man: not begging, not pleading — only promise. The promise that if I had to die, I would not die alone.

They think they own me. They think they can break me. But I am not finished.

I press my fist against my palm until pain snaps through me and focus on the single truth that remains: I will not be theirs without a fight.