The wedding dress lay crumpled in the corner like a discarded ghost.
White silk, hand-stitched lace, and delicate embroidery symbols of wealth, beauty, submission. It should have been the most expensive gown in all of Colombia. But Isabella Vasquez looked at it as nothing more than a noose.
She kicked it aside with bare feet.
Thunder cracked outside the mansion window, followed by the heavy roar of summer rain. It was fitting. The weather was always dramatic when her life fell apart.
With trembling hands, she zipped up her leather jacket stolen from one of the guards then grabbed the backpack she'd hidden beneath her bed weeks ago. Cash. Burner phone. A switchblade. And a new identity.
"I'm not marrying some cigar-smoking relic for trade deals," she muttered under her breath. "I'm not property."
The echo of heels in the hallway made her freeze.
Shit. Too early.
She slipped out onto the narrow balcony, raindrops immediately soaking her hair, and swung one leg over the stone railing. A six-foot drop into the rose garden below she'd bruised worse escaping boarding school.
She jumped.
The impact stung, but she rolled like her fencing coach had taught her. The moment her boots hit the grass, she was running through the side path, through the hedge break only she knew about, and then out onto the dark, slick roads beyond the estate.
By the time the alarms blared behind her, Isabella Vasquez had already vanished into the night.
---
Two days later, the girl with emerald eyes and soaked curls stood in a cramped bus terminal three towns away, wrapped in a cheap hoodie, chewing on a protein bar that tasted like cardboard. No one looked twice at her.
Good.
But her safety was temporary. She knew her father. Don Vasquez wasn't just angry he was embarrassed. And in his world, embarrassment meant blood.
She didn't have long.
A shadow passed across the bench beside her. A man sat down, his coat dripping from the storm. She barely glanced at him until she caught the smell of expensive cologne under the rain. It didn't belong here.
And neither did his shoes.
"You're not from around here," she said quietly.
The man smiled. "Neither are you."
She turned to face him fully and froze.
He was beautiful, but wrong. Like a statue carved too perfectly to be real. Sharp jaw, slick dark hair, a smile that didn't reach his eyes. He looked like trouble. The kind that didn't just destroy you he enjoyed it.
"What do you want?" she asked, voice steady.
"A conversation," he replied, folding his hands. "You're Isabella Vasquez, And you're running from your father or from your fate."
She narrowed her eyes. "If you're with him..."
"I'm not." His voice was calm, almost amused. "Don Vasquez hates me, actually. You might say we're... competitors."
She studied him, wary. "Then why the hell are you talking to me?"
"Because I'm offering you a choice." He leaned forward, lowering his voice like a secret. "You can keep running, until someone less polite than me finds you. Or you can come with me. I'll protect you. No one touches what's mine."
Isabella stiffened. "I'm not yours."
The man chuckled. "Not yet."
Her fingers inched toward the knife in her jacket pocket. "Who are you?"
He stood, offering a gloved hand.
"Lucien Vale," he said, eyes glinting. "And sweetheart, you just became the most valuable piece on this chessboard."