Chapter 6: The Devil’s Bargain

My blood turned to ice. The words hung in the air between us, sharp and lethal as shards of glass. I forced my face into a mask of confusion, tilting my head just so—the way Elara would.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, keeping my voice light. "Did you hit your head on the chandelier when you fell? I'm Elara. Elara Blackwood." I gestured at my hair, now a rich chestnut brown, my eyes—colored by the rarest contact lenses money could buy. "Your *fiancée*."

Marcus laughed. It was a low, cruel sound that scraped against my nerves. "Elara never laughed like that. She never had that fire in her eyes when she looked at me. She never—" He stepped closer, his cologne suffocating. "—looked at me like she wanted to carve my heart out."

I held my ground. Paralyzed. Trapped.

My revenge was supposed to be clean. Slow. Methodical. I had spent three years in that hospital bed, plotting every detail of my return. When I learned that Elara—my sweet, naive sister—was engaged to the man who murdered me, I knew I had been handed a gift. Elara had died suddenly, and I had taken her place. No one questioned it. No one looked twice at the quiet, grieving sister stepping into the dead twin's shoes. Except for Marcus. The devil always recognized his own.

"I watched you die, Mara." His voice dropped to silk. "I watched your lungs fill with blood. I watched the light leave your eyes. Do you think I don't recognize the ghost that haunts me?"

My nails bit into my palms. *Stay calm. Stay Elara.*

"You're insane," I whispered, backing toward the door. "I'm calling the wedding off—"

"You'll do no such thing." He caught my wrist, his grip iron-tight. "Because if you walk out that door, I'll tell everyone who you really are. I'll tell the police that the woman impersonating Elara Blackwood is actually her deceased sister. Can you imagine the headlines? The scandal? The autopsy?"

My throat closed. He had me. God help me, he had me.

"What do you want?" The words tasted like poison.

Marcus smiled, and it was worse than his cruelty. It was tender. "I want what I've always wanted." He brushed a strand of hair from my face, and I flinched. "I want you, Mara. I loved you. I still love you. That's why I had to kill you—because you refused to see that we were meant to be."

Bile rose in my throat. "You're a monster."

"Yes." He shrugged, unbothered. "But I'm the monster holding all the cards. So here's my offer, my darling ghost. You marry me. You play the perfect, devoted wife for exactly one year. And in exchange—" He pulled out his phone, showing me a photo that made my knees buckle. "—your mother stays alive."

A photo of my mother, bound to a chair, terrified. Alive. She was alive. I had thought her dead. Marcus had made sure I believed it.

"You wouldn't."

"Try me." He tucked the phone away. "I have her in a lovely little safe house. She's being treated well—for now. But if you refuse me, if you run, if you breathe a single word of this to anyone... well. She always did have a weak heart."

I was shaking. Rage, fear, and helplessness warred inside me. My grand plan. My meticulous revenge. It was all crumbling. I had walked into his den wearing his enemy's skin, and he had seen through me in a single night.

But then, a cold clarity settled over me. He wanted a wife on his arm. He wanted to own me. But owning me meant letting me close. And letting me close meant giving me access to his secrets, his businesses, his weaknesses.

"You have a deal," I said, my voice flat.

Marcus's eyes gleamed with triumph. "Excellent. The wedding is in three weeks. I've already arranged everything—I knew you'd see reason."

I didn't ask how he knew. I didn't want to know. He released my wrist, and I stumbled back.

"I'll have my lawyers draft the papers," he added, straightening his cuffs. "You'll sign them at the ceremony. And Mara?" His smile was pure predator. "Try anything, and your mother's heart stops before the champagne toasts."

He turned and walked out, leaving me alone in the gilded sitting room.

I sank onto the chaise lounge, trembling. For a long moment, I just breathed. Then, slowly, I pulled out my phone. A single number, still saved from my old life—a contact I'd never thought I'd need again. I pressed send.

The voicemail picked up. A man's gruff voice echoed through the speaker. "You've reached Detective Grant. Leave a message."

"Detective," I whispered, my voice cracking. "It's... it's Mara Ashford. Please. I need your help. I'm alive. And I'm about to marry the man who killed me."

I hung up, tears streaming down my face.

Marcus thought he had won. He thought he had trapped me.

But he didn't know what I knew. I hadn't died in that alleyway with a bullet in my chest. I had died in that hospital bed, three years later, full of tubes and silence—and I had woken up in my sister's life with one single purpose.

He wanted to own me? Fine.

Let him try.

Because a caged bird is still dangerous when the cage is pried open. And I planned on tearing this whole gilded cage apart, one rusted bar at a time.

I looked out the window, where the night was dark and endless.

Three weeks until I became his wife.

Three weeks until I had him exactly where I wanted him.

Three weeks until the first domino fell.

And this time, Marcus, I thought, wiping the tears from my cheeks. *This time, when you fall, there won't be anyone left to catch you.*