The Golden Canary

Mine Alone

Chapter One: Mine Alone

The sound of the clock ticked in the silence—slow, deliberate, merciless.

Emma stood by the window, one hand gripping the velvet curtain, the other clenched at her side. Outside, the city gleamed like a dream she once believed in—glass towers and silver lights, all shining with the illusion of choice.

But in this room—his room—the air didn’t belong to her.

Nothing did.

Not her name.

Not her body.

Not even her silence.

She’d given all of it to Ethan Lu.

Her boss.

Her lover.

Her captor.

Seven years.

That’s how long she’d been his.

First as his secretary. Then his confidante. Then—inevitably—his mistress. And through it all, the line between devotion and destruction blurred into something unrecognizable. Love? Obsession? Whatever it was, it lived beneath her skin now. It breathed when she did.

Behind her, the door clicked open.

She didn’t need to look. She felt him. The room shifted. The temperature changed. The air grew tense with expectation and the unspoken.

Ethan always entered like that—with gravity. With power. With a silence louder than any shout.

"You didn’t answer my calls," he said, voice low and deliberate.

Emma didn’t move. “I was in a meeting.”

He didn’t laugh, but she heard the amusement in his breath. “With Mark?”

She turned then. Slowly. Controlled. “He’s on my team.”

“And since when do junior analysts deserve your attention outside of boardrooms?”

Emma didn’t reply. There was no point. He wasn’t jealous—he was territorial.

That was different.

Ethan stepped forward, predatory grace in every movement. His dark gray suit clung to him like a second skin, and there was that same look in his eyes—the one that made you forget he had no heart.

“You’re not my husband,” she said quietly. “You don’t own me.”

He stopped inches away. “Don’t I?”

She saw it in his eyes—how easily he could lie. Not to deceive her. But because he believed his own madness.

He slammed his hand against the wall beside her, caging her in. His body didn’t touch hers, not yet, but the tension stretched between them like a violin string drawn too tight.

And then—his hand moved. Brushed her neck. His fingers dragged over her skin, feather-light, like he could still pretend it was tenderness.

His breath was warm against her ear. “You are a shameless slut.”

Emma’s body stiffened, tears springing to her eyes. But she refused to let them fall.

She met his gaze, voice trembling but defiant. “Then why don’t you leave me and marry Rose?”

For a beat, he said nothing.

Then his hand curled around her waist, yanking her against him. He slammed her against the door—not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough to warn.

“Because,” he said, voice a growl in her ear, “even in death, you are mine. Mine alone.”

The words wrapped around her throat tighter than any hand ever could. It wasn’t a confession. It was a verdict.

Her fingers trembled. Not from fear. Not entirely.

From the part of her that still responded to him. The part of her that had forgotten how to exist without his fire—even if it burned her every time.

She hated it.

She hated him.