The Cage Of Their Perfect Lie

Addison POV:

A strangled gasp escaped Kennedy's lips. Her face, already pale, turned ashen. Her eyes, fixed on us, filled with a mixture of shock and betrayal. Then, without a word, she turned and fled, her blue gown a whisper in the silent corridor.

The moment she was gone, Grayson's assault ceased. He pulled back, his chest heaving, his eyes still staring at the empty space where she had been. The look on his face was one of profound, agonizing regret. It was the look of a man who had just deliberately shattered the one thing he held sacred.

The coldness in my veins turned to ice. I was nothing. Less than nothing. I was a prop in his twisted, tragic play, a convenient body to be used to provoke a reaction from his true audience of one.

"A prostitute," I whispered, the word tasting like bile in my mouth. "You use me like a common prostitute."

My hand moved before my brain could process the command. I slapped him, hard, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the corridor. The force of it snapped his head to the side.

He slowly turned back to face me. The wild, pained look in his eyes was gone, replaced by a dazed, empty confusion, as if he was waking from a trance. He looked at me, a stranger in his own life, and the emptiness in his gaze was the final, killing blow.

I scrambled away from him, my hands shaking as I tried to smooth down my dress, to piece together the shredded remnants of my dignity. I ran, my heels clicking a frantic, desperate rhythm on the marble floor, away from him, away from the suffocating truth of my life.

I burst out of the corridor and almost collided with a small, trembling figure.

It was Kennedy.

"Mrs. Daugherty," she said, her voice soft, but her eyes anything but. There was no heartbreak in them now. Only a cold, hard hatred that was unnervingly familiar. It was the look of a rival.

"Get out of my way," I said, my voice hoarse. I was too tired, too broken, to deal with her.

She didn't move. "You think you've won, don't you?" she sneered, the fragile facade dropping completely. "Just because you have his name? He will never love you. He's mine."

"He's all yours," I spat, trying to push past her. "I don't want him."

Suddenly, she moved. She grabbed a half-empty champagne bottle from a passing waiter's tray and swung it. I saw a flash of green glass, a glint of reflected light, and then an explosion of pain at the side of my head.

The world dissolved into a cacophony of shattering glass and a high, piercing ringing in my ears. Black spots danced in front of my eyes, and the floor rushed up to meet me.

I woke to a throbbing, relentless headache and the sterile white of a hospital room. I was alone. For a moment, I thought I' d imagined the whole thing. Then I heard voices from the hallway. Grayson's voice, low and tense. And hers.

"I didn't mean to, Gray," Kennedy was saying, her voice thick with unshed tears. "I was just so angry. So jealous. She's so beautiful, and her family is so powerful. I saw you with her, and I just... I panicked."

It was a masterful performance. The vulnerable, frightened girl, driven to violence by love and fear.

I heard Grayson sigh, a sound of deep, bone-weary resignation. "I know, Kenny. It's not your fault."

My heart, which I thought had already been shattered into a million pieces, somehow found a new way to break.

"She's just a contract, Kenny," he said, his voice dropping to a soothing murmur. "That's all she's ever been. A necessary arrangement to keep you safe. She is nothing. You are everything. I'll handle this. I'll make it go away."

She is nothing.

The words echoed in the silent room, in the silent chambers of my soul.

She. Is. Nothing.

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