The Life-and-Death Pact

I died strapped in a dark basement, tortured until my last breath gave out.

At that exact second, halfway across the world, billionaire Roman—sitting in the VVIP front row of a Paris haute couture show next to Sloane—slammed onto the cold marble floor.

His body folded backward at a grotesque, impossible angle, as if crushed under the weight of an invisible wrecking ball.

Right in front of the flashing cameras and gasping elites, his fingers twisted and snapped. One by one. Bone pierced through skin, warm blood pooling on the pristine stone.

He convulsed, violent tremors ripping through his tailored suit as he tore his throat raw screaming my name.

Inside his head, a dead, mechanical voice echoed: [Host Daphne's death confirmed. LifeandDeath Pact activated.

All inflicted damage will now be transferred to the bound target, Roman, magnified to ten times the original pain threshold.] [Round One of pain transfer: Severed fingers.

Initiating now.] Chapter 1 The runway instantly devolved into pure chaos.

The golden boy under the spotlights, the untouchable billionaire heir who controlled the global economy, Roman, was curled up on the floor like a dead dog with its spine ripped out.

His handsome face twisted in agony. Cold sweat soaked straight through his customtailored suit. "Roman!

Roman, what's wrong with you?" Sloane dropped to her knees, the color draining from her face as she reached out to help him.

He slapped her hand away. "Don't touch me!" The raw terror bleeding into his roar was unmistakable. His hands—all ten of his fingers—hung at grotesque, unnatural angles.

Blood dripped steadily from between his knuckles, blooming into harsh red flowers against the polished marble floor.

Medics and bodyguards swarmed him while the camera flashes went absolutely psychotic. I floated in midair, watching it all with zero emotion.

My tragedy had just become the grandest fireworks display at his little celebration. "Roman, please don't scare me like this!

Is it your old condition acting up?" Sloane's voice trembled with tears, but her eyes deliberately avoided the mangled mess of his hands, steering the narrative toward a chronic heart issue.

She threw herself over him, crying a river. "It's all my fault. I forced you to come to this show. If I hadn't, you wouldn't be this exhausted. I'm so sorry…" Classic Sloane.

Always knowing exactly how to wash her hands clean of any mess while lowkey playing the devoted girlfriend. Roman didn't even seem to register her words.

His eyes rolled back, pupils blown wide as another shockwave of pain hit him. At the exact same moment, that dead, mechanical voice broadcasted again. [LifeandDeath Pact.

Bound parties share life force and endure reciprocal damage.] [Host Daphne suffered severed fingers prior to death.

Transferring to bound target Roman at ten times the intensity.] [Round Two of pain transfer: Blunt force trauma.

Initiating now.] "Argh—!" Roman let out another bloodcurdling scream. His chest suddenly caved inward, jerking up as if an invisible sledgehammer was smashing his ribs to pieces.

One by one. Crack. The sharp, sickening sound of bone splintering echoed over the chaos. "Hold on, Roman!

The ambulance is almost here!" Sloane clung to him, sobbing harder, but I caught that fleeting flash of deep, ugly irritation in her eyes.

She was probably pissed he chose right now to become useless. Looking at that twofaced act, a hollow laugh escaped me.

Just a few nights ago, that exact same face had been looking down at me while I was strapped to a chair in a pitchblack room. She had smirked. "Daphne, do you know how a pig dies?

It dies from being too stupid. Did you really think Roman loved you?" "He only loved that your face looks like a cheap knockoff of mine.

Now that I'm back, it's time to take out the trash. Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you." "Those slum trash thugs torturing you tonight?

I hired them using the limitless Amex black card Roman gave me." "What do you think?

If Roman found out, would his heart break for you, or would he just cut them a bonus check?" Now, watching Roman get ripped apart from the inside out was my only comfort.

This is only the beginning, Roman. Every single ounce of torture I endured before I died, you are going to taste. Multiplied by ten. You love Sloane so much?

Let's see how a crippled piece of trash protects his precious first love.

A second before they loaded him onto the stretcher, during a brief lull in his convulsions, Roman grabbed his assistant's collar with a mangled, bloody fist.

His voice tore out of his throat, completely raw. "Find her! Find out where Daphne is! Right now!

Do it!" Chapter 2 Roman was medevacked back to the States overnight and admitted to the most exclusive private hospital in the city.

His medical report left the entire board of specialists utterly speechless. "Comminuted fractures in all ten fingers, three broken ribs, severe soft tissue contusions covering his entire body… It looks exactly like he was jumped and beaten by a dozen men all night long!" The head surgeon pushed up his glasses, staring at Roman's deathly pale face on the hospital bed. "But Mr.

Roman has a twentyfourhour security detail. Who could have even gotten close to him?" Roman didn't say a single word. His eyes were just locked onto the ceiling.

Every few seconds, his jaw clamped shut and a violent tremor tore through his body, draining whatever strength he had left to even part his lips. "Roman, how are you feeling?" Sloane pushed the door open.

Her eyes were redrimmed, and she held a designer thermal flask in her hands. "I had the chef make your favorite truffle bone broth.

Will you have a little?" She poured the liquid into a porcelain bowl, stirred it with a silver spoon, and brought it right to his lips. Roman turned his head away.

His eyes were bloodshot. "Where is Daphne? Did they find her?" Sloane's hand froze midair.

Her face immediately contorted into an injured, victimized pout. "Roman, look at the state you're in.

Why are you still thinking about her?" "Didn't she text you saying she was going on vacation to clear her head? That woman is just so selfish.

All she does is create a mess for you!" "I asked you, where is she!" Roman's voice cracked as it spiked in volume. "How should I know!" Sloane slammed the bowl down onto the nightstand, tears spilling over her lashes. "Your assistant has practically turned all of Manhattan upside down looking for her!

But it's like she evaporated into thin air! Roman, snap out of it, she isn't worth this!" A deafening bang shattered the room.

The bulletproof glass door of the top VIP ward was kicked off its hinges. Beau, wearing a black tactical trench coat and radiating a terrifying, bloodthirsty aura, stormed in.

He buried his fist directly into Roman's face, then grabbed a fistful of his hospital gown, lifting him up. It was my brother, Beau. "Roman!

Where is my sister?!" Beau's eyes were bloodshot, the raw aggression rolling off him in waves.

He slammed a plastic evidence bag directly onto Roman's chest. "This is Daphne's phone! I found it in the basement of an abandoned factory just outside city limits!

The very last text message on it was sent to you! Where the hell is she!" Roman's gaze locked onto that familiar phone case.

All the color drained from his face, his breath stopping. An abandoned factory.

A basement… A year ago, during the dead of winter, I had been locked up by him in his suburban estate.

He tore apart the sweater I had spent months knitting for him, pointing at the howling blizzard outside the front doors and telling me to get out.

All just because I caught him hugging Sloane, who had just flown back into the country. He locked me inside a room with zero heating for three entire days.

Burning up with a severe fever, I curled into a ball on the freezing hardwood floor, calling his number over and over again. He didn't pick up a single time.

I only found out later that during those exact three days, he was busy taking Sloane skiing in the Swiss Alps. I barely survived. But he didn't offer a single word of explanation.

He only threw a freezing glare at me and dropped one sentence. "Daphne, don't let the fact that I spoil you make you forget your place." A similar scenario.

But a completely different ending. Because this time, I didn't make it out alive. Violent tremors wracked Roman's body.

He tried to reach for the phone, but his shattered, mangled fingers refused to obey him. "Beau, please don't do this…" Sloane rushed forward to pull him away, putting on her most pitiful act. "Roman is severely injured too.

Can't you just talk this out properly?" Beau swatted her away like a fly, shooting her a look of pure disgust. "Back off.

You don't have the right to speak in this room." He pinned his eyes strictly on Roman, gritting out his words one by one. "I am only going to ask you one last time.

Where is my sister, Daphne?" Chapter 3 Facing Beau's interrogation, Roman parted his lips, but not a single sound came out. What could he possibly say? That he didn't know?

That while I was likely being tortured to death, he was sitting front row in Paris keeping another woman company?

Beau stared at the pathetic state Roman was in, the veins in his neck bulging as raw, explosive fury radiated from him.

Before he stormed in here, he had already braced for the worst. The basement of that abandoned factory still reeked of copper and fresh blood.

The concrete floor was covered in the chaotic, violent drag marks of a brutal struggle. He just refused to believe it.

He couldn't accept that his little sister, the girl who used to trail behind him everywhere, the girl who stupidly learned how to cook gourmet meals and arrange flowers just to mold herself into the perfect billionaire's wife for Roman, could just vanish into thin air without a trace.

He needed an answer.

He needed Roman to give him a flatout denial to shatter the terrifying nightmare building in his head. "Speak, Roman!" Beau's grip tightened on the hospital gown, his knuckles turning dead white as his sanity teetered on the edge of a cliff. "Beau, please calm down!" Sloane threw herself in front of Roman again, tilting her tearstreaked face up at my brother. "I know you're worried about Daphne.

We all are!

But… but this isn't exactly the first time Daphne has pulled a stunt like this." Beau's brow slammed down. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Sloane bit her bottom lip, playing the picture of hesitation. "I… I really didn't want to bring this up.

I didn't want to ruin your relationship with Roman…" She let out a soft, strategic sob, her voice low but perfectly pitched so every single person in the ward could hear her loud and clear. "A few nights ago, I saw her with my own eyes outside a trashy, rundown motel." "She was climbing onto the back of a motorcycle with some heavily tattooed thug.

I honestly thought it was just some lowlevel bodyguard you hired for her, Roman." She turned back to Roman, her eyes pleading for backup. "Right, Roman?" A violent tremor rocked Roman's body.

His chest heaved as he frantically tried to piece his fractured memories together. It was true that I had been acting distant lately.

A few times when he came back to the penthouse in the dead of night, I wasn't there. When he demanded to know where I went, I just told him I was out for a walk.

Cornered by the excruciating physical agony tearing through his nerves and this sudden, vile accusation, instinct took over.

He grabbed the easiest lifeline to absolve himself of any guilt. "I don't know!" he spat out defensively, his voice cracking. "I don't know anything about her business!" Even he froze the second that pathetic lie left his mouth.

A splitsecond flash of pure, triumphant malice gleamed in Sloane's eyes before she instantly buried it under a mask of heavy sorrow.

She tugged at Beau's sleeve, crying, "Beau, please don't blame Roman." "He's been so stressed out managing his empire, and Daphne never showed him an ounce of understanding… This time she ran away, maybe she just eloped with that biker!" "Leaving her phone at the factory could have just been a stupid accident… Let's just wait.

I'm sure she'll crawl back in a few days when she's out of cash." "A cheap tramp running off with some random thug?" Beau let out a dark, hollow laugh like he had just heard the sickest joke on earth.

He shoved Roman backward, releasing his grip, and took a slow step back. The temperature in his eyes dropped to absolute zero.

He stared at Roman, then shifted his dead, terrifying gaze to Sloane. "Good. What a perfect little story.

You better get down on your knees and pray to whatever god you believe in that my sister really just ran away." Beau pointed a single, lethal finger at Roman, leaning in as his voice dropped to a dangerous, predatory whisper. "Because if a single hair on her head is out of place, I don't give a damn if you're the untouchable king of Wall Street.

I will tear you to pieces, and I will make you and that trash standing next to you pay in blood." Chapter 4 Beau turned on his heel and stormed out, leaving a dead silence suffocating the VIP ward.

I hovered above them, watching Roman stare down at his mangled hands. His chest heaved unevenly, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle ticked frantically under his pale skin.

He clung to Sloane's filthy lie—that I was just some cheap tramp running wild—because the violent shaking in his shoulders exposed the absolute terror of facing the real truth.

The truth that would destroy him. After Beau left, the police officially opened a missing persons case. Three days later, Beau's cell phone rang. "Mr. Beau?

We pulled a female body from the mud downriver…" "The water damage is severe. Facial recognition is impossible.

But… we found something on her." Beau practically dragged himself into the coroner's office. Inside the freezing morgue, the coroner pulled back the corner of a white sheet.

The corpse was bloated and decomposing, radiating a sickening stench of rot. There was nothing left to recognize. "We can't run a DNA match.

There are no direct family blood samples on file," the coroner stated with clinical detachment. "But on the inside of the deceased's left wrist, we found a tattoo." My spirit drifted right beside Beau, watching him take a heavy, dragging step closer.

I knew exactly what was there. I had snuck out and got it inked on my eighteenth birthday. It was a tiny letter 'R', violently wrapped in bloody thorns.

The absolute mark of Roman's ownership. Back then, I thought it was a badge of honor.

Now, it was nothing but a permanent brand of humiliation carved right into my skin. "The ink is blurred, but the outline is still there." The coroner slid a photo across the metal table.

The picture showed a pale, waterlogged letter 'R'. Beau staggered backward. He was the only one in the world who knew about that secret.

I had gotten completely wasted one night and pointed it out to him through a flood of tears. "Look, Beau. I carved him right here.

I can never wash him away now, can I?" He cursed at me for being an idiot and threatened to drag me to a laser clinic.

I had clutched my arm to my chest, refusing to budge, claiming it was my own personal secret. Now, that secret was the only piece of evidence identifying my rotting corpse. "Mr.

Beau?" The coroner studied his deathly pale face. "Do you recognize this mark?" Beau's lips trembled violently. Not a single sound came out. He reached out to touch the photograph.

His fingers froze in midair. Trembling uncontrollably. Shaking. At that exact same second, back at the hospital.

Roman was undergoing another round of evaluations. [Round Three of pain transfer: Drowning and asphyxiation.

Initiating now.] Without a single warning, a crushing wave of suffocation seized Roman's throat.

He vaulted off the mattress, his mangled, splinted fingers desperately clawing at his own neck. A horrific, wet wheezing tore out of his throat.

His lungs felt like they had been filled with wet concrete. Every frantic gasp pulled zero oxygen.

He could only feel freezing, sludgefilled river water surging up his nose and down his windpipe, reeking of mud and rot. "Code blue! Patient is severely hypoxic!

Get the ventilator! Now!" The medical staff erupted into chaos. Sloane shrieked, throwing herself toward the bed. "Roman!

Roman, what's happening!" The edges of Roman's vision went pitch black. His consciousness rapidly slipping away.

Chapter 5 The exact second I was dragged down to the riverbed, the final image burned into my retinas was the murky, freezing water and my own distorted reflection.

Now, Roman was seeing it too.

His eyes blew wide open, staring blindly at the hospital ceiling as the endless, dead despair I felt in my final moments hijacked his vision. "Daphne…" He forced the name past his lips using his absolute last ounce of strength before his head slammed back into the pillow.

The heart monitor flatlined. One long, piercing beep echoed through the room. Back at the morgue.

The coroner looked at Beau, who looked like he was about to physically collapse onto the floor. A trace of pity slipped into the coroner's clinical voice. "Mr. Beau, please confirm.

Does this tattoo belong to your sister, Daphne?" "Yes." The word slipped out of Beau's mouth like a hollow exhale, but it hit the floor like a ton of bricks.

The exact second that single syllable left his lips, it was as if someone had ripped the spine right out of his back. He slumped heavily against the freezing tiled wall, drained.

As of this second, the missing person Daphne was officially declared dead.

When the news reached the hospital, the trauma team had just dragged Roman back from the brink of clinical death. An oxygen mask covered half his face.

His chest heaved under the sheets, his body still convulsing as if fighting off the phantom river water.

Beau shoved straight past the wall of bodyguards and marched right up to the hospital bed. Zero screaming. Zero flying fists.

He just stared down at Roman with dead, empty eyes, dropping the absolute truth. "Roman. Daphne is dead.

They pulled her corpse out of the river." "She was in the water so long her face completely rotted away.

The absolute only thing left to identify her was that letter 'R' she carved into her wrist for you." Beau slammed the morgue photograph directly onto Roman's chest, right in front of his eyes.

The blurred, waterlogged letter in the picture acted like a redhot branding iron, violently searing itself straight into Roman's pupils. Roman's chest hitched.

His head began shaking frantically back and forth on the pillow, his bloodshot eyes blowing wide. "You're lying!" Roman swatted the photo away, his shattered fingers smearing fresh blood on the glossy paper as he desperately thrashed against the mattress, trying to force himself upright. "She can't be dead!

You got the wrong body!" "Got the wrong body?" A dark, vicious sneer ripped across Beau's face. "Roman, are you seriously still trying to bullshit yourself?" "Didn't you just swear she was a cheap tramp who ran off with another man?

Then why the hell did she die at the bottom of a freezing river! Tell me!" All the color drained from Roman's face. His pupils dilated.

I hovered there, watching the exact moment the grotesque reality finally shattered his delusions. The massive pool of blood in the factory basement.

The mangled, shattered state of his own body perfectly mirroring my torture.

He suddenly clawed frantically at his nightstand, knocking over medical trays until he gripped his phone.

His shattered fingers left thick bloody smears across the glass screen as he stared at a single, thirtysecond voicemail he had casually swiped into the trash days ago.

A voicemail filled with nothing but my bloodcurdling screams and the sickening, muffled crunch of my bones snapping.

A message left at the exact second he had been busy fastening an auctioned tenmilliondollar diamond necklace around Sloane's neck.

An invisible weight crushed his chest, cutting off his air supply. "No… no…" he muttered, his eyes unfocused and hollow as he gasped for air. "Sloane said… Sloane said she just…" Chapter 6 "Roman!" Sloane barged in with perfect, sickening timing, cutting him off.

She threw her arms around Roman, shrieking at Beau through fake, flawlessly timed tears. "Beau! How could you use fake news to trigger him like this!

He was just dragged back from clinical death!" She whipped her head back to Roman, framing his pale face with her hands. "Roman, don't listen to him!

It's not true!" "The police haven't released a single official statement.

He fabricated the entire thing to mess with your head!" She ripped a printed document out of her Birkin bag and shoved it into his mangled hands. "Look.

I paid a private investigator to pull this. That dead woman with the 'R' tattoo isn't Daphne!

She was just a cheap stripper named Chanel from some underground slum strip club!" "The 'R' was probably just the initial of whatever street thug she belonged to!

She pissed off the wrong people and got dumped in the river! It has absolutely nothing to do with Daphne!" I hovered in the dead space near the ceiling.

Staring down at Sloane's fiercely convincing mask, a cold shudder ripped through my phantom spine. She was absolute poison.

Even with me dead, she refused to let my corpse be claimed in peace. She needed to brand me as a filthy, worthless tramp to the very end.

She needed Roman permanently locked in the delusion that I betrayed him. Fragments of her past manipulations slammed into my head.

The way she would casually drop hints about Roman's extreme preferences just so I would break myself trying to cater to him.

The way she always played the sweet, innocent peacemaker whenever Roman lashed out at me, secretly throwing gasoline onto his rage.

This woman had rigged the entire board from day one, just waiting for me to step blindly into the trap.

Roman grabbed onto that fabricated file like a drowning man latching onto a life raft.

His splintered fingers smeared fresh blood across the crisp white paper as his bloodshot eyes frantically scanned the forged words over and over. "Chanel… It's not Daphne…" he muttered frantically, desperately hypnotizing himself.

Beau stared at the sickeningly absurd scene. Pure, murderous rage sent violent tremors down his entire body.

He pointed a lethal finger at Sloane, his voice dropping to a terrifying deadpan. "Roman, open your damn eyes.

You would rather swallow a forged piece of trash from this pathological liar than face the absolute truth?" Roman didn't even blink.

Hijacked by the delusion, he crushed the paper in his fist. He tilted his head up at Beau.

A twisted, sick spark of hope—and deep, ugly resentment—suddenly ignited in his bloodshot eyes. "Get out." His voice was a raw, broken rasp. "Take your fake news and get the hell out of my room." "Get out?" Beau let out a dark, explosive laugh. "Roman, your brain is completely rotted." He refused to waste another breath on these two.

Beau spun on his heel and kicked the shattered glass door out of his way. He was going to retrieve the absolute, undeniable forensic proof.

He was going to take the truth and smash it directly into Roman's skull. Back inside the ruined ward, Sloane pulled out a silk handkerchief.

She gently dabbed the cold sweat off Roman's forehead, pitching her voice into a sickeningly sweet, soft purr. "Roman, please don't get worked up. You'll just hurt yourself again.

See? I told you." "Daphne is way too scheming to let anything happen to her.

She'll get bored playing with that biker trash and come crawling back the second she runs out of money." Roman didn't answer. He just let his eyes fall shut in total exhaustion.

His fractured brain desperately swallowed Sloane's "evidence," but the phantom image of that rotting corpse and the relentless, agonizing pain tearing through his bones remained.

A venomous spike, buried deep in his chest, completely impossible to extract. Chapter 7 A few days later, the finalized autopsy report came in.

Beau kicked open the heavy mahogany doors, storming straight into the Roman Empire's executive boardroom. "Roman!

Get out here!" Ignoring the gasps of the billionaire board members, Beau slammed a thick file directly onto the center of the polished glass table. "Deceased: Daphne.

Time of death: Seven days ago. Cause of death: Drowning and asphyxiation.

Prior to death, the victim endured fortyeight hours of systematic torture, including but not limited to: ten fingers manually snapped, ribs shattered by blunt force trauma, and over thirty percent of her skin burned by cigarettes…" With every clinical word Beau spat out, the last drops of color drained from Roman's face.

I watched his mangled, splinted fingers violently twitch against his suit pants. The phantom agony he had physically endured was now being read back to him in black and white.

He was finally realizing it wasn't a hallucination.

It was the exact, literal hell I had suffered. "The medical examiner also found a waxsealed micro SD card in her stomach." Beau's voice fractured, tears of rage burning in his eyes. "She swallowed it." "She endured every single ounce of that torture just to protect this.

After tech recovery, the drive didn't just contain financial ledgers.

It held a topsecret audio recording!" "It mapped out the entire criminal syndicate of an international mafia moneylaundering ring operating under the alias 'R'!

And this bloodthirsty cartel was prepping to put a massive bounty on your head on the Dark Web, Roman!" "F"? Roman's pupils contracted to the size of pinpricks.

I watched his gaze drop blindly toward the table. The gears were finally grinding together in his skull. The 'R' tattoo carved into my wrist.

The fabricated slum stripper named Chanel that Sloane had just pulled out of thin air to frame me. It wasn't a coincidence. I hadn't vanished to run off with some biker trash.

I had been dragged straight into a lethal mafia conspiracy.

I had traded my own life to protect the exact evidence that could save his. "Bullshit!" A shrill voice sliced through the heavy silence in the boardroom.

Sloane had slipped in right behind him.

She glanced at the autopsy report, an exaggerated, vicious sneer twisting her perfectly contoured face. "Beau, if you're going to invent a bedtime story, at least make it logical.

Daphne? A college dropout whose only personality trait was chasing after men?" "What the hell does she know about international mafia networks? Protecting evidence?

She's so pathetic she'd probably get trafficked just trying to order an Uber!" She strutted over to Roman and looped her arm possessively through his, her tone dripping with toxic sarcasm. "Roman, don't let him play you.

You know exactly what kind of cheap trash Daphne is." "Her biggest achievement in life was acting like a stagefive clinger velcroed to your side. Her playing a mafia spy?

It's the joke of the century!" "If you ask me, she probably stole that SD card from one of her street thugs, couldn't agree on splitting the cash, and got herself whacked!" I watched Roman flinch at her words as if taking a physical blow to the chest.

His breathing turned ragged. In his twisted reality, I had always been exactly what Sloane described—a shallow, clingy accessory.

He never once bothered to see that I had my own brain, my own ambitions, or a lethal loyalty he never deserved.

He stared at Sloane's face—currently twisting with raw, ugly jealousy under her designer makeup—then slowly dropped his gaze back to the brutal autopsy file.

Right on cue, that dead, mechanical voice broadcasted inside his skull again. [Round Four of pain transfer: Severe burn trauma. Initiating now.] Chapter 8