woke with a start, my breath coming in short, panicked gasps. The fog in my mind lingered, and the room around me was blurry, distant. I could feel the ache of an unfamiliar heaviness in my chest, as if something had changed. Something inside me that I couldn't explain.
The voice was back. It slithered through my thoughts, smooth but cold, a whisper that felt like it had always been there, waiting. I closed my eyes and squeezed my fists into the sheets beneath me, trying to block it out.
"Once upon a time," it began, and I immediately braced myself. "There was a girl named Zoya. Her father was a man of power, a man who kept his daughter hidden away, trapped in a world of shadows."
A sharp pain twisted in my stomach. My father. The man who had ruled my life since I could remember. He was a king of an underground empire, one I had never asked to be part of. The very idea of him controlling every aspect of my life, keeping me in a gilded cage, made my blood boil.
"He kept her in a world where she could never be free," the voice continued, detached, like it was telling someone else's story. "Zoya, you see, wasn't just any girl. She was his prize, promised to someone else long before she could understand what it meant. A man named Azan."
Azan. That name… it always made my heart race, but not with love. With dread. He was my father's shadow, the man who hovered in the background, always present, always waiting. He was the man who had been promised to me, the one I was supposed to marry, though I never wanted him.
I could feel the familiar anger bubbling in my chest. I had never asked for this life, never wanted any part of it. Azan was a monster to me—a cold, calculating man who lived in the shadows, just like my father. He wasn't someone I could love. He was a chain, a symbol of everything that was wrong with my world.
"You hated him," the voice mused, as if it could read the rage swirling inside me. "But you used him. You played the game. You knew how to get what you wanted. And you used Azan to give you a taste of freedom. A taste of something that wasn't controlled by your father."
I flinched, the weight of its words pressing on me. It wasn't wrong. I had used Azan, manipulated him into getting me the one thing I had ever wanted—something that felt like normal. A chance to be myself, to go to school. It had never been about him, not really. It had been about getting away from my father's grip, even if only for a few hours a day.
But even as I had begged for that freedom, Azan had always been watching, always close by. I hated him for it, but I knew that if I wanted anything, I had to play the part. I had to pretend to care, pretend to accept the role my father had set out for me.
"And then there were the others," the voice whispered, as if slipping deeper into the layers of my memories. "There was school, where you tried to blend in. But you couldn't, could you? No matter how hard you tried, your name, your bloodline—everything about you kept people at arm's length."
It was right. I had never been able to fully blend in. People feared what I represented—the mafia princess, daughter of a gangster. But then there was Eva.
"Eva," the voice continued, almost as if it could feel the faint warmth her memory brought. "She was different. She didn't care about your father's empire. She saw you for who you were beneath all the layers of your name."
I closed my eyes, the memory of Eva's kindness flashing through my mind. She had been my only true friend, the one person who had never looked at me with judgment. She was the only person who had made me feel like I could be something else, something more than my father's puppet.
"And then there was him," the voice murmured, its tone softening. "Rayan. He didn't see the mafia princess. He saw you. And you… well, you felt something real for him, didn't you?"
A sharp pain stabbed through my chest. Rayan. I had never allowed myself to want him. My life, the one my father had carved for me, had never allowed for that kind of freedom. He had made me feel like I could be something else, something normal, but I had never taken that chance. I could never take that chance.
The voice sighed, as if it knew the truth I couldn't admit. "But you never allowed yourself to love him. You never allowed yourself to have anything of your own."
The words hit me harder than I expected. It was right. I had never allowed myself the luxury of love or happiness. I had been trapped in a life where those things didn't exist. And Rayan… he had been just another fantasy, another thing I couldn't have.
The voice paused, as if collecting its thoughts. "In the end, Zoya, you could never escape who you were. No matter how far you ran, no matter how hard you fought, the chains your father placed around you would never loosen."
I trembled, the weight of its words pressing down on me, suffocating me. I had known it, deep down, but hearing it from this voice made it all the more real.
"You thought you could escape," it whispered. "But the truth is, you never could. You were always a part of something bigger, something darker. And now… now the story is far from over. It's only just beginning."
I felt the room closing in on me, the oppressive weight of the voice, the darkness of my own life, threatening to crush me. The chains were tightening once again, and there was nothing I could do to break free.