Four Fates, One Heart

RORY

It started as the kind of night that felt too ordinary to be dangerous.

The city was buzzing in the background—cars, laughter, the distant thump of bass from a nightclub somewhere down the block. My hands were full of grocery bags, my phone wedged between my shoulder and ear while I tried to tell my best friend Mia that yes, I’d made it home safely, and no, I wasn’t going to die alone in my apartment with nothing but takeout cartons to bury me.

The streetlight above me flickered once, twice, and went out.

I stopped walking. “Well, that’s creepy,” I muttered under my breath.

Mia laughed in my ear. “It’s just a bulb, Rory. You’re paranoid.”

Maybe I was. But that didn’t stop the prickling at the back of my neck, that animal instinct that whispers you’re not alone. I picked up my pace, shifting the bags against my hip. My car was parked at the end of the block. I was two minutes from safety.

That’s when the van rolled up.

It came from nowhere—silent, smooth, like a shadow moving. I didn’t even register the sound of tires until it was too close. The sliding door ripped open.

Two men in black masks spilled out.

“Hey—!” My voice was sharp, louder than I expected, but it didn’t matter. One of them grabbed me from behind, the other yanked the grocery bags from my arms, letting apples roll into the gutter. My phone clattered to the pavement, Mia’s voice tinny and frantic on the line.

I kicked, twisted, screamed. A cloth pressed against my mouth, thick and sweet-smelling.

Chloroform. I knew it instantly. I’d seen enough crime documentaries to recognize the chemical tang that burned my throat. I jerked my head away, trying not to breathe, but my lungs betrayed me with a gasp.

The world spun sideways.

The last thing I saw was the empty streetlight above me flickering back to life.

When I woke, it wasn’t to the smell of chemicals or the hum of a moving van. It was to… silence. Thick, padded silence, like I was underwater.

My eyelids felt heavy, stuck together. My head pounded with each slow beat of my heart. I blinked into the dim light and tried to sit up.

Plush sheets. Soft pillows.

I was in a bed.

A massive bed, actually, the kind you see in magazines about “dream homes you’ll never afford.” The comforter was cream-colored, silk. The mattress cradled me like I was royalty, not someone who’d just been dragged off the street.

My breath caught as I looked around.

The room was huge, bigger than my entire apartment, with tall windows framed by velvet drapes, their folds pooling on the polished wood floor. A chandelier dripped crystals from the ceiling, scattering faint gold light across the walls. Against one side of the room, there was a marble fireplace with a fire burning low and steady. The air smelled faintly of sandalwood and something warmer—expensive cologne, maybe.

I touched my forehead. No bruise. No blood. My clothes were still on, though my shoes were gone.

I pushed the sheets away and stood, my bare feet sinking into a thick rug that probably cost more than my yearly rent.

A mansion.

That was the only word for it.

There were no bars on the windows, no obvious locks on the door, but I knew better than to believe I was free. I walked to the door and twisted the knob.

Locked.

Of course.

I pressed my ear to the wood, straining to hear voices or footsteps. Nothing. The silence was unnerving.

“Okay, Rory,” I whispered to myself, “think. Step one: figure out where the hell you are. Step two: get out. Step three: kill whoever put you here.”

I checked the room for anything I could use as a weapon. The fireplace poker was too far from the bed to grab quickly if someone came in. The crystal lamp on the bedside table looked fragile, but maybe heavy enough to knock someone out if I got lucky.

I moved toward the window, tugging the curtains open just enough to peek outside.

And my stomach dropped.

There was no city street, no neighbor’s apartment across the way. Just a long stretch of manicured lawn, trimmed hedges, and beyond that, a high wrought-iron fence with stone pillars at each corner. It looked like something out of a historical estate—grand and beautiful, but in this moment, it was nothing but a cage.

I didn’t know if there was anyone beyond that fence. I didn’t even know if we were still in the same city.

My breath hitched when I spotted movement.

A man, dressed in black, with a rifle slung casually over his shoulder, was patrolling the grounds. He paused under a pool of light, scanning the darkness before continuing along the fence line.

Guards. Armed guards.

Whoever had taken me wasn’t just some random psycho. This was organized. Planned.

I stepped back from the window, letting the curtain fall closed. My hands were shaking now, the adrenaline from earlier wearing off and leaving me hollow.

The question kept looping in my head: Why me?

I wasn’t rich. I wasn’t famous. My father was a retired mechanic. My mother… gone. I didn’t have enemies. I didn’t have debts. I was just a 23-year-old woman with a half-broken car and an apartment that smelled faintly of the neighbor’s curry.

The doorknob rattled.

I froze.

The lock clicked, slow and deliberate.

I darted toward the fireplace, snatching the poker and gripping it in both hands, my heart slamming in my chest. The door swung open.

A man stepped inside.

He wasn’t wearing a mask. In fact, he looked like he belonged on the cover of one of those glossy luxury magazines stacked in the grocery store checkout aisle. Tall. Broad shoulders. Perfectly tailored suit in charcoal gray. His hair was dark, swept back like he didn’t care, but every strand still fell exactly right. His eyes… sharp. Too sharp. They flicked over me once, noting the poker in my hands, before settling on my face.

“Miss Thompson,” he said, his voice low, smooth. “You’re awake.”

My grip on the poker tightened. “Who are you? Where am I?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he stepped farther into the room, closing the door behind him. The click of the lock echoed in the silence.

“You’ve been brought here for your own safety,” he said, though the faint curve of his lips told me he didn’t expect me to believe it.

“My safety? You chloroform people for their safety now?”

His gaze didn’t waver. “There are things you need to know. But not tonight. Rest. Eat. Tomorrow, we’ll talk.”

“I’m not staying here.”

He tilted his head slightly, almost amused. “You don’t have a choice, Rory.”

Hearing him say my name made my skin crawl.

I took a step toward him, brandishing the poker like it would make any difference if he decided to grab me. “If you think I’m just going to—”

In two strides, he was in front of me. One hand closed around the poker, wrenching it from my grip like I was a child holding a toy. The other caught my wrist, his touch firm but not painful. His eyes locked on mine, and for a moment, I couldn’t move.

“You should sleep,” he said quietly, and there was something in his tone—something that wasn’t quite a threat, but wasn’t a request either. “You’ll need your strength.”

Then he let me go, stepping back toward the door.

I wanted to yell at him, demand answers, but my voice caught somewhere in my throat.

He opened the door, paused just long enough to glance at me over his shoulder, and said, “Don’t try the windows.”

The door shut. The lock clicked again.

And I was alone.

Only… I wasn’t.

Because just before the door closed, I’d caught sight of a shadow in the hallway. Another man, leaning against the wall, watching me with eyes as dark as midnight.