Chapter 1

Liberty’s POV

"I'm tired of this shit! You both don’t care about anything but your ‘perfect’ reputation!" I screamed.
"I never wanted this, but you didn’t care!" I sniffled, my throat burning. "You never did…!"

I stormed out of the house with tears running down my face, quickly telling the maid I wouldn’t be back tonight. Then I got in my car and started driving.

To where? I didn’t know.

You’re probably wondering what’s going on, right?
Let me give you a little backstory—what led up to this.

It was the night of the fifth ‘important’ event my parents had forced me to attend.
The fifth uncomfortable dress.
The fifth pair of heels.

Needless to say, I was over it. But it wasn’t like I had a choice.

Since I was a child, my parents have been forcing me to attend events, posing as their perfect daughter who could never do wrong. I hated it. It was the last thing I ever wanted.

I remember begging when I was younger.
“Daddy, I really don’t want to go. Please let me stay home with the maids. I’ll behave, I promise!”

But whether I begged or not, I always ended up having to smile and meet their impossible standards.
And if I ever refused, they’d lock me in the smallest closet in our huge house—ironically, it was in the basement.

No light.
No sound.
No food.
Nothing.

My mom called it the obedience closet.

I hate small spaces now.
But what I hate more is that, somehow, I felt a little bit safer there.
I don’t understand why… and honestly, I don’t want to.

They don’t do that anymore, obviously. But it’s left me with some problems I’d rather not talk about.

Anyway,

At the event, my parents wanted me to talk to some of their business rivals. I hated every second of it, but I still did what I was told and went to make small talk. It was going fine until they started making remarks about me.

How I was too tall for a girl.
How I was getting older and not any younger, so I needed to find a husband to take care of me.

I was gagging internally at that one.

My final straw was when the parents of the man my parents were trying to force me to marry said I should quit my job as the CEO of my own company and “let a man run it instead.”

I felt something flare up in me.

"That’s never going to happen," I said with a tight, obviously fake smile. And before they could respond, I walked away—heading to the farthest corner of the room just to breathe.

But not before my parents pulled me aside, trying to scold me for leaving the conversation.

God. What was I, seventeen all over again?

That’s when I snapped.
It was all too much, and honestly, I’d already had a bad day.

Which brings us back to the present.