MY RUIN: In Love With My Step-Uncle-Chapter 69 - Sixty-Nine: The Bindings

//CLARA//

The darkness had texture. That was the first thing I noticed. It pressed against my eyelids with the same insistence as a hand. I tried to open my eyes wider, as if that might help, but the black remained absolute. No thin line of light beneath a door. No distant window. Nothing.

As the fog began to lift, reality rushed back in, and it tasted like iron and regret.

God, Clara. You absolute, total idiot.

I had been so desperate to avoid a conversation about my own feelings that I walked straight into a buzzsaw. I’d ignored every red flag because I was being a total fucking wuss.

If I’d read that letter twice—just twice—I would’ve noticed it. I would have realized something was off before I walked straight into a trap like an absolute idiot.

Instead, I’d basically gift-wrapped myself on a silver platter for whoever wanted me out of the frame. Practically handed over the keys to my own kidnapping like a complete airhead.

My head throbbed with a chemical hangover that made my brain feel like it was stuffed with flaming wet wool. I tried to reach up to rub my temples, but my arms did not move.

That was when I felt the ropes.

Rough hemp bit into my wrists, a jagged contrast to the silk of my sleeves. My hands were bound behind my back, tied tight against the hard-backed chair. Every breath made the wood dig deeper into my spine. My ankles were secured to the legs of the seat, forced into a wide, vulnerable stance that made my skin crawl.

My skirts had been tossed into disarray during the transport. I could feel the cold, stagnant air of the cellar biting at my calves where my stockings ended, leaving me feeling exposed in a way no runway ever had.

Fantastic. Kidnapped, tied to a chair, and my underwear is probably showing. This is fine. Everything is fine.

"Okay," I muttered, the sound of my voice was like I had swallowed a handful of fiberglass. "So we’re doing the dungeon aesthetic. Very vintage. Classic."

I swallowed hard, trying to force the bile back down. Panic was a cold oily slick in my chest, but I shoved it aside.

The footsteps started then.

Slow and measured. The sound of someone who had nowhere else to be. I could not tell the direction—the sound bounced off walls I could not see. Left, then right. Closer, then retreating.

I held my breath. The footsteps stopped.

In the silence, I heard breathing. Not mine. This was controlled and deep. Coming from someone watching, waiting to see what I would do.

"Hello?" My voice cracked. I hated the crack. I cleared my throat and tried again. "Look, I do not know who you are, but I am going to assume you want money. A ransom? That is the usual thing, right? Kidnap a rich girl, demand payment, ride off into the sunset?"

The breathing did not change.

"If this is about a ransom, you are seriously overestimating my liquid assets. I know how this works. You see a girl in a limestone palace with a man who owns half the railroads in the country and you think jackpot. But newsflash. I’m the ward. The charity case. The plus-one with a complicated inheritance."

I shifted, the chair creaking as I leaned into the darkness.

"I do not have a vault. But if it helps, I have a wardrobe full of silk that’s worth a small fortune, and honestly? If you’re smart, you’d just take the dresses and run. You’d probably be set for life on the resale value alone, and it’s a lot less likely to get you hunted down by a man who treats his grudges like a full-time job."

Still no response.

"And if you’re expecting Casimir to just hand over a briefcase of cash, you haven’t met him,"

I continued, gaining a jagged, defensive edge.

"He doesn’t do settlements. He’s the kind of man who will spend ten times the ransom amount just to hire the people who will find you and make sure you never see the sun again. You’re better off letting me go and telling him it was all a big misunderstanding. We can call it a... a social experiment."

The footsteps resumed, circling. I turned my head, trying to track the sound, but it seemed to come from everywhere.

"Seriously, the silent treatment is very dramatic, but it is not helping either of us. I am cold. I am hungry. And I really have to pee, so if we could speed this along, that would be great."

The footsteps stopped. Then—a laugh. My stomach dropped.

Okay. That was weird.

"What?" I said, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. "Too soon for jokes? Fine. How about this—I am worth more alive than dead. Way more. Dead, I am just a body. Alive, I am a bargaining chip. So maybe untie me and we can discuss terms like civilized people?"

Still nothing. My heart was a frantic percussion against my ribs, but the sheer, baffling silence was starting to piss me off. The panic was still there but it was losing ground to a sharp spike of irritation. I’ve dealt with difficult board members and toxic comment sections. I didn’t have time for a villain who couldn’t even hit their cues.

I pulled at the ropes. Whoever had tied them knew what they were doing, the loops held firm when I pulled directly against them. But when I twisted my wrists, rotating them within the bindings, I felt the slightest give. Not much. But something.

I kept working at them while I talked.

"You know, most kidnappers at least tell their victims what they want. It is in the manual, you should read it. You are really bad at this."

The footsteps moved away. A door opened—hinges that needed oiling, a high whine that cut through the darkness—then closed. I was alone.

I let out a breath I did not know I had been holding.

Think, Clara. Think. You are tied to a chair in the dark. Your head feels like it is splitting open. Your captor is either mute or enjoys watching you squirm. None of this is ideal.

I returned to the ropes. The left knot felt slightly looser. I focused there, twisting and pulling, creating slack where I could. The rope burned. My shoulders ached. I ignored both.

Casimir is looking for me. He has to be. He is probably tearing the city apart right now, torturing the servants and bribing the officials and glaring at people until they confess.

Assuming he knows I am missing.

Assuming anyone noticed.

Assuming the coachman is not still unconscious on the cobblestones.

Okay, new plan. Assume no one is coming. Get yourself out.

The knot at my left wrist finally loosened. Not enough to free my hand, but enough that I could rotate it slightly. I kept working.

The door opened again. Footsteps came, much closer this time. I froze, my fingers still on the rope, my body still. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

"Look."

I tried to wrap myself in my usual coat of snark, but my bravado was officially out of battery. My shoulders were screaming, and every breath felt like a heavy lift. I was running on fumes and adrenaline, and the pain in my wrists was starting to blur the edges of my focus.

"Whoever you are, I am trying to be reasonable here. I’m not—I’m not a difficult negotiator. But the silent treatment is getting old. If you want money, fine. If you want something else, you have to tell me what it is. I cannot read minds—"

A cloth pressed over my mouth. Not chloroform this time. Just a hand, firmly cutting off my words.

"Enough. You talk too much, and it is annoying." A low growl erupted right in front of me. "You were supposed to wake up late. Apparently the dosage I applied was inconveniently little."

"Who—" I gasped, the air rushing back into my lungs as he let go of me.

A match struck.

The flare was a sudden, violent spark in the abyss. I winced, my eyes stinging as the flame caught the wick of a lantern. The light bled outward, carving a small, yellow circle out of the shadows. It didn’t reach the corners of the room, but it reached him.

"Hello, Miss Thorne."

I froze. The sass, the negotiation, the frantic plan to bolt—it all stalled. My brain felt like it was trying to process a corrupted file, the chemical fog making the image in front of me feel impossible.

"You," I breathed, the word barely a whisper.

"Me."

Standing there was the last person I expected to see in a damp stone cellar.

Mr. Evans.