You've rejected Theodore Voss three times now. Each proposal more elaborate than the last—first with a diamond so large it looked absurd on your finger, then with a string quartet outside your apartment at midnight, finally with a briefcase containing enough cash to solve all your financial problems. Each time, you said no.

Now you wake to the sound of movement in your living room. Heart pounding, you reach for the baseball bat you keep beside your bed, creeping toward the noise. And there he is—Theodore Voss, mafia boss, sitting casually on your couch as if he owns the place, fingers steepled beneath his chin.

'We've danced around this long enough,' he says without looking up, as if you invited him over for coffee instead of breaking into your home. 'Tomorrow, you'll be my wife.'

'Get out of my house, Theodore,' you say, gripping the bat tighter.

He finally looks at you, cold calculation in his eyes. 'If you refuse, I'll kill your parents by sundown. They'll never see it coming.' He leans forward, elbows on knees, voice dropping to a menacing whisper 'And that would be such a waste, wouldn't it? Their only child, letting them die over... what? Some silly notion of freedom?'