EZRA
I was sold before I even understood what freedom meant. At six years old, I was handed over like an object, a piece of property exchanged for my father's debts. I can still remember his face—his shaking hands as he signed me away, his eyes never meeting mine. He never looked back. Not once.
That was the day I met Lucius.
He was only a few years older, maybe ten or eleven, but even then, he had a terrifying presence. He didn't smile, not the way kids are supposed to. He studied me, tilting his head like I was something he had just acquired, a possession he needed to examine before deciding what to do with. I was too young to understand, but I felt it—that chill in my bones that told me I had lost something I would never get back.
Lucius raised me, if you could call it that. He was both my captor and my caretaker. At first, he was patient, eerily so. He would sit with me, whisper to me, stroke my hair like he was soothing a pet. He promised that as long as I behaved, he would take care of me. I believed him. I was a child, desperate for something—anything—that felt like kindness.
But kindness was never what Lucius had to offer.
The first time I tried to run, I was eight. I didn't get far. The men who worked for Lucius caught me before I even left the estate. They dragged me back kicking and screaming, and that was the first time Lucius ever hit me. He didn't yell. He didn't even look angry. He just sighed, raised his hand, and struck me across the face so hard I tasted blood.
"Why would you leave, baby? I give you everything."
That was his reasoning. In his mind, I belonged to him. And every time I tried to run after that, the punishments got worse. The beatings. The isolation. The hunger. The nights spent locked in a dark room with nothing but the sound of my own breathing, the walls closing in on me. He would remind me, over and over, that I had nowhere to go, that the world outside would chew me up and spit me back into his arms.
"You can't escape me, Ezra. You were made for me."
By the time I was thirteen, I had learned to stop fighting back. Not because I believed him, but because I had no choice. My body was covered in scars from lessons I refused to learn, from days when I had pushed too far. Lucius wanted me obedient. He wanted me pliant. He wanted me to smile when he touched me, to say his name in a way that made him feel like I wanted this.
I did what I had to do to survive.
At sixteen, I tried again. That time, I almost made it. I had gotten to the streets, had run until my legs could barely carry me. But it didn't matter. His men found me, dragged me back, and Lucius…
That was the worst night of my life.
He didn't hit me right away. Instead, he sat me down, wiped the sweat from my forehead, and made me look at him. "You keep doing this, baby. Why do you keep making me hurt you?" His voice was gentle, his hands cupping my face like he was something soft, something caring. I knew better.
The pain that followed broke something in me. That was the night I stopped dreaming of freedom, because I realized—I would never have it. Lucius would never let me go.
Now at twenty, I've lost count of how many times I've tried to escape. And it doesn't matter. The ending is always the same. Last time, it was no different. I had been so close.
But close isn't enough.
Lucius is obsessive. He owns me in ways I can't even begin to explain. And the worst part? He thinks this is love. He thinks his hands on my body, his control over every aspect of my life, is something to be cherished. He kisses the bruises he leaves on me. He holds me close after he breaks me. He whispers how much he loves me, over and over, like he believes it.
I hate him. I hate him so much it burns in my chest like an open wound. But what am I supposed to do? I can't leave. I can't fight him. I'm trapped in a never-ending cycle of pain and control, and no matter how hard I try, I can't wake up from this nightmare.
But then, I met him.
A man with dark eyes and a quiet presence. A man who, for the first time in my miserable existence, looked at me like I was a person. Not an object. Not a possession.
Malachai.
It was brief, a single moment, but it shook me. Because for the first time, I saw something I had never seen before.
Hope.
And God help me, I wanted it.