Everyone understood what that kind of deal meant. No one who set foot inside Cassius Vale’s estate ever came back the same—if they came back at all.
My eyes shifted to Cassian.
Just say no, I thought. That’s all it would take. One refusal. One moment of choosing me.
“I’ll retrieve her in one month,” he said, his voice flat and final.
No pause. No debate. No second glance.
Just that.
…
That month became the lowest point of my existence. Cassius didn’t touch me in the way people usually imagined. In fact, he didn’t need to. What he enjoyed more was watching people unravel piece by piece, as if suffering itself were an art form.
During the first week, he had me strapped to a metal chair. One by one, he pressed my fingers under a heavy crushing device meant for breaking bones. Not enough to sever them outright—just enough to hear the sickening cracks echo in the room.
“You’re well-known, Elira,” he said, leaning in as if we were sharing a secret. “I thought you’d be louder than this.”
My mouth was filled with blood when I answered, voice low and steady. “Sorry to disappoint you. I’m not here to entertain anyone.”
He laughed like I had told him something genuinely amusing.
Another time, he locked me inside a cold storage room used for meat. No shoes. No coat. Just thin fabric and freezing air that sank into my skin until even pain stopped mattering and numbness took over. Hours passed like that.
Sometimes he would open the door just to look at me.
“Still conscious?” he asked one evening, almost conversational.
“Unfortunately for you,” I replied through cracked lips.
That earned me nothing more than a grin before he shut the door again.
But the worst came near the end.
They tied me down and forced my hands into a container filled with diluted acid—just strong enough not to destroy everything immediately, just enough to make it last.
The smell hit me first.
Then came the pain.
It wasn’t just burning. It felt like my bones were melting from the inside while my skin tried to hold everything together. I bit down so hard I thought my jaw would break.
Cassius crouched in front of me, watching with bright, almost curious eyes.
“Just admit it hurts,” he said softly. “That’s all I want to hear.”
I didn’t give him a single word.
When they finally pulled my hands out, the skin was gone in places, my knuckles raw and exposed, like something dragged back from hell.
I woke up later staring at hands wrapped in dirty bandages, patches of bone faintly visible beneath them.
The night before they sent me back, Cassius grabbed my face, forcing me to look at him.
“You know what’s amusing?” he said gently, almost like we were having a normal conversation. “Cassian Valcourt traded his most loyal weapon for a woman. That must be what love looks like in your world.”
He tilted his head, smiling like something twisted and pleased.
“Tell me, Elira,” he continued. “How far does he go for that sister of yours?”
I stayed silent.
What answer could I possibly give?
That I was discarded without hesitation?
That every wound I carried came from the decision he made without blinking?
By the time the month ended, something inside me had already gone quiet.
Whatever fire had kept me going for eleven years slowly extinguished inside that house.
Cassian owned my life. I had accepted that long ago—my loyalty, my body, everything I was. I had been nothing more than a tool in his hands.
And tools don’t get to choose.
Unless they break.
Unless they stop functioning.
That was when the thought first formed: I needed to disappear.
When Cassius’s men finally brought me back to Cassian’s estate, the sun was sinking low. Every step felt like walking through shattered glass, my body barely holding itself together.
But the moment I crossed the gates, Valeria was already there waiting.
She stood surrounded by maids, dressed in soft pale yellow that looked too delicate for the world I had just come from. She looked untouched. Safe. Beautiful in a way I had never been allowed to be.
When she saw me, she smiled.
“Sister,” she said sweetly, as if nothing had ever gone wrong. “You’re back.”
Her gaze slowly moved over me—my ruined clothes, the bandaged hands, the dried stains on my skin.
“You really went through a lot for me,” she added lightly. “A whole month with Cassius Vale… that must have been terrible.”
I said nothing.
She tilted her head, covering her mouth as though recalling something amusing. “People say he enjoys breaking his toys before he’s done with them. I wonder what you went through.”
A maid beside her let out a quiet laugh.
Valeria exhaled softly, as if suddenly remembering etiquette.
“Oh, right,” she said, almost apologetic. “You must be dirty.”
She clapped once.
“Take her in,” she instructed lazily. “She smells like she crawled out of a slaughterhouse.”
Before I could react, a maid stepped forward and threw a bucket of boiling water at me.
It hit my skin instantly, searing through my chest and shoulders.
My body jolted, but I didn’t make a sound.
Did it hurt?
Of course it did.
But after what Cassius had done to my hands, pain had started to lose meaning.
Valeria watched in silence for a moment, as if studying a piece of art that wasn’t interesting enough.
“You’re not reacting at all?” she said with a small, almost disappointed smile. “That’s boring.”
She stepped closer, tilting her head slightly. Then she smiled brightly again, as if deciding the matter was finished.
“Good,” she said. “You’re clean now.”
She gestured toward the house.
“Come inside, Elira. Don’t stand there like you don’t belong.”
…
I dragged myself toward the small garden behind the mansion—the only place that had ever felt like mine. Hidden. Quiet. Separate from everything that belonged to Cassian’s world.
Each step hurt more than the last. My body felt like it might collapse at any moment.
Before I pushed the door open, I swallowed the pill I had gotten earlier—the one meant to erase me.
I leaned against the wall for a moment, breathing unevenly. My clothes were still soaked, my burned skin throbbing beneath the bandages as I began to remove my jacket, trying to clean myself up.
Then the door opened again.
I froze.
Cassian stood in the doorway, framed by the hallway light behind him. Tall. Immaculate. Calm in the way only someone untouchable could be. Black suit, expensive watch, expression unreadable as always.
Eleven years.
And still, my body reacted before my mind could stop it.
What a joke.
“You’re back,” he said simply, stepping inside as though the space already belonged to him.
It did.
His gaze swept over me—the burns, the torn fabric, the blood.
“Turn around,” he ordered. “Let me see.”
I didn’t resist. Slowly, I turned my back to him.
My shirt shifted enough to reveal what Cassius had done—cuts, bruises, deep scars layered across my skin like a record of everything I had survived.
Cassian moved closer. His fingers brushed lightly over a long scar on my back.
“What caused this?” he asked quietly.
“Steel wire whip,” I answered.
His hand moved to another mark. “And this?”
“Burning iron.”
He paused.
Then his fingers stopped at a fresh burn across my shoulder and neck, still raw and angry.
“And this one?” his voice changed slightly.
I swallowed. “Valeria had someone pour boiling water on me.”
His hand went still.
“What did you say?” he asked, colder now.
I turned just enough to meet his eyes. “I said Valeria told them to do it,” I repeated evenly. “She said I was dirty.”
Silence swallowed the room.
And then his expression went completely still—cold in a way that didn’t belong to anything human.
