Chapter 2

The tires ran over the wet, lonely road.

I kept my forehead pressed to the cold window. Rain poured down the car roof and blurred the windscreen. I noticed a single drop crawled down the glass, fighting to escape.

I wished I was that drop.

"Leo, please stop sniffing. It's annoying."

Viktor's voice rolled from the driver's seat, low, heavy, and final. In the rearview mirror, his eyes were fixed on me. They never blinked.

"I'm not sniffing," I snapped. I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. "I'm cold. Turn up the heater."

"The heater is already on high." Viktor tightened his grip on the wheel. "You're shaking because you're scared. Most boys cry too."

"I'm not crying!" I kicked the back of his seat hard out of sheer annoyance.

He simply pulled over to the side of the road. He wasn't angry. He switched off the engine and went quiet. Darkness swallowed us. There were no streetlights, but only rain drumming on the roof and the black woods pressing close.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

"Why did we stop?" My voice came out smaller than I wanted.

Silence rushed in; it was heavier than the rain. He reclined his seat, draped his arm over the headrest, and looked at me with that unnerving, still focus that felt like he was about to tell the truth.

"Your father told me what he found," he said quietly.

Heat crawled up my neck. I wanted to sink into the leather chair.

"But who cares?" I muttered.

"He said you were looking at pictures of men." Viktor tilted his head toward me. "Is that why you botched the shipment? Because you were daydreaming about someone's smile?"

"Shut up, Viktor!"

"It really hurt your dad that he cried," Viktor whispered.

The words landed like a fist. My father, the Iron Man, had cried?

"He thinks he failed as a father," Viktor continued. "He thinks his blood is rotten because of you."

"I hate him," I choked out. Tears came anyway, hot and unstoppable. "I hate the family. The name. I hate all of it!"

"Good." Viktor gently touched my chin. His fingers were hot against my cold skin. I didn't pull away. I was too tired to pretend. "Hate is better than fear. But hate won't keep you alive in the Forge. The men there don't care whose son you are. They like to see exactly how long it takes to break a Prince. You have to be fearless, determined, and strong. Those are the only things that will carry you through."

He unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed into the back seat with me. The space shrank instantly. He filled it completely. I pressed into the corner, but I already knew I wasn't really trying to escape him. I wanted more but couldn't ask.

"What are you doing? Get off me!"

"I have to check the cargo." His voice thickened. "The gate guards are rough. If I find anything on you now, a phone, a knife, a secret, I can hide it for you. If they find it first, they'll throw you in the hole for a week."

"I don't have anything on me!"

"Then let me check."

He grabbed my wrists and pinned them to the seat. His hands moved slowly, down my legs, across my chest. He wasn’t searching. He was mapping me, slow and deliberate.” His palm lingered over my ribs, feeling my heart slam against bone. He saw what my eyes couldn't hide.

He already knew.

"You're shaking like a leaf, Leo." He leaned in until his face was an inch from mine. The leather clung to his skin. "Are you scared of the Forge? Or are you scared of me?"

"Both," I whispered. The Forge terrified me for what it would do to my body. Viktor terrified me with what he was already pulling out of me.

He didn't move away. He kept me trapped against the seat, his thumb tracing my bottom lip, slow and deliberate. I didn't pull back. I moaned softly as my body longed for more.

"You're so pretty, Leo," he murmured. "It's a shame. They're going to shave your hair. Strip off your clothes. You'll be nothing but a number in a white suit. Just like everyone else."

"Then why are you taking me there?"

"Because if I don't, your father will send someone who won't be careful. At least, I'm the one with you now."

He leaned closer and nipped my earlobe. The sound that left my throat was soft, broken, and definitely not a protest.

Viktor climbed back into the driver's seat without another word. The engine growled to life. I sat in the dark, fingers pressed to my lip, heart still racing long after the car started moving again.

Twenty minutes later, floodlights appeared. They sliced through the rain like white knives. The Forge rose behind a twenty-foot wall. A single sign glowed above the gate: STRENGTH IS THE ONLY TRUTH.

A guard in a black rain poncho stepped up, a shotgun slung over his shoulder. He tapped on the glass.

Viktor rolled the window down. Cold air rushed into the car like needles.

"Delivery for Block C."

The guard stared at me. Red eyes, dried blood on my lip. "He looks soft. He won't last a month."

"He'll last," Viktor said calmly. He reached into the glove box and pulled out a pair of iron handcuffs. "He's a Moretti. He just needs to remember it."

Viktor got out, grabbed me from the back of my neck, and pushed me toward the guard.

"Hands."

"No, Viktor! Please!" I begged.

He didn't listen. The iron snapped around my wrists and bit straight to the bone.

The gates groaned open. Inside, the courtyard was a sea of mud. Twenty boys stood in straight lines, heads down, soaked through thin white jumpsuits. They didn't look like themselves anymore.

A scarred man with a wooden cane stepped forward. "He's late."

"He's here now," Viktor answered. His face had changed. The man from the car was gone. Only the killer remained.

"Strip him," the scarred man ordered. "He needs to feel the cold before he feels the fire."

The guards grabbed me. I fought back, kicked and screamed. But they overpowered me anyway and dragged me toward the grey stone building.

I looked back at Viktor. He stood beside the SUV, lighting a cigarette, watching them take me away like it meant nothing.

"Viktor!" I cried out. "Help me!"

He exhaled a slow cloud of smoke. "Welcome to the Forge, Leo. Try not to die on your first night."

They threw me into a small room thick with hot steam and the sharp smell of bleach. Through a tiny window I could see the medical wing across the yard.

A boy stared out from the glass, pale, head shaved, with a long scar across his throat. He wasn't moving. He was just... empty.

It was Toby. The kid who used to live next door when I was ten. The boy my father swore had moved to Italy.

Toby looked like a ghost.

If this place was supposed to fix me, why did he already look like that? And what would I look like by morning?