Chapter 1

Alex POV;

I woke up to the sound of silence. Not the comforting kind—but the type that presses into your chest like invisible hands. My room was still dark, though it had to be morning. The blackout curtains were thick, and the cracked window barely let in air, let alone light. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, the cold tiles beneath my feet reminding me I was still here.

Still trapped.

Still living in my own Shadow's.

Once, this room had been filled with warmth—my father’s laughter, my mother’s music, the scent of vanilla from my bookshelf. Now? It was just peeling paint, a broken lamp, and a single bed too small for my dreams.

I walked to the mirror. My reflection stared back—dark circles under my eyes, my long hair uncombed, the faded shirt hanging loosely on my thin frame. Kate had gotten a new Gucci purse yesterday. I got this shirt from a box labeled “charity.”

I heard heels clicking outside my door.

Madam Alice.

I pressed my ear to the wooden panel and waited. Her voice floated through, sharp and sweet like poisoned sugar.

"Make sure she doesn’t leave. She’s being watched."

My fingers curled around the edge of the door. This was my life now—a prisoner in my own home, a charity case in the house my father built.

I had begged for a job. Any job. Anything to get away from the suffocating walls of this mansion that now felt like a prison. But yesterday, when I tried to leave, two men blocked the gate like I was some criminal. Alice claimed it was “for my safety.”

I knew better.

I wasn’t family anymore.

Not since Dad died and took my shield with him.

He’d barely been buried before Alice swapped her black veil for blood-red lipstick and began redecorating like she’d been waiting her whole life to erase him. And me.

Kate? She strutted around like royalty, calling Alice “Mother Dearest” and me “the stray.” The only thing I ever received from her was a smirk or a designer hand-me-down two years too late.

I shuffled downstairs, hungry but knowing better than to touch anything in the main kitchen. I snuck two crackers from the staff pantry and chewed them dry in the hallway.

I needed a plan.

Anything to get out from this bondage.

I was going to apply to that café again, the one near the bus station. They had a sign out last week. I still had the flier hidden under my mattress.

Back upstairs, I folded it into my coat pocket and quietly tiptoed toward the back exit, avoiding the creaky floorboards. My heart pounded. One step outside. Just one.

But the gate buzzed open on its own.

I froze.

A black SUV rolled in slowly. Its windows were tinted black.

Nobody in our neighborhood owned a car like that. Not unless they were rich. Or dangerous.

Maybe both.

I ducked behind the pillar.

Alice stepped outside to greet whoever it was. She looked... eager.

Desperate, even.

That wasn’t normal.

I pressed closer to the shadows as they disappeared inside. I tiptoed back, but not to my room. Instead, I took the longer hallway—toward her office.

I wasn’t stupid. Something was wrong. Something was happening.

Voices carried through the slightly open door. I pressed my back against the wall, heart racing.

“…she has no choice. The papers are signed.”

It was Alice.

“I don’t care what she thinks,” she snapped. “She’s leaving tomorrow.”

A pause. Then a chilling laugh.

“She’ll be his by dawn. He won’t care who she is, as long as she’s obedient. Make sure she’s ready.”

I gasped.

The floor creaked.

Silence.

Footsteps.

Coming closer.

I turned and ran, heart thundering, feet slipping on the marble tiles as the reality hit me like ice water—

I wasn’t just a prisoner anymore.

I was being sold.

To who? And why?

And worse—

Tomorrow, I wouldn’t belong to myself anymore.

 She said he won’t care who she is.

Who was he?

And why did I feel like I wouldn’t survive whatever came next?