Chapter Two: Apparently, I Wasn't Kidnapped, Just Misplaced

I laughed.

Not because anything was funny. It was the sound someone makes when their brain short-circuits and decides hysteria is safer than full-blown panic.

"Little sister?" I repeated. "That's... wow. Bold choice. Is this the part where you tell me I'm on a hidden camera show, or do we skip straight to the organ harvesting?"

Lucien didn't even blink. Marcus, though? He looked entertained. Like I was a stray cat that had just hissed at him.

"You always use sarcasm when you're scared?" Marcus asked.

"I use sarcasm when weird men in thousand-dollar suits try to claim ownership of my entire life," I shot back. "It's a survival thing. Cheaper than therapy."

Elias, the quiet one, reached over and pressed the elevator's emergency stop button. The car jerked to a halt between floors.

That's when the panic actually hit.

My knees went weak. The mop in my hand suddenly felt ridiculous. What was I going to do, clean them to death?

"Okay," I said, backing into the corner. My voice climbed higher than I wanted. "I don't know what rich-people game this is, but I don't consent. I have a mop. It's dirty, and I will swing it at your very expensive faces."

Lucien stepped closer. Not threatening. Just... certain.

"You were taken twenty-one years ago," he said quietly. "You were three. You were wearing a yellow dress with a bee on the pocket. You used to hide in the rosebushes when you didn't want to go to bed."

The laugh died in my throat.

My hands went cold.

"That's not possible," I whispered. "I remember my childhood. The cramped apartment. Burnt toast. The radiator that hissed all winter. I remember."

Marcus's smile faded. "You remember pieces. What they let you remember. Memory's fragile at three, especially when someone rewrites it for you."

A chill crawled down my spine.

The elevator doors opened. Lucien gestured toward the hallway. "Let's talk somewhere you're not holding a bucket like a weapon."

"I'm not going anywhere with you."

Elias's voice was low. Final. "You already are."

They didn't touch me. Didn't have to. I followed them down a hallway that smelled like money and furniture polish, into a lounge that looked like it belonged in a magazine. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Leather chairs that probably cost more than I'd made in my entire life. The kind of place where people made decisions that ruined other people's lives.

I sat on the edge of a white sofa like I might stain it just by breathing.

Lucien slid a folder across the glass table.

My name was on it. Not the one I used. The one I only heard in dreams I couldn't remember when I woke up. Inside was a birth certificate. A hospital I'd never been to. And clipped to the back, a missing person report from twenty-one years ago.

The photo was old. Faded. A little girl with messy hair and my eyes, smiling like the world was still safe.

My chest tightened.

"Photoshop exists," I said weakly.

Marcus crouched beside me, his voice softer now. "You were taken during a charity event. Your nanny was put in the hospital trying to stop it. The police closed the case in forty-eight hours. It wasn't just cold, it was buried."

"By who?"

Lucien's jaw tightened. "People with enough money to buy silence. Enough power to make a three-year-old disappear."

I looked down at the photo. At the girl I didn't remember being.

"Why now?" My voice cracked. "If I've been gone this long, why show up and wreck my life on a Tuesday?"

Elias turned from the window. His eyes locked on mine. "Because you were found. And because someone's been watching you."

Fear slid cold down my back.

"We're not here to scare you," Lucien said. "We're here to protect you."

"From what?"

He hesitated. Just for a second. "The same people who took you the first time. They know you've been located."

Silence.

Then, because my life apparently hated me, my stomach growled. Loud. Embarrassingly loud.

Marcus laughed, really laughed. Elias looked mildly horrified, like hunger was a concept he'd never encountered. Lucien just smiled. It wasn't the sharp, dangerous smile from before. This one was warm. Almost gentle.

Somehow that made it worse.

"When did you last eat a real meal?" he asked.

I crossed my arms over my stomach. "Not relevant."

"Very relevant," he said, standing. "You can't survive a war on an empty stomach."

Minutes later, a cart rolled in. Salmon. Greens. Bread that smelled like it had been baked by angels. My stomach betrayed me immediately.

I hesitated. Pride versus hunger.

Elias moved past me to close the curtains. He leaned down, his voice low near my ear. "You don't have to trust us yet. Just don't starve yourself out of spite."

Heat flushed through me. I jerked away, glaring up at him. "You're real comfortable with personal space, huh?"

His expression didn't change. "And you're terrible at hiding when someone gets to you."

I hated that he was right.

I picked up the fork and took a bite. It tasted like actual food. Not instant noodles. Not vending machine sadness. Real food.

Lucien watched me like I was something precious he'd lost and finally found again.

"You don't remember us," he said softly. "But you will."

I looked at them, these three impossible, terrifying men who claimed I belonged to them. This morning, my life had been simple. Miserable, but simple.

Now it felt like someone had kicked down a door I didn't know existed.

And sitting there in that glass palace, I couldn't tell if I was being rescued from the dark, or dragged deeper into it.