CHAPTER TWO: Zane's POV

The club stank of cheap perfume and broken promises.

It always had.

And on this particular evening likealways, Zane Knightly moved between the tables with the effortless grace of someone who knew how to make men ache without ever touching them. The flickering neon lights painted his bare skin in shades of red and blue, a masterpiece of temptation, a symbol of seduction, but his heart had long since learned to stay cold, stay hidden, stay tucked away.

It was a job.

A way to survive.

Just another stage, another night, another lie he wore like cologne.

The club, Velvet Eden, situated in a hidden alley of Paris’s underworld, was a den for the desperate and the dangerous, a get-away from their lives in the 'real world'. Zane knew better than to trust the men who came to watch him, thick with sweat and lust, tossing crumpled euros like confessions into the air. They didn't care about the boy behind the performance, they never did. Not even the kind ones. They all cared about the fantasy—the body, the smile, the illusion he fed them generously.

It was after one of his performances that he appeared.

The man in the tailored suit.

He was not one of the usual drunk, leering faces. No, this one was different. Clean, composed, smiling with something too polished to be sincerity.

"You’re wasting yourself here," the man said, offering a card with a foreign emblem Zane didn't recognize. "You're beautiful. Really beautiful and I know that you deserve more. Real work. Real money. I can offer you that."

Zane should have run then.

His instincts flared, his gut twisting in warning. Every single one of his senses went haywire, a blaring trigger sign.

But desperation drowned out the alarm bells screaming in his mind and muffled his own voice.

The rent was three months overdue. His stomach twisted tighter with hunger than fear. Hope — ever cruel and blinding — crept up and whispered, What if this is real?

The offer was simple: fly to Turkey. A legitimate modeling contract. Private, exclusive work for wealthy collectors. No sleazy strip clubs, no cheap gropes from drunk tourists. A chance to step out of the shadows.

They even promised an advance to be wired into his account, with which he used to settle all of his debt.

He signed the contract without reading the fine print.

The hotel room in Istanbul was too nice, too quiet.

Zane didn’t sleep that night. A nagging unease gnawed at him. He thought about leaving, about finding the first cab back to the airport. But when he tried the door in the morning, it was locked from the outside.

Panic set in fast and furious.

His phone — gone.

The windows — sealed.

The taste of betrayal was sharp and metallic on his tongue.

Two men arrived hours later. Silent. Smiling. They carried a case between them — black leather, the size of a coffin. Inside were clothes, chains, and a polished gold collar.

Zane fought. God, he fought. Kicked, bit, screamed until his throat went raw.

But the men were bigger. Stronger.

It was over in minutes. His wrists were bound, a sedative plunged into his neck, and the world around him slipped into darkness.

The captivity that followed blurred into endless days and nights.

No clocks. No calendars.

Only hunger and the cold ache of loneliness.

He was cleaned, preened like livestock. Forced to kneel, to pose, to obey barked commands through gritted teeth. Any sign of defiance was punished swiftly — not always cruelly, but always effectively. Food withheld. Water rationed. Sleep stolen.

Zane refused to speak.

He let them dress him like a doll, but they would never take his pride.

Inside, he kept a fire burning. Alive. Fierce. Waiting.

When they finally dragged him into the palace — the auction house — he knew something terrible was about to happen.

The velvet halls stank of money, power, and rot.

Around him were others. Beautiful. Terrified. Dressed in nothing but humiliation and glitter.

They herded them into gilded cages, hidden behind black curtains, waiting to be paraded like treasures.

Zane watched. Waited.

Counted the exits.

Measured the distance between him and the doors he'd never reach.

When it was his turn, his legs buckled halfway up the stairs. He hit the stage hard, a jarring shock of pain shooting up his side.

Gasps rippled through the crowd. A predator’s excitement thickened the air.

Zane forced himself to stand.

He would not cry. He would not beg.

If they wanted to own him, they would have to work harder than that.

The blinding lights made his skin prickle. Sweat slid down his spine. He heard the auctioneer’s voice booming through the cavernous room: "Lot Eighty-Two. Male. Age twenty. English-American descent. Healthy. Certified. And obviously—a work of art indeed."

Zane didn’t dare look at the crowd.

Didn't want to see the faces of the men who would put prices on his soul.

Until he felt it.

A gaze.

Heavy. Focused. Icy and burning at once.

He turned his head instinctively — and saw him.

A man seated alone at a velvet booth. Dark suit. Pale, cold eyes framed by the hard edges of a face that could have been carved from stone. Smoking idly, as if none of this mattered.

But his stare was different.

Not lust.

Not greed.

Something else. Something far more dangerous.

Zane swallowed hard, his body tense like a bowstring pulled taut.

Bidding began. He heard the numbers tossed like grenades: Two hundred thousand. Three hundred thousand. A million.

And then—

"Two million euros," came the voice. Calm. Flat. Absolute.

The man with the pale eyes.

The room stilled.

The other bidders hesitated. Faltered. Looked away.

Who was this man that quelled a room of monsters? What kind of devil was he?

The gavel slammed down like a gunshot. Disrupting his reverie.

And just like that — he was sold.

When they dragged him down the stage and away behind this devil in black, Zane kept his spine straight.

He wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing him break.

The man was already waiting in a black car outside, his expression unreadable. Zane expected roughness, another blow, but instead, the man tilted his chin up with two fingers, studying him like a puzzle he intended to solve.

"What's your name, boy?" the man asked, his voice brushed against the boy's ears like velvet dragged over a blade, his accent lingering in the air around them.

Zane tore his face away. He spat, the glob landing inches from polished leather shoes.

The man didn't strike him. He had expected him to strike. He had intended to provoke him.

He watched the man smile, but there was nothing genial about his smile. It held a warning, amusement, maybe even excitement. But what it was for certain was dangerous.

The slow, sharp smile made Zane’s blood run cold. In that moment, Zane realized:

He hadn't escaped anything.

He had merely stepped from one cage into the lair of a wolf. He had been traded by monsters to a devil.

And somehow, somewhere deep inside him, he heard a voice. This was only the beginning.