Chapter 1

Evelyn POV

I ran barefoot through my family's garden with three men behind me, and not one person in that house had raised a hand to stop them.

Rose thorns tore at my ankles. The wet grass slid under my feet. Somewhere behind me, a man shouted my name like I was a dog that had slipped its leash.

"Evelyn Ashford! Stop!"

Not a chance.

I had been adopted at six weeks old. Raised in a mansion, fed at the same table, and reminded every single day that I should be grateful. And the one time my family finally moved fast, the one time they didn't hesitate, was to hand me over like a package.

Twenty-four hours earlier, I still believed I just had a bad family.

I didn't know I had a price.

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS EARLIER

"Evelyn. Stop standing there like a statue and refill their cups."

"Yes, Mom."

I lowered my eyes and obeyed. I'd been doing it since I was nine.

The living room was full of laughter that didn't belong to me. My adoptive father, Richard Ashford, sat at the head of the table beside three men in expensive suits. My adoptive mother, Margaret, smiled brighter than I'd seen in months. And Isabella, the daughter they actually gave birth to, sat with her legs crossed, soaking up the attention like sunlight.

Nobody looked at me. Nobody ever did, unless something needed carrying.

"So, Mr. Ashford," the tallest man said, folding his hands. "Have you reached a decision?"

Richard's smile cracked for the first time all evening. "I need a little more time."

"You've had six months."

Silence dropped over the room like a lid.

For weeks, strangers had been visiting our house. They never shouted. They never threatened anyone. But every time they left, Dad looked like he'd aged ten years, and the bills piled up on the hall table where Margaret thought no one would see them.

I set the coffee pot down and backed toward the kitchen.

"...Evelyn."

I stopped.

"She's healthy," my father said.

Healthy?

Why was he describing me like livestock?

"She won't ask questions," Margaret added. "She never does."

My stomach turned to ice.

"Our employer expects the agreement honored tomorrow night," the stranger said.

"It will be done," Richard answered. Instantly. Without a trace of doubt.

I fled into the kitchen before anyone saw my face. My hands were shaking so badly that I had to grip the counter.

Agreement. Tomorrow night. Healthy.

I didn't know what it meant, but I knew one thing for sure. When Richard Ashford used that tone, someone was about to lose something.

I just never imagined it would be me.

That night, I lay in my narrow bedroom on the third floor, the one they'd given me because it used to be a storage room, and stared at the ceiling.

My tiny bank account held forty-three dollars. My part-time job barely covered bus fare. I had no savings, no family worth the name, and nowhere to run.

A soft knock made me jump.

"Evie? It's me."

Lily Bennett slipped inside and shut the door behind her. She was my best friend, the only person who'd ever shown up for my birthday, and she'd climbed the garden trellis again because she knew the front door would be watched.

"Are you insane?" I whispered. "If my dad catches you..."

"I heard them, Evie." Her eyes were red. "Outside the window. Your dad said you were the only thing he had left to offer."

I laughed.

Not because it was funny. Because it couldn't be true.

"You misheard."

"I wish I did."

"They wouldn't. My parents would never..."

The sentence died in my throat.

Would they?

I thought of every birthday they forgot. Every meal I ate alone in the kitchen. Every time Isabella lied and they believed her without blinking. Every "you should be grateful" that came wrapped in a gift I never asked for.

Maybe Lily wasn't wrong.

Maybe I just didn't want to know.

A crash exploded downstairs.

We both froze.

Then voices. Richard's, thin and desperate. Margaret's, sharp with fear. And a third, deep and calm, the voice of a man who had never once been refused.

Lily grabbed my hand, and together we crept to the staircase and peered through the railing.

The three men were back.

They weren't smiling anymore.

The tallest one set a black leather folder on the table. "Our employer does not tolerate broken promises."

"She'll be ready tomorrow." Richard wiped sweat from his forehead. "I swear."

"Good."

He slid a photograph across the table.

Even from the stairs, I recognized the face. It was mine. A candid shot, taken when I didn't know anyone was watching. And stamped across the corner, in silver ink, was a mark.

A small crescent moon with three curved lines.

My hand flew to my throat.

The same symbol was engraved on the necklace I'd worn since the day I was adopted. The only thing I owned that had come from before.

"What does the symbol mean?" Richard asked, staring at the photo.

"You don't need to know," the man said. "It's just business."

Business.

I was a business.

He adjusted his gloves and turned toward the door. At the threshold, he glanced up the stairs.

Straight at me.

His eyes were a pale, strange gray, and they didn't blink. He smiled, slow and unhurried, like a man looking at something that already belonged to him.

Then he left.

"Evie," Lily breathed. "We have to go. Tonight."

"Go where? With what? Forty-three dollars?"

"Then I'll figure it out. But you can't stay here."

I wanted to listen. I really did.

But some stupid, bruised, twenty-two-year-old part of me still believed my father would say something at breakfast. Would look me in the eye and tell me it was all a misunderstanding.

He didn't.

THE NEXT NIGHT

They came at nine.

I heard the car first, the low, hungry purr of an engine. Then the doorbell. Then my mother's heels clicking too quickly across the marble.

I was already at my bedroom door when it opened.

"Evelyn," Richard said. He wouldn't meet my eyes. "Come downstairs."

"No."

"Don't make this difficult."

"What's the agreement, Dad?"

His jaw flexed. "Come downstairs."

"Tell me what you did."

Behind him, the tall man with the gray eyes stepped into the doorway.

"Miss Ashford," he said pleasantly. "It's time."

I didn't wait for the rest.

I slammed the door, locked it, and ran for the window. By the time I'd dragged it open, the lock had splintered behind me and two of them were inside. I threw a lamp. It shattered against the wall. I grabbed the trellis, swung my legs over the ledge, and dropped.

That was how I ended up in the garden, running barefoot through the dark.

And that was how I ended up pinned against the wet grass thirty seconds later, a stranger's knee in my back, my cheek pressed into the dirt.

"Let go of me!" I screamed. I bucked, clawed, drove my elbow into something solid. My nails raked down a man's wrist and left four red lines. For one wild second I felt proud.

Then I looked at the scratches.

They were already healing.

I stopped breathing.

The man followed my stare. His expression went flat and careful, like I'd just seen something I wasn't supposed to.

"Get her up," he said.

They hauled me to my feet. Across the lawn, framed in the golden light of the open front door, my family stood watching.

Richard. Margaret. Isabella.

Nobody moved.

"Dad!" My voice broke. "Dad, please! Tell them to stop!"

Richard looked at his shoes.

"Mom!"

Margaret turned her face away.

Isabella tilted her head, arms folded, a small smile playing at her mouth. "You should be thanking us, Evelyn. Do you know how many girls would kill to live with a billionaire?"

"Then you go, you stuck-up bitch!"

"He wouldn't want me." She shrugged. "Everyone knows you're the one with nothing to lose."

I stopped fighting.

I just stood there in the grass, soaked and trembling, and looked at the three people who had raised me.

"I carried your drinks at your parties," I said, and my voice came out steadier than I felt. "I cleaned up after your guests. I took a job at sixteen to pay for my own textbooks because you said I should learn the value of money. And the one time you needed something from me, you didn't ask. You didn't even have the guts to ask."

Margaret flinched.

"I would have worked," I whispered. "I would have taken three jobs. I would have done anything. But you didn't want my help. You just wanted me with no way to say no."

Richard's face twisted. For a heartbeat, I thought I saw shame.

"With what money, Evelyn?" he said flatly. "You have nothing. You've always had nothing. This is the only thing you can give this family."

There it was. The truth, at last.

"Wow" I breathed my heart hammering so loud I was sure she could hear it.

"Take her," he said.

They dragged me across the lawn. I screamed Lily's name until my voice gave out, but she wasn't there. She'd tried to come, I found out later. They'd locked her out of the gate.

A black car waited at the bottom of the drive, long and gleaming and silent as a hearse.

"Your phone, miss."

"Fuck you."

The gray-eyed man took it from my pocket anyway and dropped it into his jacket. My last link to Lily. To everything.

Behind me, Isabella's voice floated down the steps, sweet as poison. "Bye, Evelyn. Send a postcard."

I twisted around, hair stuck to my face, bare feet bleeding on the gravel.

"I hope it haunts you," I said. "All of you. Every time you sit at that table, I hope you remember my chair."

Margaret pressed a tissue to her mouth. That was the only victory I got.

And that was when I felt it.

Heat.

Against my collarbone, where the little silver crescent had rested every day of my life. Cold metal, always. Never once warm.

Now it was burning, pulsing against my skin like a second heartbeat.

I grabbed it through my shirt.

The gray-eyed man's gaze dropped to my hand. For one second, just one, he went completely still.

"Don't touch that," he said sharply.

"What do you know about it?"

He didn't answer. He shoved me into the back seat, and the door slammed like a coffin lid.

Darkness. Leather. The smell of something old and expensive, like a church that had never been prayed in.

I pounded on the glass. Through it, I watched the house shrink, the golden windows, the three figures on the steps. Richard turned first. He walked back inside without once looking back.

The car began to move.

"Where are you taking me?" My voice came out small. "Please. Just tell me who he is."

Nobody answered. In the rearview mirror, the driver's eyes flashed pale, like a cat's caught in headlights.

Then they were normal again.

I pressed my forehead to the window and watched the city lights fall away, one by one.

Somewhere ahead, a man I had never met owned a contract with my life on it. A debt I never made. A price my own father had decided I was worth.

I made myself a promise in the dark.

Whoever he was, whatever he wanted, I would not break.

And if I ever got the chance, I would make every person who watched me get dragged out of that house pay for it.

Slowly, the car turned onto a long road lined with black trees. Beyond iron gates taller than any I'd ever seen, a mansion rose from the forest like something carved from the night itself.

And in one of its upper windows, a single light flickered on.

As if someone had been waiting.