Chapter 2

"Who was that?" Vivian' s voice cut through my shock.

I placed the receiver back on its cradle with a shaking hand.

"The hospital," I said, my voice flat. "My father is dying."

I expected a flicker of something, maybe surprise, maybe even a sliver of pity. I got nothing.

Vivian just stared at me, her face a mask of indifference. Damien adjusted his position on the couch, pulling her closer.

"How inconvenient for you," she said finally.

Then she looked at her son, Leo, who was playing with blocks on the floor. "Leo is hungry. Go make him a snack."

I stood there, frozen. My father was dying, and she wanted me to go make a sandwich. The sheer absurdity of it, the profound cruelty, washed over me.

My body was aching from the fall Damien had engineered earlier, and now my mind was reeling from the news. But the command was given. It was just another task, another link in the chain of my servitude.

Usually, I would have just obeyed. I would have swallowed the pain and the grief and gone to the kitchen. It was my survival mechanism.

I remembered a time, three years ago, when I had a high fever. My body was on fire, and every joint ached. Damien had insisted I go out in a winter storm to fetch a specific brand of ice cream Vivian was craving. I had collapsed in the snow on my way back, the tub of ice cream shattering beside me. Their driver found me an hour later, half-frozen. Vivian' s punishment for failing was to lock me in the unheated wine cellar for a night. I nearly died of pneumonia.

The memory was a cold reminder of why I always complied. Resistance was met with overwhelming force.

But the doctor's words echoed in my head. He wants to see you free.

Something inside me snapped.

"No."

The word was quiet, barely a whisper, but it landed in the silent room with the force of a bomb.

Vivian' s head whipped around to face me. Her eyes narrowed. Damien sat up, his smirk gone, replaced by a look of surprised anger.

"What did you say?" Vivian asked, her voice dangerously low.

I took a breath, the small spark of rebellion flaring brighter.

"I said no," I repeated, my voice a little stronger this time. "My father is dying. I' m not making a snack."

For a moment, there was just stunned silence. I had never defied a direct order before. Not once in 2,190 days.

Then Vivian moved.

She was off the couch in a flash, her face contorted with rage. She crossed the room in three long strides and slapped me across the face, hard.

My head snapped to the side, my cheek stinging instantly. The sound of the slap echoed in the vast room.

"You dare?" she hissed, her face inches from mine. "You dare say no to me? In my house?"

She grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked my head back, forcing me to look at her. Pain exploded in my scalp.

"You are nothing," she spat, her eyes blazing with a fury I knew all too well. "You are a pathetic worm that I allow to live here. You will do as you are told."

Damien was on his feet now, watching with an amused, predatory gleam in his eyes. He enjoyed this. This was the highlight of his day.

"Let him go, Vivi," Damien said, his voice smooth and calculating. "He' s obviously distraught. Maybe he just needs a little reminder of his place."

He walked over to the heavy oak coffee table. He picked up a thick, glass ashtray.

My blood ran cold. He wasn' t going to.

He tossed it in his hand, a cruel smile playing on his lips.

"Don' t," I managed to choke out, the word getting lost in the pain from Vivian' s grip on my hair.

Vivian shoved me away from her. I stumbled backward, losing my balance. I fell hard against the edge of the marble fireplace hearth.

A sharp, searing pain shot through my side as my ribs connected with the unforgiving stone. I cried out, a gasp of pure agony.

I curled into a ball on the floor, clutching my side, struggling to breathe.

Vivian stood over me, her chest heaving, her expression one of utter disgust.

"Now," she said, her voice like ice. "Go make the snack. And when you' re done, you will come back here and apologize for your insolence."

Through the haze of pain, I looked up at her. The rebellion that had flared so briefly was extinguished by the brutal reality of my situation.