Chapter 3

3

By the third week, I finally asked him a real question.

“Why are you keeping me here?”

He was in my suite that night, going over documents on the sofa. He did this every few days―just sitting there, working. Occasionally he’d glance at me, then go back to his papers. He was like a predator patrolling his territory.

His pen stopped when he heard my voice.

“You really don't remember me.”

I blinked. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Ten years ago. The back alleys of the East Side. A girl dragged a bleeding boy from a trash heap into an old storm cellar. She tore her own school sleeve to wrap his wounds. When he asked her name, she said―”

He looked up, a faint light in his dark eyes. “―’I’ll tell you if you stay alive.’”

My spine went stiff.

Ten years ago. I was only eight. My mom had just died, and I was scavenging for food. One night, I found a boy covered in blood behind a dumpster. He was sixteen, stabbed multiple times, shivering in a puddle.

I dragged him into a cellar. I tore my clothes to stop the bleeding and stayed with him all night.

When the ambulance finally arrived, he grabbed my wrist from the stretcher.

“What’s your name?”

“I’ll tell you if you stay alive,” I had whispered.

I never saw him again after that.

I stared at the man on the sofa. Silas Sterling. Six-foot-three. The most feared man in the city.

“You’re that boy?”

“I stayed alive,” he said, leaning back. “I’ve been looking for you for ten years.”

I felt like I had been pushed off a cliff. It wasn't fear or even gratitude. It was something I couldn't name. That torn sleeve had been wrapped around his heart for a decade.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Because you didn’t remember. Would you have even believed me?” He closed his file. “You can see me as a kidnapper, a monster, or a villain. I don't care. But you saved my life. I have to pay that back.”

“By locking me up?”

“The people out there are more dangerous than I am.” He stood and walked to the window. His silhouette was a dark wall against the city lights. “The Sterling family has been in this business for thirty years. I have more enemies than you can count.”

He turned back to me. His gaze was more serious than I’d ever seen.

“Your father selling you to me was the luckiest day of his life. If he had sold you to the gangs on the South Side, you’d be on an auction block in another country by now.”

He took a step closer. “Hate me if you want. But don't let that hate get you killed.”

I was silent for a long time.

Then, I asked something that surprised even me. “What were you thinking about for those ten years?”

His throat moved as he swallowed. He spun his butterfly knife three times with practiced ease.

“I was wondering what that little girl would look like when she grew up.”

The knife stopped, balanced perfectly between his fingers.

“You’re even more beautiful than I imagined.”