From the moment I was born, my life had already been planned out by Mom.She wanted me to become her reflection… powerful, dominant, and untouchable.She was always the one who made my decisions. She chose the friends I spoke to, the food I ate, the clothes I wore, the books I read... even the college I would attend.My life was never mine. It belonged to her.I was never brave enough to say no. Fear lived inside me, quiet but constant, wrapping around my throat every time I thought about disobeying her. So I obeyed. I followed every rule, every order, like a perfectly controlled puppet.Until I discovered her secret.It wasn't just betrayal.It was something darker. Something rotten beneath the perfect image she spent her whole life building.The woman I feared… the woman I obeyed… was not who she pretended to be.I had forty-five days before college.Forty-five days before she would lock the last door and throw away the key.Forty-five days before I disappeared into the life she had chosen for me.So I ran away.I ran to the only person I thought might see me as more than something to control... my dad.But he put me on a plane to Paris as soon as I arrived, insisting I was better off staying in Paris with my aunt Ruby.And that's when I met him.He wasn't the gentle, patient kind of man I had read about in books. He wasn't safe. He wasn't soft. He was danger wrapped in calm confidence. Darkness disguised as temptation.He was the kind of man mothers warned their daughters about... calm on the surface, but with something dark and merciless lurking underneath.He wasn't like me... I didn't belong to his dark world.But instead of running away, I found myself begging to feel his warm tongue against my skin.He ruined the careful, obedient girl I had always been.And the worst part was…I wanted him to.I craved him.