The Rogue Lord's Possession

Chapter 4

[ELARA’S POV]

The floorboards creaked beneath my feet as I swept slowly across the narrow living room, the old broom dragging like it shared my exhaustion. Dust gathered in the corners, but I barely noticed. My hands moved, but my mind wasn’t here.

It never really was anymore.

The house smelled like damp memories and unwashed dreams. The kitchen zinc still dripped. The fan overhead made a tired humming noise that sounded too much like a lullaby gone wrong.

I moved around with a damp rag, wiping the chipped edges of the wooden table I grew up eating at, trying to scrub away more than just grime.

I didn't know my mother. She died giving birth to me. I had no siblings. No relatives we ever talked about. All I had was John, my father. And even that felt like a thread unraveling faster than I could braid it back.

Mom died giving birth to me. That was the first thing life gave me, the weight of her absence.

And now, twenty-three years later, I was still paying for being born.

I set the broom aside and wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my arm. Outside, the afternoon sun spilled through the window, catching the edges of our empty cabinets. We had sold the TV. The rug. Even the antique lamp my mother once bought at a market she probably smiled in. Everything gone. Everything gambled away.

I walked over to the wall beside the window and traced a c***k running down the plaster. It looked like the house was crying too.

The last few days had been a blur. Ariana and Lila were gone. My friends. My sisters in everything but blood. They'd left for something bigger. Something brighter. Universities and scholarships and powerful pack sponsors.

I grew up motivating myself that it would be better someday, but it has only gotten worse. My father is the most despised in the pack. He has loans from all neighbors just to gamble. But I wonder why he always lost and still kept on going back?

I had nothing but four peeling walls, and a father who kept betting on things he never had to begin with.

The scent of bleach clung to my fingers as I rinsed the rag in a bowl of water, but it couldn’t cleanse the memories. That night. The wrong room. That man’s eyes.

Thomas Kade.

The name alone sent a tremor down my spine. The tattoos on his chest are exactly the same way they've been described. I briefly closed my eyes, trying to recollect the full memories. Yes, It was the tattoo of something like a viper and cobwebs, scary and intimidating.

I dropped into the couch, if you could still call it that, and exhaled long, deep, bitter.

And then the front door burst open all of a sudden.

I jerked up.

Dad stumbled inside, his face pale, drenched in sweat. His shirt clung to his chest, and his hands were shaking like the devil had whispered something to him.

“Dad?” I stood, instantly alert. “What happened?”

He looked at me—no words, no breath—and crossed the room in three unsteady steps. His hands gripped my shoulders tightly, too tightly.

“Elara,” he whispered. “Listen to me. If anything happens this morning, if men come here... deny me. Deny everything. Say you don’t know me. Say anything. Run.”

“What are you......?” I froze. “Dad, are you drunk again?”

“No.” His voice cracked. “Not drunk. Just... stupid.”

I stared at him. The trembling. The cold sweat. The desperation that hung to his skin like gasoline. I knew this look. I'd seen it after every bad night at the casino. After every lost bet. But this… this was different. This was terror.

He turned sharply, yanking open drawers, pulling out my things—shoes, books, a coat, even my toothbrush, and stuffing them into an old bag like a madman.

“Go. Leave. Run.” His voice cracked, and that scared me more than the words. My father never sounded broken. He was messy, addicted, foolish, but never this terrified.

I grabbed his arm. “What are you talking about? We have nowhere to go! No one!” My voice broke. “You’re scaring me.”

And then came the sound of tires screeching outside. It was black van.

Then boots. Heavy, deliberate and too many.

My stomach dropped, I immediately knew something is going awfully wrong.

“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no.” He groaned painfully, fear written in capital letters on his forehead.

Before I could blink, the front door slammed open.

Men flooded the room like a flood—dressed in deep charcoal suits, weapons strapped beneath their coats. And in the middle of them stood a man I’d never seen before but instantly recognized, the name tag on his chest says ‘Lucien’.

Everyone knows that name, Lucien.

Consigliere of the Blood Den. Second only to one man.

“John Arlo John” Lucien said, his voice like velvet wrapped around a dagger.

My father tried to speak, but before he could, two of the suited men grabbed him and slammed him against the wall.

“Dad!” I screamed, rushing forward, but another man held me back.

Lucien didn’t blink. “You ran, John. After gambling away every coin you don’t own.”

“Please,” my father gasped. “I—I needed time......”

“You don’t get time,” Lucien replied simply.

One of the men punched my father across the face. Blood sprayed. I screamed again, trying to fight free, but the arm holding me was solid like stone.

“You’re hurting him!” I cried. “He’s old! Please!”

Lucien turned to me. His expression didn’t shift, but there was something amused in his gaze. Like this was just a business deal. Nothing personal.

“It wasn’t enough,” Lucien said coolly. “That he mortgaged your home. Your clothes. Your inheritance. All for dice and whiskey. He signed the contract. It’s ours now.”

“You’re lying!” I spat.

But then Lucien reached into his coat, pulled out a sheet of paper, and held it up.

“His signature. Witnessed. Filed.”

And there it was. My father's name in ink. Everything legally binding.

I could barely breathe.

Lucien stepped closer to him. “You owe the Blood Den five hundred thousand marks, old man. And your time’s up.”

He reached behind him and pulled out a gun.

I froze.

“No!” I screamed, crawling across the floor, clutching Lucien’s arm. “Please, please don’t kill him!”

He pressed the barrel against my father’s head.

“Sign over the loss officially, or I paint these walls red.”

Dad’s voice broke. “Please… please, give me another way.”

Lucien looked back at me. His eyes glinted like knives.

“There is another way,” he said, slowly lowering the gun.

Dad coughed, blood running down his mouth. “I’ll take it.”

Lucien tilted his head. “You haven’t heard it yet.”

“Anything,” my father croaked. “Anything to save me and her, just... not the bullet.”

Lucien smiled faintly, cruelly. “You want all your debts cleared. Your life spared. You want everything back?” He turned to me. “Then trade her.”

Silence.

I blinked.

“What?”

Lucien looked down at me. “Trade. Your daughter. Elara. In exchange for every property you ever lost. Everything you mortgaged. Every cent you owe. Wiped clean.”

My heart felt like it cracked. “You’re joking........”

But Dad didn’t even hesitate.

“She’s yours.”

I couldn’t move. My body went numb.

He didn’t even look at me.

I was still on my knees, still trembling, still bleeding on the inside, when I finally found the strength to whisper, “Sold me... just like that?”

For a moment, I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t cry. Couldn’t move. I just stood there, cold and bare and broken inside.

I laughed. Bitter. Hollow. “So, I’m worth half a million to you?”

“More than that,” Lucien replied with a faint smirk. “To the one who asked for you.”

I turned to him. “Who?”

Lucien didn’t flinch. “You’ll be taken care of. The Lord of the Den keeps what’s his.”

And then the real horror hit.

“Wait...” I croaked. “Who... who exactly are you selling me to?”

Lucien met my eyes. And for the first time that day, he smiled.

“Thomas Kade,” he said. “The Lord himself.”

And that’s when everything inside me shattered.

I had been traded like furniture. Given to a wolf with a city in his fist.

And all I could think was…..........

Why me?