Chapter One: Sold
Elias knew something was wrong the moment the door locked behind him.
The sound was soft. Almost polite.
But it echoed too loudly in the small room.
He turned slowly, heart already beating too fast. The warehouse didn’t look like much—bare walls, concrete floor, a single strip of light buzzing overhead. He’d followed the instructions because he was desperate. Because the message had promised money. A way out.
He should have known better.
“Hello?” His voice came out thin. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I’m here.”
Footsteps answered him. Not one pair. Several.
Panic slid cold and familiar down his spine.
A man stepped into the light. Then another. They looked at Elias the way people looked at objects in shop windows—measuring, appraising, already deciding his worth.
Elias backed up until his shoulders hit the wall.
“This is a mistake,” he said quickly. “I think you have the wrong person.”
The first man smiled. “No. You’re exactly who we’re expecting.”
Before Elias could react, hands grabbed his arms. He struggled on instinct, but he was already tired—too tired from long shifts, from not eating enough, from running for too long. They pushed him forward, sat him down, forced him still.
Something cold clicked around his wrist.
Handcuffs.
His breath broke. “Please,” he whispered, the word escaping before he could stop it. “I don’t have anything. I won’t be worth—”
“Quiet,” someone said sharply.
A screen flickered on across the room.
Numbers appeared.
So did voices.
Elias didn’t understand at first. Then the realisation hit him so hard it made him dizzy.
They weren’t talking about him.
They were bidding.
His vision blurred as the numbers climbed. Each increase felt like another piece of him slipping away. He tried to look away, but his eyes were drawn back to the screen—back to the proof that this was real, that this was happening.
Then the room went silent.
One final number remained.
Higher than the rest.
A new figure appeared at the doorway.
He didn’t rush. Didn’t speak. He simply watched.
When his gaze met Elias’s, the air shifted. The man’s eyes were dark, unreadable—calm in a way that felt terrifying. Like this was routine. Like Elias wasn’t a person at all.
The auctioneer swallowed. “Sold.”
The man stepped forward at last.
“You’re coming with me,” he said quietly.
Elias’s chest tightened as the man stopped in front of him, close enough that he could smell clean fabric and something sharper beneath it.
Elias forced himself to look up. “I won’t be easy,” he said, even as his hands shook.
The man tilted his head, studying him.
A slow smile touched his mouth.
“I know,” he replied. “That’s why I bought you.”
