But I'm so tired of being afraid.
So tired of being owned by men who think they have the right.
I ran from the Sanctuary.
I survived Sarah's warehouse.
I stood on that stage and let strange men bid on my body.
I won't break for Vaughn Sutherland.
Not without a fight.
So instead, I straighten my spine.
Lift my chin.
Look him directly in those ice-blue eyes—the eyes that probably cost two million dollars to own—and I say:
"My name is Eden Finch. And I don't belong to anyone."
For a moment, he doesn't react.
Just watches me with those unsettling eyes.
Studies me like I'm a puzzle he's trying to solve.
Then his mouth curves.
Not quite a smile.
Something more dangerous than a smile.
Something that makes my stomach drop and my pulse spike, and every survival instinct I have starts screaming.
"We'll see about that," he says.
And despite every part of me that knows I should look away, should submit, should make myself small and unthreatening, I hold his gaze.
Because I escaped one cage.
I ran through a storm in the middle of the night with nothing but four hundred stolen dollars and the clothes on my back.
I survived being drugged and trafficked and sold.
I survived the Sanctuary.
I'll survive Vaughn Sutherland too.
Even if I have no idea how.
Even if those ice-blue eyes promise that survival might look very different than I expect.
Even if some small, terrifying part of me wonders what it would feel like to belong to someone who looks at me like I'm the only thing in the world that matters.
CHAPTER TWO
Vaughn
