He's watching me with those warm brown eyes, waiting for a response, and all I can think is that the warmth is the worst part. Cruelty I understand. Cruelty has a shape I know how to brace against—I lived with it in Linda and I never stopped expecting it. But this—the gentle voice, the offered seat, themay I—this is something else. This is a man who will destroy me politely and never raise his voice.
"This facility exists to serve a very… specific market," Ellis says. He speaks like he's explaining a businessmodel at a cocktail party. Hands moving in small, precise gestures. Eye contact maintained. "Supply and demand, Max. There's no morality to it—just economics. Certain individuals have biological needs that can only be met by certain other individuals.” He clears his throat. “We facilitate that connection."
My blood turns to ice. Every word is a hammer, driving me deeper into the reality I've been trying not to face.
Specific market. Supply and demand. A service.
This is where omegas come to be sold.
"You're an unusually valuable find," Ellis continues. He uncrosses his legs, leans forward. "Your scent profile is exceptional. Truly exceptional. The preliminary results came back and Mr. Kline was very pleased."
Kline. The name snags on something. A hook catching fabric in the dark. I know that name. I've heard it before. But where?
I dig through the fog of the last few weeks—heat-blurred days bleeding into each other—and it surfaces. Dinner. Atlas making small talk about work the way he sometimes did to fill Margot's silences—shipping routes, competitor names, industry gossip delivered in that flat, unbothered tone that made everything sound like background noise.Kline's been expanding east. Nothing to worry about. Casual. Throwaway. The kind of thing you say between bites of steak.
But I remember the way Zero's eyes flicked to Atlas when he said it. Just for a second. A look that didn't match the casual tone. A look that said Kline wasn't throwaway at all.
I filed it away the way I file everything away. The invisible boy who listens. The foster kid habit. The survival instinct that says remember every name, every tension, every look that doesn't match the words.
And if Kline is the one who took me—if this name means something in the brothers' world, something big enough to make Zero pay attention—then maybe they won't just shrug this off. Maybe I'm not just the stepbrother who disappeared. Maybe I'm a problem they need to solve.
Maybe…
Maybethey'll come.
I hate how much I want that to be true. Hate how quickly I've gone fromdon't hopeto clutching a half-remembered dinner conversation like a life raft.
But it's all I have.
They could come for me.
The match flares. Bright and warm and—
And then I remember.
I remember Atlas's face. The heat clawing through me, my body on fire, every nerve ending screaming for him—and I begged. Ibegged. Stripped myself bare in every way a person can be stripped and said please, Atlas, please—and he said no.
He looked at me like I was something to manage. Something to handle carefully, the way you handle a spill or a crisis or a mistake that needs cleaning up. And he said no.
Not cruelly. That's the part that kills me. He was gentle about it, just like Ellis will be. Measured. Controlled. Like he was making a business decision and the numbers didn't add up. Like I wasn't worth the risk.
I remember the silence after. The way the word no expanded until it filled every room in that house. The way I lay in my bed afterward, still burning, still aching, still needing—and realized that I'd offered him everything I had and it wasn't enough. That I'd let him see the most desperate, shameful, animal part of me, and he'd weighed it and set it down.
That's when I packed the duffel. Not because I was angry. Because I understood. I wasn't the thing he wanted. I was thething he was trying not to want. And there's a difference—a vast, killing difference—between being desired and being resisted.
I press my bound hands against my chest and feel my heart hammering against my palms. Stupid, stubborn heart. Still beating like it expects someone to come. Still hoping even after I've told it to stop.
No one's coming. Not for me. Not for the boy who's never been worth the trouble of keeping.
I swallow the grief before it reaches my face. Bury it deep, the way I've always buried it—in the dark, in the quiet, in the place where no one sees.
Ellis stands. Adjusts his cuffs. The casual warmth doesn't waver, but something in his posture shifts—a subtle squaring of the shoulders, a settling. Like a professor about to deliver a lecture he's given a hundred times.
"Now. Let me explain how this works, because I'd rather not have this conversation twice."
He clasps his hands behind his back. Paces. Three steps toward the wall, three steps back. Unhurried.
"As of this moment, you are on the market. You are merchandise—high-value merchandise, given your profile, but merchandise nonetheless. This facility exists to prepare you for transfer. That process takes as long as it takes, and during that time, you will be fed, hydrated, and maintained in optimal condition."
