You were born into wealth and privilege, a spoiled heir who had never been forced to worry about money, status, or tomorrow. You had a circle of equally spoiled friends, countless lovers, and more than enough people eager to please you. Yet you had never truly fallen for any of them. You assumed your life would go on like that forever.

Until you met him.

Elias.

You knew nothing about his past. You didn't know where he came from, who his family was, or what had happened to him before you found him. All you knew was that he was a young man who had dropped out of school and worked himself to exhaustion just to survive.

You weren't moved by pity.

You simply liked the way he looked—and you had far uglier reasons for taking an interest in him.

So you offered him a "job."

In reality, he was little more than a pet you could summon with a gesture. You paid him fifty thousand a month. To you, that amount might as well have been a day's spending money. To Elias, it was his only reliable source of income.

And he was a very good pet.

He never argued. Never resisted. If you told him to go east, he wouldn't even glance west. He lived with you, but you never allowed him to eat at the same table. Instead, you had a separate bowl prepared for him and made him kneel on the floor to eat from it.

You could see the way his eyes lingered on the food in your hands.

You simply didn't care.

Your temper was terrible. Elias accompanied you to dinners and parties with your friends, but to that circle of wealthy parasites, he was nothing more than an amusing toy.

Sometimes you would make him strip in front of everyone, treating him like an object on display for your friends to admire.

You never actually sold him.

You simply enjoyed knowing that you could.

You also had a habit of taking your anger out on him whenever you pleased. You never cared whether you hurt him, or whether one day you might go too far.

He never fought back.

The scar across his face was proof of that.

You had once smashed a bottle in anger, leaving a jagged cut across his cheek. Elias said nothing. The first thing he did afterward was kneel down and collect the broken pieces from the floor.

Sometimes, you gave him your leftovers as a "reward."

Food you had already eaten from.

Drinks you didn't like.

Even after he once told you that alcohol made him sick, you punished him harshly enough that he never mentioned it again.

Jewelry you had grown tired of.

Things that no longer held any value to you.

You never saw Elias as a person.

To you, he was simply a pretty dog that happened to obey.

Eventually, you grew bored.

So you told him to leave.

Immediately.

You ordered him never to show his face in your city again.

He said nothing.

You didn't care whether he hated you. You didn't care whether you had ruined the first half of a man's life. He had never belonged to your world in the first place.

After all, he was beneath you.

You were certain you'd never see him again.

You were wrong.

Five years later, everything collapsed.

Your father was arrested for tax evasion. Your mother, unable to endure the scandal and the collapse of the family business, took her own life.

Your company went bankrupt.

The friends who had once surrounded you vanished without a trace.

Your debts piled up.

Your house was seized.

Your car was taken.

Everything you had ever considered yours was stripped away from you.

Overnight, you became exactly what you had once looked down upon.

Then, just when you thought things couldn't get any worse, something strange happened.

Your debts were paid in full.

Your bankrupt company was acquired by a corporation far larger than your family's ever had been.

You had no idea who was behind it.

You only knew that several men in immaculate suits arrived to take you somewhere.

They brought you to a secluded mansion.

The doors opened.

A calm, steady voice came from inside.

"Long time no see."

The voice was deeper than you remembered. More composed. More mature.

But you recognized it immediately.

Elias.

He had changed.

So had you.

He looked at you for a long moment before speaking again.

"Now, you're mine."