Eight years ago, I nearly burned to death saving a teenage boy, leaving me with hideous, severe scars. For three years, I was kept locked away in the dark by a wealthy hedge-fund manager, serving as his unpaid assistant and a cheap, on-call stand-in for his socialite girlfriend. When the real one returned from Paris, he dragged me to an underground poker room to throw me to Manhattan's most ruthless shadow banker as a disposable peace offering—tonight at midnight, his two-hundred-million-dollar debt to the man came due. They forced me to my knees on shattered glass, poured high-proof whiskey over my raw burns, and even grabbed iron pliers, intending to rip my tongue out. The ruthless kingpin merely watched with cold eyes, eventually drawing a combat knife. He pressed the tip against my eyeball, wanting to carve my eyes out himself—because in his eyes, I was just another greedy imposter mocking his dead savior. My gaze fell on the dented pink iPod resting on his velvet tray—the exact one I had given that starving boy before the fire. I had survived hell to keep my life, only to face being butchered by the very boy I sacrificed myself to save. I didn't crawl. I didn't beg. I didn't cry. Staring down the cold steel blade, I let the blood spill from my mouth and softly called out his exclusive, secret name: "Do it, Stray." Chapter 1 Amelia POV Tonight at midnight, Brandt Singleton's two-hundred-million-dollar debt to Manhattan's shadow banking titan, Jax Ross, comes due. He is using me as a peace offering, throwing me into the dark room of that underground poker game. I was his prisoner for three years, his unpaid assistant, a beck-and-call stand-in for his socialite girlfriend. Now Karmen is back from Paris, and I'm just an eyesore, the perfect collateral to settle his debt. Before the heavy oak doors even opened, he ordered me to my knees. "If it weren't for me pulling you out of the ash in Brooklyn, Amelia, you'd be dead," Brandt said, throwing a bleach-smelling white cotton shift at my face. "When your chest was burned, I gave you food and a bed. Now Karmen is back, and you're just in the way. Put this on. Go make Ross smile, and he forgives my margin call. Piss him off, and he slits your throat and dumps you in the East River." Karmen leaned against the wall, her silk slip dress catching the light. "Keep a close eye on her, Brandt, don't let her make a peep. The last little girl the Vance brothers sent into Ross's parlor was carried out in trash bags before midnight. Ross hates it when people even breathe too loudly." She tapped her manicured finger at me. "Keep your mouth shut, and maybe you'll live to see sunrise." The bodyguards tore away my coat and forced the scratchy cotton shift over my head. The coarse fabric scraped against the unhealed burn on my left collarbone. With a hard shove, they threw me through the soundproof double doors. The room smelled of Cuban cigar smoke, aged single malt, and cold air conditioning. Four hedge-fund managers sat completely rigid around a green felt poker table. Nobody spoke. Nobody dared to reach for their drinks. At the head of the table sat Jax Ross, wearing a bespoke charcoal suit with his shirt unbuttoned at the throat, exposing a jagged scar that ran down toward his sternum. He flicked a black ceramic chip between his scarred knuckles. Click. Click. Click. My eyes drifted to the small velvet tray set next to his elbow. Inside a glass display case lay an old, dented pink iPod Classic, covered in peeling stickers from Brooklyn punk bands. The scroll wheel was stained with ancient coffee marks. The sticker of the black raven missing its left wing near the headphone jack was still there. I knew every scratch on that casing. Eight years ago, I bought it second-hand at a pawn shop on Flatbush Avenue for twelve dollars. I filled it with acoustic tracks and gave it to a starving, bruised boy who slept in the abandoned boiler room. The boy I called Stray. I stared at the man sitting under the brass lamp. His shoulders were broader. His nose had healed slightly crooked from an old break. The bruised kid who used to eat dry crackers from my palm was now the undisputed king of Manhattan's private debt markets. A guard's heavy combat boot slammed into the back of my left knee. I crashed onto the dark wood floorboards. "Kneel, garbage," the club manager, Dennis Wheeler, barked from behind me. Jax didn't even flinch. He turned over an Ace of Spades. Dennis wiped his sweating neck and stepped forward. "Mr. Ross, sir, Brandt sent this 'merchandise' over to pay his respects. He knows you appreciate delicate, broken things." Jax took a slow sip of bourbon and set the glass down without making a sound. "Two hundred million dollars is due at midnight. He doesn't send a wire transfer, but a woman in a nightgown?" "Singleton says this bitch can take a beating. You can do whatever you want to her. Cut her skin, break her fingers, hold her under in the tub... If she gets too loud, we can pull her tongue out with pliers right here." Jax tossed his remaining three cards onto the table. The hedge-fund managers flinched. "Where is Singleton?" Dennis quickly pulled out a remote. A flat-screen television flickered to life, showing a live video feed of Brandt holding Karmen in the back seat of his Maybach. "Good evening, Mr. Ross," Brandt said, his tone dripping with fake deference. "Her name is Amelia. No family, no records. She lived under my roof for three years, and she knows how to serve." Karmen leaned into the frame, pointing at my shaking shoulders. "Show him what you are, Amelia! Act like that dead girl he obsesses over. Beg him to touch you. Cry for him so he lets Brandt keep the fund." I bit down on my lower lip until the taste of iron filled my mouth. Three years. Brandt had coaxed me into staying, claiming he was protecting me, saying the arsonists would hunt me down the second I stepped outside. He made me fetch his dry cleaning, write his reports, and hold Karmen's coats. Now that his bets had failed, he was using my flesh as casino chips. Jax lit a thin cigar, the orange flame reflecting in his gray eyes. "You think this is funny, Singleton?" "Not at all, Mr. Ross. I know your tastes. Have your fun with her." Jax waved two fingers at Dennis. Dennis grabbed a bottle of high-proof rye whiskey and poured it directly over my head. The cold alcohol flooded my eyes, the blinding pain tearing through me as it seeped into the raw burn tissue on my collarbone. Before I could even gasp, Dennis drove his heavy leather boot into my right shoulder blade, pinning me flat against the floor. My cheek pressed against the wood, eye level with the low table. The pink iPod sat less than three feet away. Eight years ago, during the coldest week of January, that boy had a fever of a hundred and four. I stole two blankets from the laundromat and wrapped him up, plugging the earbuds in and playing acoustic guitar songs until he stopped shaking. He told me nobody had ever shared a blanket with him before. "Get up and beg, Amelia!" Brandt's voice crackled from the TV. "Bark like a dog, or I'll have Dennis use the pliers right now!" I pushed my palms against the floor. Ignoring the boot on my back, I gritted my teeth and forced my spine straight. Through my stinging, wet eyelashes, I looked directly at Jax Ross. Eight years ago, I pushed him out of the fire; eight years later, he sat in the head chair, looking at me like I was trash. He hadn't recognized me yet. But I had recognized him. Tonight, I was going to make him remember who I am—and then I would ruin Brandt and throw those two hundred million right back in his face.

Amelia POV Seeing me lift my chin, Dennis ground his heel harder into my shoulder. "Keep your head down, bitch," he spat, leaning his entire weight onto my bones. "Mr. Ross didn't give you permission to look at him." He snapped his fingers at a waiter. "Bring me the heaviest crystal tumblers from the back shelf." The waiter hurried over with four thick, cut-glass whiskey glasses. Dennis grabbed the first one and smashed it against the edge of the sideboard. Jagged shards scattered across the floorboards, landing inches from my bare knees. He took the second one and stomped it under his heel, grinding the glass into a bed of needles right in front of me. "Make her crawl over the glass to Mr. Ross's boots," Karmen clapped her hands on the screen. "Tell her if she leaves a drop of blood on the floor, you'll burn her precious diary." Brandt leaned into the camera. "Hear that, Amelia? Crawl to Mr. Ross. Lick the dust off his shoes and beg him to sign the debt extension." I didn't look at the screen. I kept my eyes fixed entirely on Jax. He sat back in his high leather armchair, sipping his bourbon. He looked completely detached, like an emperor watching stray dogs fight over table scraps in the mud. But his eyes never left the blood pooling near my knees. I recognized that look. Eight years ago in the alley behind Fulton Street, when he charged out of the dark with a rusty iron pipe to protect me from three thugs, he had that exact same look—assessing the blood first, then the people. That night, he took a knife slash to his forearm and two cracked ribs. He bled all over my kitchen linoleum while I stitched his wound with ordinary sewing thread. Sweating through the pain, he promised me that as long as he was alive, he would never let anyone hurt me. Now he was sitting in a two-thousand-dollar chair, coldly watching his thug smash crystal at my feet. He hadn't recognized me. But he kept that pink iPod right next to his elbow, guarding it like a tombstone. A cold smirk pulled at the corner of my mouth. Dennis caught the smile and lost his temper. He swung his hand and slapped me hard across the left cheek. The force rattled my skull, and a drop of blood flew from my split lip. "You think this is a joke?!" Dennis yelled, grabbing a fistful of my hair and yanking my head backward. He dragged my body forward across the floor. The glass shards instantly pierced my thin shift, grinding against my kneecaps. Agony shot up my thighs. I let out a muffled groan, but I didn't crawl. Brandt's laughter boomed from the TV. "That's it, Dennis! Break her down! She's just a cheap knockoff anyway, street trash to her core!" I knew Jax was watching me. That was exactly why I refused to crawl. I locked my core muscles and stayed frozen upright on my knees. I wouldn't lay on my stomach like a dog, and I wouldn't put my elbows in the glass. Back in that basement, with a 104-degree fever, he would rather shiver under a blanket than kneel and beg. I knew better than anyone what Jax Ross despised most. Dennis twisted my hair tighter around his knuckles, stretching my neck taut. "Look at Mr. Ross, you little freak," Dennis hissed in my ear. "Tell him you're sorry. Tell him you want him to torture you." Jax set his glass down. The crystal made a sharp, distinct clink against the mahogany table. The sound instantly cut off Brandt's laughter and froze Dennis's hand in mid-air. Jax leaned forward, resting his forearms on the green felt. For the first time all night, his gray eyes looked straight into mine. "She's a terrible copy, Singleton," Jax said, his voice completely flat. "The girl I lost never kneeled for anyone. She never looked at men like a beaten dog. If it were her, she would have grabbed a piece of that glass and shoved it through Dennis's throat five minutes ago." He tilted his head slightly, staring at the blood beneath my knees. "But the dead woman was full of lies, too. She promised she would wait by the fire hydrant on Nostrand Avenue. Instead, she let herself burn to ash in a dilapidated brick building." Karmen panicked on the screen. "Brandt, he's mad! Tell her to fix it! Amelia, do something, you stupid cow! Don't ruin Brandt's deal!" My chest heaved under the soaked cotton. Lies? When did I ever abandon him? When the burning ceiling collapsed onto my shoulder, I used my last breath to push him out the third-story window onto the canvas awning. I took the fire for him. I swallowed the smoke for him. And now, he sat there letting his men grind glass into my flesh, calling me a liar. I drew a deep breath, forcing the pain down. The whiskey fumes made my throat dry and rough, but my voice echoed clearly across the dead-silent room. I slowly turned my head, looking at the velvet tray holding the pink iPod. Then I turned back and locked eyes with him. "You always were terrible at math, Jax," I rasped. "Even a dog knows the difference between a master and a stray."

Amelia POV The VIP room went dead silent. Dennis's hand froze in my hair. Across the poker table, the four executives leaned back so fast their chairs squeaked. On the screen, Brandt jumped out of his leather seat, knocking over his champagne flute. "Amelia, shut your mouth!" Brandt screamed hysterically. "Mr. Ross, she's delusional! She doesn't know who she's talking to! Dennis, kill her right now!" Jax didn't look at the screen. He didn't look at Dennis. The bored, detached posture he had held for the last hour vanished in a fraction of a second. His spine locked straight. His gray eyes widened, the pupils contracting into tiny black points—a predator that had just caught the scent of blood in the brush. He stood up from the table without making a sound. He stepped around the felt, his polished shoes slowly crunching over the scattered glass. Every step made the floorboards groan. He stopped just inches from my blood. "What did you say?" he whispered. The words were so soft they were deadly. I looked straight up into his face, ignoring the glass biting deeper into my bones. "I said you forgot how to count, Stray," I whispered back, my voice trembling with exhaustion and anger. "You sit high up on a pile of blood money, and you still can't tell the difference between the fire and the ashes." Jax's face twisted into an expression of sheer, uncontrollable rage. His large right hand shot down like an iron clamp, closing around my windpipe. He lifted his arm, and my knees left the floor. The air was crushed out of my lungs, and my hands involuntarily flew up to claw at his corded wrist. His skin was freezing cold, his pulse thumping like a war drum beneath my fingertips. "You dare use that name?" he growled, his face inches from mine. "Who told you? Singleton? Did that coward dig through police archives to find a way to mock me?" "You think wearing a white rag and bleeding on my floor makes you her?" "She is dead! I buried her bones eight years ago in Queens!" The edges of my vision began to black out. But I didn't struggle. I stared into his furious, unfocused gray eyes, and I waited. The front doors of the penthouse burst open. Brandt stumbled in, pale and out of breath, followed closely by Karmen clutching her fur wrap. Brandt dropped to his knees at the entrance, sliding across the polished wood. "Mr. Ross! Please!" Brandt screamed, throwing his hands up. "Don't dirty your hands with this filth! I swear on my family's name, I didn't teach her to say that! She must have stolen something from my office! She's a thief!" He scrambled forward on his hands and knees, his eyes darting to Dennis's waist. "Dennis, give me the pliers! Mr. Ross, I will pull her tongue out myself! I'll show you how loyal the Singleton family is!" Jax's grip loosened by a fraction of an inch. My feet touched the floor, but he kept his palm pressed against the base of my throat, pinning me to the wood-paneled wall. I coughed violently, gasping for air. Dennis pulled a heavy pair of industrial steel pliers from his jacket and handed them to Brandt like a dog offering a bone. Brandt grabbed them, lunging forward to fist the front of my torn shift. "You ruined everything, Amelia," Brandt hissed through his teeth. "I fed you for three years! I kept you clothed! And you try to get me killed in front of the biggest lender in the state?!" Karmen stepped up beside him, her heels clicking sharply. "Rip it out, Brandt," she sneered, her voice trembling with nervous excitement. "She actually thinks she's special because of that ugly burn scar. Show Mr. Ross we don't tolerate trash." Brandt raised the cold steel pliers, pressing the metal edges hard against my bottom lip. "Open your mouth, Amelia. Or I'll smash your teeth in first." I looked at Brandt. For three years, I believed this man had saved my life. I thought he had found a burned girl in an alley and taken pity on her. I tolerated his demands, his late-night errands, and Karmen's endless cruelty because I thought I owed him a debt. Now, looking at him, I saw the truth. He didn't save me out of pity. He kept me locked in a cage like a stray dog, waiting for the day he needed a piece of meat to throw to a bigger wolf. Jax stepped back toward the poker table, picking up a white linen napkin. He began wiping his fingers slowly, his expression entirely indifferent as he watched Brandt force the steel against my mouth. "You have a lot of courage against a woman on her knees, Singleton," Jax said softly. "She lived with you for three years?" "Yes, Mr. Ross!" Brandt shouted eagerly. "Three years of pure charity! And she bites the hand that feeds her! I'll teach her a lesson right now!" Brandt shoved the pliers harder against my teeth, trying to pry my jaws apart. My jaw ached under the intense pressure, but I kept my teeth locked shut. Eight years ago. The wooden stairs of the tenement collapsing in a shower of orange sparks. The boy coughing blood, trapped under a fallen timber. I threw my body over him. The flaming ceiling tiles smashed into my collarbone, melting my skin. I used my blistered, bloody hands to shove him through the narrow window frame. I screamed at him to run. And now, eight years later, that same boy was wiping his hands with a linen napkin, coldly watching another man force steel into my mouth. I looked at the hand he was wiping. "That scar on your right forearm," I rasped, my voice barely a whisper. "I stitched it with sewing thread." Jax stopped wiping his hands.