Ren’s world tilted. He felt like he was falling into a dark, bottomless pit. All those years of warmth, all those memories of being a ’loved’ brother... were they all just a mask? Had they been secretly hating him, waiting for the day he would be shipped away like cargo?

"No..." Ren breathed, his legs finally giving out. He slumped against the cold stone wall, clutching his bleeding stomach. "It’s not true. It can’t be."

His heart was thundering heavily and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. Did this mean... all his life... all he had believed had actually been fake?

His family... they never loved him?

At this moment, his mind went to Cilian and he lifted his head.

"What about Cilian? How is he involved in this?" He asked, some sort of hope lingering as he remembered Cilian’s constant, ’I love yous’. "Surely, he didn’t know about this, did he?"

"He knew," Mark said and Ren felt like the last piece of his life was going to shatter. "And that’s precisely why the family is in ashes right now."

The last shattering piece paused and he blinked.

"What... does that mean?"

"It’s..." Mark coughed, weakly. "Exactly what I said. Cilian found out that your little trip to France wasn’t just to establish a cordial relationship. He found out you were being sold, and do you know what he did?"

"What did he do when he found out?" Ren whispered, the words barely making it past his lips.

Mark’s eyes were glassy, but the cruel amusement was still there. "He went to your father. Not as a Vane, not as a businessman... but as a beggar. He knelt in the pouring rain outside the Pierce Manor for hours, Ren. He begged your father to stop. He offered billions. He offered to sign away his own territories just so you wouldn’t have to get on that plane."

Ren’s mind flashed back to that week. He remembered Cilian arriving unannounced, looking haggard, his clothes soaked through. He remembered his father’s office doors slamming shut and the shouting that followed.

"Your father just laughed," Mark wheezed, a wet sound rattling in his chest. "He told Cilian to mind his own business. He said the Vanes were nothing compared to the French alliance. He told him that an Omega’s destiny was decided by his Alpha, and as your father, he had already decided yours."

Ren felt a strange, sickening vertigo. Cilian had knelt? The man who called himself a king, who had chained Ren to a bed, put a collar around his neck, and watched him like a hawk... he had knelt for him?

The man who was more psychotic than anyone he had ever met?

But even that man could cry for him. Even that man would put Ren’s safety before his own. Even that man would... kneel and beg.

He felt a lump in his chest and something quickly solidifying in his throat.

"That’s when we approached him," Anderson interjected, his voice a faint rasp from the other side. "We saw Cilian sitting in his car, looking like the world had already ended. We told him the truth. We told him that as long as the Pierce family was alive, that contract would stand. The French would never let you go once the paperwork was signed."

Ren looked from Mark to Anderson. His stomach wound burned, but the pain in his head was worse.

"We gave him the solution," Mark continued, a thin trail of blood running from his nose. "We told him... if the sellers are dead, there is no sale. If there is no Pierce family, the French have no one to collect from. Cilian didn’t want to do it at first. He was afraid you’d hate him. He didn’t want to take your family from you. But then your father moved up the date of the flight."

Ren recalled how the date of the flight had been moved from two weeks later to three days later.

And then, he had his heat.

He had his heat two days before the flight date, which he spent with Cilian. And at that time, he made this one statement that he didn’t know would affect anything. He just... he just spoke his mind.

High in heat, love and pleasure, Ren held Cilian tight, his arms wrapped around his neck and his eyes teary as he said,

"I don’t want to go." He had planned to spend the next two weeks with Cilian. He loved Cilian. He didn’t know how long he would spend in France. He didn’t know when the negotiation would be over.

But it could take months. It could take years.

And he could not stay without the Alpha he loved for years.

"Cilian, I want to be with you. I wish I didn’t have to go."

At that time, Ren had no idea the troublesome thoughts that were running through Cilian’s mind. He had no idea Cilian was looking for a way to make sure he didn’t get sold off.

He had no idea that the monster that Cilian was today, had been unlocked by that one sentence. I don’t want to go.

So, after that night, he decided to do what the uncles said. He had no option now, did he? The Omega he loved, Ren, was going to be sold off as a breeding Omega. Even if Ren hated him... Even if Ren saw him as a monster, he did not care.

He would be the monster and hide the truth from Ren. He would be the villain while Ren chased him as a Hero until the day he had his gun pointed at Cilian’s heart.

Until the day he learns the truth.

Until the day he loves him again.

Tears trailed down Ren’s cheeks before he even realised it.

Ren sat on the cold floor, his head resting against the stone wall. The pain in his stomach was nothing compared to the weight in his chest. His breath hitched as the memories flooded back once again—the heat, the scent of Cilian’s skin, and the desperate way he had clung to him that night.

​"I don’t want to go."

​He had said it with so much love. He had said it because he thought he was leaving for a business trip, not a cage. He had no idea that those five words had acted like a match thrown into a room full of gasoline.

"So, all this..." Ren whispered, his voice cracking. "All of this... was because of them?"

​Mark let out a final, weak breath. "They sold you, Ren. He bought you with blood. In the end... you were just a prize to your father. But to him? You were the world."