Prologue

The air in the hospital corridor was heavy with antiseptic and dread.

Maya Alcott stood motionless, her fingers trembling as she pressed them to the cool glass of the pediatric ICU window. On the other side, her ten-year-old brother, Liam, lay unconscious beneath a web of wires and blinking monitors. His chest rose and fell in shallow, mechanical rhythm. His life - delicate, fragile, slipping further with each moment - was tethered to machines she couldn't afford.

The words of the doctor still echoed in her mind.

"He needs the surgery within the next two weeks. Without it..."

He hadn't finished the sentence. He didn't need to.

Her breath hitched. She had tried everything - called every charity, every clinic, applied for loans with credit that barely existed. The numbers were impossible. One hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Upfront.

Maya was twenty years old. A college dropout. A waitress with no family left but the boy in that bed.

Until that day, she hadn't believed in monsters. Or princes, for that matter. But Damien Vale Blackthorne was something else entirely.

She had only met him once, for five minutes. He had been seated in a private booth at the high-end lounge where she sometimes worked events - young, rich, beautiful in a cold, impossible way. Just twenty-four and already the CEO of the Blackthorne Corporation, a man whose name made boardrooms tremble.

He had looked at her that night. Really looked. As though he could read her thoughts and undress her soul at the same time.

She hadn't meant to contact him. But desperation made quiet people do loud things.

Now, standing in the rain outside the towering glass fortress that was Blackthorne Holdings, Maya felt the final weight of her decision settle over her shoulders. Her dress clung to her skin. Her shoes were soaked. But none of that mattered.

She had come to offer him the only thing she had left -

Herself.

And Damien? He had already named his price.