Page 227 of Ruthless Knot

Steadying.

"I was in a performance troupe before this. Underground circuit. The kind of thing where talent is currency and freedom is a joke no one tells." His green-gold eyes go distant, looking at something I can't see. "They called it 'entertainment,' but it was really just legalized ownership. They bought us young, trained us hard, and sold our performances to the highest bidder."

"Escape artist," I say, remembering fragments from conversations and observations.

"Yeah." A rueful smile. "Ironic, right? I could escape any lock, any chain, any cage they put me in—except the invisible one. The one made of debt and fear and the knowledge that if I ran, they'd find me. And when they found me..."

He trails off.

Doesn't need to finish.

"My mother was in the troupe too," he continues quietly. "She refused to sell me when they offered. Said I was her son, not a commodity. So they killed her. Made me watch."

The words land like blows.

Physical.

Devastating.

"I was fourteen," Sage adds, and his voice is eerily calm now—the kind of calm that comes from having processed trauma so thoroughly it's become just another part of the landscape. "Afterthat, I stopped fighting. Went along with whatever they wanted. Survived by being exactly what they needed me to be."

"Until Kai," Blaze supplies.

"Until Kai." Sage's gaze flicks to the pack leader, something complicated passing between them. "He found me during a... business transaction. His family was dealing with the troupe, and he saw something that bothered him. Something about the way they treated me."

"You were fifteen," Kai says flatly. "They were auctioning you off."

"They wererentingme out," Sage corrects with dark humor. "There's a difference, apparently. To them, anyway."

"What did you do?" I ask Kai.

"Bought him." The words are simple. "Permanently. Then burned down the troupe compound with everyone inside."

My eyebrows shoot up.

Burned it down.

Everyone inside.

Kai meets my gaze without flinching.

"They deserved worse," he says. "But fire was efficient."

Fire was efficient.

The statement should horrify me.

Should make me question whether I'm sitting at a table with monsters, whether I've traded one nightmare for another, whether these men are any better than the world they're fighting against.

But instead, I feel something that might be... understanding.

They hurt someone he cared about.

So he destroyed them.

Completely.

Efficiently.