The man in front of her narrowed his eyes slightly, his gaze carrying an assertive air, along with a trace of emotion rarely exposed in everyday life.
As Iria Lindsay gazed at Arfen Finch before her, her thoughts involuntarily drifted back several years.
Back then, she was a newly sold young girl, barely thirteen, her body yet to mature fully.
Facing the two-hundred-pound patron who knelt and begged, the man only leered while undoing his belt, dragging her to the bed.
In anger, she resisted, using the fragments of a lamp from the table to stab the man's chest into a bloody mess, terrifying herself into fainting on the floor.
Later, when she regained consciousness, a young boy with slender, almond-shaped eyes stood by the bed.
The youth was not much older than she, yet he carried an air of authority.
"If you want to live, follow me."
That's what the young Arfen Finch said at the time.
She climbed off the bed, looked at him for a long time, then nodded.
