Ficorpio
Chapter 1
The day the young heir took me home, I had just gone up against five guys by myself. I was covered in blood and filth, a complete wreck.
Polished dress shoes. Tailored slacks. A crisp shirt. Then a face so sharply cut it didn’t even look real.
He tipped my chin up with the toe of his shoe and studied me with open curiosity.
“You look pretty pathetic,” he said.
“Clean yourself up and come with me.”
Back then, I thought Adrian Vale had just acted on a whim. I thought I was nothing more than a toy he’d picked up to amuse himself.
Later, I realized the truth.
He’d looked at me and seen some half-dead stray mutt by the roadside, and decided to drag it back to his den and hide it under his own protection.
The day I met Adrian Vale, I’d just finished that fight and looked like hell.
My body was mottled with bruises, blood still leaking from the corner of my mouth. My clothes had already been old and filthy before the fight; afterward they were twisted, wrinkled, and stuck to me with mud and dust.
A few of the household managers dragged me into the office.
I stumbled and dropped to my knees. My leg had taken a few hard kicks outside, and for a moment I couldn’t get back up.
“Your name is Mason Reed?”
The voice above me was cool and lazy.
I looked up.
Dress shoes. Tailored slacks. A pressed shirt. And that finely sculpted face crashing into view.
Adrian sat with one leg crossed over the other, long fingers braced beneath his chin, looking at me the way someone might inspect an animal they’d found on the side of the road.
“One against five,” he said. “Impressive.”
“You might’ve enjoyed yourselves, but do you have any idea what kind of trouble that causes?”
He picked up the case file on the desk and flipped through it, his gaze scraping over me like a blade.
“Orphan. Street punk. Prior record for group fighting too?”
He paused.
“If you’re not fighting, do you start to itch?”
I kept my head down and said nothing.
He looked at the top of my bowed head for a moment, then, instead of pressing me further, asked, “Tell me. What did they do to you?”
Because they called me a bastard with no mother and father. A stray dog who should’ve died in a gutter.
My fists tightened where they rested on my knees, but I still didn’t answer.
What would be the point?
Besides, maybe he was only asking casually.
I’d never met any rich young master or heiress willing to bother with something that small.
I was probably getting thrown out.
Frowning, I’d already started thinking about where I’d sleep that night—under which bridge, in which park.
The office fell silent. No one spoke.
So I waited quietly for Adrian Vale to decide what to do with me.
Chapter 2
Then someone hurried in from outside and leaned down to whisper something in his ear.
A faint laugh sounded above me. The next second, something touched my chin.
Adrian lifted one leg and hooked the toe of his shoe beneath it, forcing my face up.
The scent of leather drifted toward me. As he moved, the leg of his suit pants rode up just enough for me to catch sight of his ankle, the clean line of his calf, and the faint glimpse of a sock garter.
He looked down at me from above.
“Got anywhere to go?”
I thought about it, then shook my head.
“You look pretty pathetic.” His voice stayed flat, almost emotionless. “Clean yourself up and come with me.”
At the time, I thought Adrian had only taken an interest on impulse, that he meant to keep me around as a plaything.
Later, I understood.
He’d thought I looked like a miserable little stray by the roadside, and he’d decided to carry me home and keep me there, tucked under his guard.
I didn’t have a steady place to sleep. I didn’t have money.
Adrian Vale had both.
So I agreed without much thought.
Before I left with him, I overheard a few things about Adrian and his mother.
His mother had died young. Years ago, she’d gone overseas to recover from an illness, and she never came back. She was buried in a foreign country.
People said her death had messed Adrian up. That he had a foul temper, that nobody liked being around him, that there was probably something wrong with him mentally.
At the time, I didn’t take it seriously.
Later, I found out they weren’t lying.
Whatever was wrong with Adrian, it hit often. It came in waves.
Like when he first brought me home.
The first few days, he had a room prepared for me. He even brought the chef over and asked what I liked to eat, like he actually cared.
Then a few days later, he turned into a different person. He walked around with a dark face, pissed off at everybody. Even the sparrows outside the window looked like they were one wrong move away from getting glared to death.
But his moods came fast and left fast.
One day he’d be in a rage, shut himself in his room, curse everybody out like a madman. Then he’d sleep it off, and the next morning he’d be back to being the cold, distant Adrian again.
I’d barely had time to settle in before he stationed me at his side.
He never clearly said what my job was, but from the things he had me do, I was basically a servant.
That was how I stayed beside Adrian.
And once I stayed, I stayed for a whole year.
During that time, he ordered me around however he liked.
Chapter 3
He expected me to show up the second he called. Pour his tea, bring him water, clean his room, deal with his shifting moods.
Usually, when we were outside, Adrian acted normal. Polite. Civilized. Human, even.
But the second we were indoors, with no third person around, his face went so cold it was like it had been sitting in a freezer for ten years. And his mouth was worse—every word out of it felt poisoned.
Especially after I started having contact with the other Vale kids.
After that, Adrian’s moods got even worse.
He was like a lit firecracker.
And Adrian in that kind of mood was impossible to deal with. It didn’t matter if I worked quietly and did everything right. I’d still get cursed out.
I let it go in one ear and out the other. Once he was done yelling, he forgot about it, and aside from the headache, it didn’t do much to me.
I’d done every dirty, exhausting job there was while growing up.
At my lowest, I slept under bridges and dug through trash when I was hungry.
Now I had my own room. Three meals a day. Meat at every one.
Compared to before, it was practically heaven.
I was grateful to Adrian.
But he was right about one thing—I was a street thug.
After being pushed around by him for that long, it was impossible not to build up some resentment.
If I’d met someone like Adrian back in the old days, I’d have dragged him into a deserted alley and beaten the hell out of him already.
But this was the Vale estate.
All I could do was swallow it and spend my days imagining Adrian with a swollen face and two black eyes courtesy of me.
Still, there were a few normal people in that house.
Adrian’s half-brothers on his father’s side couldn’t stand how he treated me. They’d speak up for me sometimes, try to get justice on my behalf.
“Adrian, are you insane? He’s a person, not an animal.”
“How can someone be like you?”
“Is this how Aunt Lynn raised you?”
“Aunt Lynn, she—”
I didn’t know which sentence set him off.
Maybe all of them.
Adrian’s eyes darkened. Without warning, he snatched up the drinking glass at hand and hurled it.
It shattered on impact. Fragments sprayed through the air, and one of them sliced across the top of the speaker’s foot.
Adrian’s voice rose sharply. “Whether I did right by her or not, I don’t know. But you definitely don’t get to say her name.”
“You really think wearing human skin makes you human?” His mouth curved, but there was something in his eyes so cold it made people shiver.
In the dining room, every word out of him got uglier than the last.
Watching him then, face twisted with fury, I suddenly felt like the way he usually cursed at me almost counted as gentle.
He berated them until their faces went white and their lips started trembling.