Chapter 2
Lena
S omehow I knew that this was not going to be a good day.
I was twenty-four years old, wearing the lavender slip dress Cruz had chosen, sitting in what he called "proper position for his good girl." Hands folded in my lap, spine straight, chin tilted down just enough to show submission but not so much I couldn't watch him pace.
The loft stretched around me like a museum—white walls, minimal furniture, everything precisely placed.
My art supplies locked in the closet because I hadn't "earned them" this week.
The easel I'd brought from home, gone. Sketchbooks, hidden.
Even my tattoo equipment banished to storage because "good girls don't need distractions from Daddy. "
His dress shoes clicked across the floor, each step measured. Italian leather, five hundred dollars, paid for with my money though he'd never admit it. Cruz loved beautiful things. Loved owning them more.
"We need to discuss your spending." His voice carried that reasonable tone that made my stomach clench. Behind me now, his cologne—Tom Ford, another expensive habit—filling my lungs. "I've had to cancel your credit cards."
"But I—"
"Shh." His finger pressed against my lips. "Good girls don't interrupt. The cards are maxed because you can't control yourself, Little One. All those art supplies, those childish indulgences. You're lucky I'm here to handle the finances."
He moved in front of me, crouching down. Manicured fingers tilted my chin up, forcing eye contact. Those brown eyes that had seemed so warm when we met at the gallery, now calculating every micro-expression on my face.
"I know this is hard, baby girl. Being little means accepting you need guidance. Structure. That's why Daddy makes the rules."
More footsteps. The click-click-click drilling into my skull.
"Speaking of which, I don't want you seeing Sarah anymore."
My chest tightened. Sarah, my best friend since middle school. The only person who'd questioned our relationship, who'd noticed the bruises beneath the little girl dresses.
"She fills your head with all that feminist nonsense. Independent women, equality—" He laughed, the sound sharp as broken glass. "You're not a woman, are you? You're my little girl. You don't need friends when you have Daddy."
The scene fractured. Now I stood in the bedroom, hands shaking as I folded clothes into a duffel bag. Had to be quiet. He was in the shower, twenty minutes if I was lucky. Fifteen if—
"Going somewhere?"
Cruz leaned against the doorframe, my phone in his hand. Hair still damp, wearing only the towel slung low on his hips. He scrolled through my photos with casual interest.
"Such a pretty little girl in your princess dress." His thumb swiped across the screen. "This one's particularly sweet. You on your knees, pacifier in your mouth. Very artistic lighting."
My hands stilled on the sweater I'd been folding. Those photos. Private moments I'd thought were safe, special. Now weapons in his arsenal.
"Your mother would be horrified." Another swipe. "What's her number again? And this one—oh, this would definitely interest your clients at the shop. Can you imagine their faces?"
He moved closer, still scrolling. The phone screen reflected in his eyes, image after humiliating image.
"Your portfolio website gets good traffic. These would make quite the gallery addition. 'Local Artist's Secret Life.' Has a nice ring to it."
"Please." The word cracked in my throat.
"Please what?" He stopped directly in front of me. "Please don't show everyone what you really are? Please don't tell them their edgy tattoo artist is just a pathetic little girl playing dress-up?"
The duffel bag fell from my numb fingers.
"Good girls don't leave their Daddies, Lena."
Another fracture. The front door now, my hand on the knob. So close. Just turn it and run and—
His hand crushed my wrist, grinding the small bones together. The door slammed shut, my back against it, his face inches from mine.
"You think you can leave? You?" His free hand traced my cheek with mock tenderness. "I own you, Lena. Every bank account has my name on it. Every lease, every contract. Those photos? Backed up in places you'll never find."
His grip tightened. Pain shot up my arm.
"Every pathetic little dream you have, every scrap of dignity you've built—I can destroy it with one email. One post. One phone call to Mommy showing her what her daughter really does when she plays baby."
The loft dissolved at the edges. His voice echoed as dream-Lena finally ran, crashing through a door that led nowhere and everywhere.
"You'll never be safe from what you are."
I jerked awake gasping, sheets twisted around my legs like restraints. 6:43 AM glowed red from the alarm clock, and for a heartbeat I didn't know where I was. Not the loft. Not Cruz's bed.
My studio apartment. My space.
Sweat soaked through my tank top, making it cling. I kicked free of the sheets and pressed my palms against my eyes until stars bloomed. Four years. Four years since I'd run, and the dreams still came nightly like clockwork.
Around me, my bedroom breathed with comfortable chaos.
Fairy lights strung haphazardly across the ceiling because I'd hung them at 2 AM during a manic burst of decorating.
The walls—my walls—covered in my art. Skulls morphing into flowers.
Phoenixes rising from graves. A sugar skull with roses for eyes that I'd painted the week after leaving, when my hands wouldn't stop shaking unless they held a brush.
I swung my legs over the bed's edge, toes finding the soft rug I'd bought at a thrift store. Ugly as sin with its clash of burgundy and orange swirls, but mine. Beneath the bed, barely visible in the morning shadows, sat the old guitar case.
Don't look at it. Not today.
But my eyes found it anyway. Black leather worn at the corners, covered in band stickers to hide its purpose.
Inside—no guitar. Instead, carefully wrapped items I couldn't bring myself to throw away but couldn't bear to see.
Coloring books he hadn't found. A stuffed tortoise named Shelly.
The pink pacifier I'd bought myself before Cruz turned it into something shameful.
Little things. Hidden things. Things that still felt like evidence of some crime. They'd been untouched for four years. Even though I knew healthy dynamics existed—I'd seen them—I couldn't bring myself to reclaim that part of me. It still felt dangerous.
I padded barefoot across paint-stained hardwood, each step grounding me in the present. My apartment sprawled before me—one big room pretending to be separate spaces. The kitchenette tucked in one corner, the living area dominated by my work, the bathroom behind a door decorated with band posters.
Organized chaos everywhere. By the couch, sketches for Thor's wedding sleeve spread out like tarot cards. On the coffee table, the memorial design for Mrs. Chen—poppies and pain rendered in ink and love. Near my easel, loose papers labeled "Random 3 AM Ideas" in my scrawled handwriting.
Cruz would have had an aneurysm. "Messy space, messy mind, Little One."
Fuck that. My mess. My mind.
The apartment smelled like home—ink from late-night sketching, vanilla from the diffuser, and yesterday's Chinese takeout from Mrs. Chen's restaurant downstairs. She always gave me extra spring rolls, patting my hand and muttering about too-skinny artists.
Through my window, Ironridge stirred awake. Delivery trucks rumbled down Main Street. Mrs. Chen's voice drifted up as she supervised her nephew unloading vegetables. Normal sounds. Safe sounds. No Italian leather shoes clicking across hardwood.
I started coffee in my ridiculous unicorn mug—rainbow mane, glitter horn, "I'm Magical, Bitch" printed across one side. A gift from Mandy, presented with a completely straight face. The coffee maker gurgled, filling the small space with bitter comfort.
Three sugars. Then a fourth because I could. Then a fifth just to spite the ghost of dietary restrictions.
The coffee turned into liquid candy. Perfect.
I curled up on my salvaged velvet armchair, the one with stuffing poking through one arm that I kept meaning to fix. Outside, Ironridge continued its morning symphony. Safe distance between me and Denver. Between me and downtown lofts with doormen who looked the other way.
My phone sat silent on the coffee table. No unknown numbers. No blocked calls. No messages starting with "Little One" or "Baby Girl" or any of the pet names that still made my skin crawl.
The unicorn mug warmed my hands, its ridiculousness a tiny act of rebellion.
Four years of tiny rebellions adding up to something that almost felt like freedom.
Sugar in my coffee. Art on every surface.
Messy floors and fairy lights and that guitar case under the bed holding pieces of myself I couldn't quite reclaim but couldn't let go.
Mrs. Chen's voice grew louder, scolding her nephew in rapid-fire Mandarin.
The dream faded at the edges, Cruz's voice finally silencing under the weight of morning ritual and bitter-sweet coffee. My wrist ached—phantom pain from a grip released years ago but not forgotten.
Never forgotten.
But I was here. In my chaos. In my mess. In my life built from tiny rebellions and fierce independence and the kind of freedom that comes from running far enough fast enough that even nightmares can't quite catch up.
At least not in the daylight.
By 7:30, I sat cross-legged on my living room floor with Mrs. Chen's memorial design spread before me and a bulk bag of rainbow gummy bears at my hip. Breakfast of champions and rebellious Littles who could eat whatever the fuck they wanted.