Three weeks passed in a rhythm of ritual and degradation. Jace learned the contours of his new life the way a prisoner learns the dimensions of his cell by bumping against its edges until the bruises taught him where the boundaries were.
Mornings began with inspection. He would stand naked in the center of the bedroom while Damian circled him, checking for marks, for signs of neglect or self-harm. It was clinical and deeply intimate, a reminder that every inch of him was owned.
"You're healing well," Damian observed one morning, his fingers tracing the fading bruises on Jace's ribs. The touch was almost gentle, a stark contrast to the violence that had put them there. "Your body remembers its place now."
Jace stared straight ahead, saying nothing. He had learned that silence was safer than speech. Words could be twisted, used against him. Silence was just… empty.
After inspection came breakfast. Jace would kneel beside Damian's chair while he ate, waiting for scraps or commands. Sometimes Damian would feed him by hand, a grotesque parody of care. Other times he would make Jace watch, hunger gnawing at his stomach, until he could recite a passage from the Terms of Obedience perfectly.
"You're learning," Damian said one evening, running his fingers through Jace's hair as he knelt. "The fight is leaving your eyes. I can see it."
Jace didn't respond. He had learned that too.
The days were long and empty. Damian worked from this house now, his empire run remotely through screens and phone calls. Jace was never left alone always a guard in the room, always eyes on him. He was allowed to read, to watch television, to exist in the gilded spaces of the house, but always within sight, always monitored.
At night, Damian came to him.
Those were the hardest hours. The violence had given way to something worse a calculated intimacy that demanded Jace's participation. Damian would touch him, kiss him, enter him, and Jace had to respond. Had to show pleasure, to whisper the right words, to perform desire until the performance became its own kind of truth.
"Look at me," Damian would whisper, his body moving against Jace's in the dark. "Look at me while I'm inside you. I want to see that you're mine."
And Jace would look, meeting those gray eyes, and feel himself drowning in them. In those moments, the hatred and the unwanted arousal would twist together into something unrecognizable, something that felt almost like need.
Afterward, Damian would hold him. That was the worst part. The tenderness. The way he would stroke Jace's hair and murmur praises like "good boy" and "you're perfect." It was a poison, seeping into the cracks of Jace's resistance, making him crave the very thing that was destroying him.
On a Tuesday Jace knew because Damian had a standing video call with his European operations something shifted.
Damian entered the bedroom where Jace sat by the window, watching the trees. He seemed agitated, his jaw tight, his movements sharper than usual.
"Stand up," he ordered.
Jace stood immediately, his body trained now to respond without thought.
Damian approached, stopping inches away. His eyes searched Jace's face, looking for something. "My cousin wants to see you."
The words didn't register at first. Then they did, and Jace's heart lurched. Luca.
"He's been asking. Begging, really. It's pathetic." Damian's lip curled. "He thinks if he can just apologize, just explain, you'll forgive him. That the two of you will ride off into the sunset together."
Jace said nothing, but his hands trembled at his sides.
"I'm going to let him visit," Damian continued, his voice dropping to that dangerous calm. "But there are rules. You will not touch him. You will not speak to him unless I permit it. You will sit there, beautiful and obedient, and you will watch him realize that you're mine now. Completely. Irrevocably."
He grabbed Jace's chin, forcing eye contact. "Do you understand?"
"Yes," Jace whispered. "Master."
The word came easier now. That was the most terrifying part.
Luca was brought in an hour later.
He looked worse than Jace remembered thinner, paler, with shadows under his eyes that spoke of sleepless nights and endless guilt. His hands were cuffed in front of him, and a guard flanked him on either side.
When he saw Jace, sitting primly on the sofa in expensive loungewear, his face crumpled.
"Jace…"
"Sit," Damian commanded, pointing to a chair across from the sofa.
Luca sat, his eyes never leaving Jace's face. "Jace, I… I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. I was trying to protect you, and I—"
"You were trying to protect yourself," Damian interrupted smoothly. He had taken his place behind the sofa, one hand resting possessively on Jace's shoulder. "From rejection. From the truth of your own feelings. You used my resources to play hero, and then you watched from the sidelines while I took what you were too cowardly to claim."
Luca's face went white. "That's not.... I didn't—"
"Didn't you?" Damian's fingers tightened on Jace's shoulder. "Tell him, Jace. Tell your friend who you belong to now."
The words were a script Jace had memorized. He delivered them without inflection, his eyes fixed on a point just past Luca's head. "I belong to Damian. I am his possession. His to use, his to keep, his to break."
Luca made a sound like a wounded animal. "Jace, no. That's not you talking. That's him. He's...."
"He's my Master," Jace continued, the words hollow and perfect. "And I am grateful for his care. I choose this."
The lie was so complete, so absolute, that for a moment Jace almost believed it himself. That was the true horror of his situation not the pain, not the captivity, but the erosion of self so profound that he could no longer find the line between performance and truth.
Luca was crying now, tears streaming down his face. "I'll get you out of this. I swear, I'll find a way. I'll..."
"You'll do nothing," Damian cut in. "Because if you try, if you so much as breathe in a way that suggests you're interfering with my property, I'll have you brought back to that cell. And this time, Jace will watch while I remind you both of the cost of defiance."
He leaned down, pressing a kiss to Jace's temple. "Won't he, darling?"
"Yes, Master," Jace whispered.
The visit ended soon after. Luca was dragged away, still crying, still begging, still promising rescue. The door closed behind him, and the silence rushed back in.
Damian circled the sofa and knelt in front of Jace, taking his hands. "You did well," he murmured. "Perfect. I'm so proud of you."
The praise was a warm light in the darkness of Jace's chest. He hated himself for craving it, but he craved it all the same.
"Tonight," Damian continued, "you'll be rewarded. A real meal. Wine. My undivided attention." He smiled, and it was almost gentle. "You've earned it."
Jace nodded, accepting the promise of comfort like a dog accepting a treat for performing a trick.
That night, as Damian moved inside him, whispering praise and ownership into his skin, Jace closed his eyes and let himself feel nothing but the warmth. It was easier that way. Easier to be empty, to be owned, to be just a body responding to touch.
The boy who had thrown a plate and screamed defiance was a distant memory, a ghost haunting the edges of his consciousness. The man who remained was Damian's. In every way that mattered.
And somewhere, in the cold depths of his soul, a tiny ember still burned. The knowledge that Luca was alive. That Luca still cared. That maybe, just maybe, rescue wasn't impossible.
But for now, he surrendered to the warmth, to the hands that claimed him, to the voice that called him good.
For now, he was owned. And owned things didn't hope. They just survived.