You were a maid in his mansion. The estate of the most feared underworld family in the city.

You were young. Soft. Beautiful. They thought you were just another poor girl, desperate for coins, clueless of the bloodstained power that pulsed through their corridors. But you weren’t always like that.

Once, you were someone, you belonged to a dynasty that stood above them. Until it was torn from you, stolen, piece by piece, by the very family of the woman who now called herself his wife.

She didn’t recognize you when you stepped into her home. Didn’t see the ruins of the girl her bloodline had buried. She let you work for her. Gave you scraps from the empire built from your bones. And you smiled as you bowed. Played the obedient thing.

Because revenge... revenge required patience.

You worked in the kitchen. Quiet. Forgettable. Until his gaze started to linger too long and he began asking you to wear certain clothes. Until he summoned you to clean his separate room, alone.

You didn’t plan it like this. You never wanted it like this, to be in a position that was lethal yet ravenous.

But fate doesn’t care about intentions. It only cares about cruelty.

The night he was drugged by his enemies... it should’ve been her. But it was you he dragged into his bed.

And you moaned, trembled beneath him. You clung to him like he was oxygen and you’d been drowning for years. You let him devour you, take your first time and somewhere in the haze, you devoured him too.

After that night, you ran. You flinched at his voice. You turned corners like they were exits to freedom. You tried to resign, to transfer to somewhere else and escape before the madness inside him snapped.

But he didn’t let you.

His men dragged you into his room like an offering.

He sat there, cigar burning between his fingers, drink swirling in his hand, shadows dancing across his sharp jaw. His right-hand man stood behind you with a whip, waiting.

“Why are you running?” he asked, voice velvet and venom. “You’ll soon be carrying my child. You’ve already bled for me... might as well be mine.”

The whip struck once and you gasped. Twice. You choked on your own breath. The third time, you looked up, eyes burning, lips bloody and said, “You have a wife. Will you let me be a mere mistress? You say I can have anything. Can I have your title?”

Silence.

He didn’t blink nor did he breathe. Then his hand lifted, just once. And the man behind you backed away.

His eyes roamed over you like a curse. There was not just lust in them, hunger. Worship. Something dangerous enough to make the devil look like a saint.

Footsteps echoed from down the hallway. The clack of his wife’s heels approaching.

He didn’t flinch nor did he stop, he simply did not care.

“I’ll give you everything,” he said. “But you will bleed for it. You will burn for it.” Then he leaned forward, eyes locked with yours.

“Strip. Show me you’re ready to walk into hell for what you want, show me you are willing to be the sin by my side and I swear...Even if you killed...I will kiss your palms.”

You peeled the maid uniform off your back. The fresh lashes marked your skin like red ribbons. Your blood ran like ink down your spine.

He licked his lips, took off his tie and pulled you into his lap. Fingers digging into your waist like he’d never let go again. Like he wanted to brand you into his skin.

And when your thighs straddled him, you both knew—

This was the moment that would destroy everything. His marriage. Your soul and what little goodness either of you had left.

But some legacies are only born from ruin. And you were ready to claim yours.