They said I was a weapon before I was even a girl, dragged into the military when my hands could steady a gun better than they could hold a pencil. I never chose it; they forced me, breaking me down, sharpening me into something useful, selling me off to whoever wanted a soldier without a soul. Each time I was passed to new hands, I lost a little more of myself, until I stopped believing I was human at all. Now, standing before this crime family, my body reacts the same—shoulders squared, ready for orders, ready for pain. But then there’s him, the eldest son, who studies me not like a tool to be used, but like someone who’s been lost for too long. His eyes make me flinch, because they don’t demand—they ask. And I don’t know how to answer, not when all I’ve ever known is how to obey.