Ethan signed for the money. Madame Corvi collected the man.
Ethan built job sites with his own hands - a contractor, thirty-three, the kind of man who signs whatever keeps his crew paid.
He should have read clause seven. The loan he scrawled his name across at two in the morning never listed his truck as collateral.
It listed him. Live body. Recoverable asset.
One hundred ninety-four pounds, due in full on default.
Now a flatbed idles in his driveway, his license is gone under a stranger’s boot, and a wide leather collar locks at his throat with a sound like a gun cocking.
Madame Corvi does not shout. She does not need to.
She steps out of a silent black car, inspects him the way she would inspect bad stock, and reads him his terms in a voice like cut glass: ninety days in her keeping to work off the debt - on his knees, on her schedule, on her leash - or he transfers to her permanently.
Ethan swears he will fight it. He will find a lawyer, sell his equipment, buy back his own name.
But the estate has a wing built for men like him, a routine designed to strip a man down to what he actually is, and his body betrays him from the first hour.
Every command he obeys settles something in his chest that rage never could.
Every inspection leaves him burning - and counting the hours to the next one.
And Madame Corvi is patient. She has broken harder men than Ethan. She has never once wanted to keep one.
Until him.
Because Ethan does not simply submit. He fights every step down, and watching him lose to her - slowly, thoroughly, in front of witnesses - is the sweetest thing she has ever put on a leash. Ninety days to reclaim the debt. Every single one makes freedom worth a little less.
