Iana was nine when the Alvez family came for her. They arrived in sleek black cars, the air around them heavy with power. She felt a shiver run down her spine as she followed the stern-faced adults out of the orphanage and into a world she didn't understand.
The mansion they brought her to was enormous. Marble floors stretched endlessly, chandeliers sparkled from the ceilings, and doors led to rooms she could only imagine. Yet, despite the grandeur, the place felt cold. Not just in temperature, but in the way the family looked at her calculated, measuring, never smiling.
Her first day there was a blur of tests. Numbers, puzzles, logic questions designed to break her. But Iana answered each one, careful, precise, and fast. The Alvez patriarch's eyes gleamed as he observed her.
"She's… exceptional," he said. Patriarch Lucas Alvez voice was sharp, cutting through the silence.
For a moment, Iana allowed herself a flicker of hope. Maybe, just maybe, she would finally belong.
She was wrong.
The work began immediately. She scavenged bottles from the streets, scrubbed floors in the family's stores, dusted every surface, and served customers, all while handing over a portion of the meager earnings. Miss a day or falter, and her plate would be empty.
At night, she was sent to a tiny attic behind the mansion. It was cramped, with a single ragged sack for bedding. The winter wind forced its way through cracked windows, and she curled up to trap what little warmth she could. Her teeth chattered, her small body shook, and hunger gnawed at her stomach, but the cold was worse.
She whispered into the silence, words meant only for herself. "I'll survive… I'll survive…"
Outside her attic window, the world was quiet. Lanterns flickered faintly in the streets below, distant and unreachable. Shadows moved across the walls, and every creak of the mansion's floorboards made her flinch.
The Alvez family watched her, measured her, demanded from her. She did what she had to do to stay alive, folding herself into the tiny space each night, listening to the wind, counting the hours until the next day's labor.