Faith Brooks sat in the stiff leather chair, her hands clasped tightly in her lap to hide their trembling. The lawyer’s office smelled of old paper and polished wood, cold and impersonal like everything else in her life lately. At twenty-four, she had dreamed of a simple future—maybe a small apartment, a job she didn’t hate, and weekends spent reading in peace. Instead, she was here to sell herself to save her family.
The debts had piled up after her father’s failed business ventures. Hospital bills for her mother’s illness had been the final blow. Creditors circled like vultures, threatening to take the house, the car, everything. When the offer came through a shady alliance broker—marriage to a powerful man in exchange for wiping the slate clean—she hadn’t hesitated. Even if that man wa
