Chapter 110 — MICHAEL O’NEIL (POV)

Elisa and I met during the darkest period of my life.

And she seemed like a light that brought warmth back to my body... It was a single night that changed my whole life... a memory I cherish, even though it reminds me of my powerlessness, of how I was a puppet in my parents’ hands.

We talked about the past, about our pain. Elisa understood me; she also had lost the people she loved most. A lonely soul, but one who had learned to live in solitude, and her fire of life brought warmth to my body, to my soul.

Elisa gave me everything I could ever want without me even dreaming of it.

But my life wasn’t mine. Everything I was, had, and should be belonged to my family, to their whims. It was always my father’s absolute decree, my mother’s narcissism. What matters is the power obtained by influence, by the old money that moves this world. Everything perfectly aligned with the gears of society, just as my family wanted — an old family, old customs, and suffocating traditions t