My father did not shout.

That silence… it was worse than anger.

When I was wheeled into his office, I felt it immediately—the air had changed. It was colder, heavier, like something had already been decided long before I arrived.

He didn’t look at me at first.

“Close the door,” he said.

I obeyed.

The sound of the door shutting echoed like a final verdict.

“Do you understand what you’ve done?” he asked quietly.

I swallowed. “I fell in love.”

His jaw tightened.

“With a slave,” he said.

“With a man,” I corrected.

That was when he turned.

His eyes were not angry anymore.

They were… disappointed.

And somehow, that hurt more.

“I gave you a solution,” he said. “A way to survive in this world. And you turned it into a disgrace.”

“A disgrace?” My voice broke. “For the first time in my life, I’m happy.”

“Happiness,” he said coldly, “is not a luxury people like us can afford when it threatens everything we’ve built.”

“No,” I whispered. “It threatens everything you built.”

The silence that followed was sharp.

Deadly.

Then came the sentence that destroyed me:

“I’m selling him.”