The night his parents abandoned him, Steve learned two things: the weight of loneliness and the brutality of the world.
He was twelve when his father, a man who smelled of cheap whiskey and cigarette smoke, knelt before him, gripping his thin shoulders. "I'm sorry, kid," he had said, his breath hot and sour. "We can't pay them back. We have to go."
His mother didn't even look at him. She just stood by the door, eyes rimmed red, clutching a half-packed suitcase.
"But… you're coming back, right?" Steve had whispered, his small hands gripping his father's sleeve. "You said we'd get through this together."
His father pried his fingers off, one by one. "Be strong, Steve."
Then the door shut, and they were gone.
That night, the loan sharks came.
The men who barged into the house were cruel in a way Steve didn't yet understand. They didn't care that he was just a child. They were looking for payment, and since his parents had disappeared, they took it out on him.
They started with their fists. The first punch stole the air from his lungs. The second made his vision blur.
Then came the real horror.
Steve never spoke of what happened that night—not when it was over, not when they came back the next week, or the next. The bruises healed, but something inside him stayed broken, a hollow cavity where warmth used to be.
For two years, he endured it. The beatings, the humiliation, the agony of knowing no one would come for him. Until one night, when he was fifteen, they went too far.
Steve had fought back. Maybe it was the hunger, the exhaustion, or maybe he was just too tired of being afraid. He had bitten one of them, hard enough to draw blood.
The punishment was brutal.
By the time they left him in the alley behind the bar they ran their operations from, Steve was barely breathing. Blood soaked his tattered shirt. He couldn't move.
Then, a shadow loomed over him.
"Shit," a rough voice muttered. "They really did a number on you, huh?"
Steve wanted to lift his head, to see who it was, but his body wouldn't listen. He only felt strong arms lifting him up, a coat being draped over his shaking form.
"Don't worry, kid," the voice said. "You're with me now."
And that was the night Steve met the man who would change his life forever.