Chapter 1 #3
They transported me deep into the forgotten veins of their land—far from cities, far from law. A place untouched by modernity, where dirt roads replaced asphalt and oil lamps flickered in place of electricity.
Where customs belonged to another century, and women were owned openly.
Now, twelve months later, I stand in this godforsaken yard.
One of the seven slave girls in this particular cell—known among the captives as the “Cell of Doom,” one of several such cells, each housing seven women under the control of a single master.
Our hands are clasped behind our backs, as tradition demands.
Our thin shifts do nothing to keep out the cold wind slicing across packed earth scarred by countless footsteps.
High stone walls loom around us, jagged wire crowning them like a warning.
Our master’s whip cracked again—closer this time.
“You will be inspected,” he said calmly, as if announcing the weather. “Any disobedience will be corrected.”
His gaze swept over us methodically, lingering just long enough to remind us of the imbalance of power. When his eyes reached me again, they paused.
Something unreadable passed through his expression.
I lifted my chin a fraction higher, cold burning through my lungs as I inhaled.
“Penelope,” Bianca whispers from behind me, her voice trembling. “Do you think the Kompania brothers are coming today?”
Bianca has been here longer than any of us—Ricci Ferraro’s stolen bride, taken on her wedding night years ago.
Her skin bears old scars, pale and crisscrossed along her thighs like a map of survived horrors.
She has endured what most wouldn’t.
My heart races—not just for myself, but for her. For all of us.
Fear in this place is never solitary. It spreads. It breathes.
It seeps from one woman to the next until it becomes a shared pulse, a single, frantic heartbeat trapped inside seven bodies standing in the dirt of this Albanian hell.
A month ago, our overseer had delivered the warning with a smirk.
The Kompania brothers were coming.
Two brides would be chosen—chosen for them, and for their pleasure.
The words alone had been enough to hollow us out.
The rumors that followed finished the job. Men whispered about them with the kind of reverence reserved for demons—warlords who ruled this shadowland with unrestrained brutality.
Women taken by them rarely lasted. If they didn’t die from the repeated violence, they disappeared into silence, broken beyond recognition.
The thought freezes my blood even now.
“I’m not sure, Bianca,” I murmur without moving my lips, keeping my eyes lowered. “But we can’t let fear stop us. Remember the plan.”
Any sign of resistance—even a whisper—could earn us the whip.
Bianca gives the faintest nod, her jaw tightening as her gaze flickers toward the far corner of the yard.
To anyone else, it’s nothing more than a collapsing shed—rotting wood, rusted hinges, forgotten by time. To us, it’s salvation.
For six months, we’ve been digging beneath it.
Night after night, whenever exhaustion overcame surveillance or a guard grew careless, we slipped inside.
With sharpened stones, stolen spoons, even our bare hands, we clawed at the earth.
Our fingers blistered, split, bled—but we kept going. Inch by inch, breath by breath, carving a narrow tunnel beneath the weakened foundation of the wall.
Seven women bound by desperation and whispered promises.
We are so close now.
One more night. One more stretch of earth. Just a little farther, and the tunnel will open into the forest beyond the compound—wild, unforgiving, but free.
But today, of all days, two of the seven of us would be taken.
If the Kompania brothers take even one of us, everything unravels.
I think of Ana, whose sharp wit keeps us sane when despair presses too close.
Of Sofia and Christina, quiet and enduring, their strength carved from silence. Of Bianca, who has survived longer than any of us and still dares to hope.
Losing any one of them would shatter us.
The distant rumble reaches us then—low, heavy, unmistakable.
Engines.
Dust rises beyond the walls, drifting lazily into the yard like a bad omen. My pulse slams against my ribs, loud enough I’m certain the overseer can hear it.
The gates creak open.
Metal groans against metal, a sound that scrapes down my spine.
Two black vehicles roll into the yard, slow and deliberate, as though savoring the moment. When the doors open, the air itself seems to retreat.
The Kompania brothers step out.
Twin giants—broad, brutal, identical in their cruelty.
Their smiles are wrong, stretched too wide, their eyes empty pits that swallow whatever they land on. They scan us openly, shamelessly, like buyers at a market.
I lift my chin a fraction.
The yard feels smaller beneath the merciless Albanian sun, the heat baking into the packed earth until it burns the soles of our bare feet.
Sweat trickles down my spine.
We stand in rigid formation—hands clasped behind our backs, heads bowed just enough to show submission. Not enough to invite punishment.
Our overseer moved swiftly to greet the Kompania brothers, then led them toward us. My heart pounded as I and the other six girls stood lined up in a row, every second stretching like an eternity.
A low laugh escapes one of the Kompania brothers as they approach, their presence swallowing the space.
The overseer straightens instantly, all deference now.
“My lords,” he says, bowing his head.
My stomach twists.
The brothers stop in front of us. One tilts his head, studying our faces. The other’s gaze lingers too long, too intimate, like a hand sliding where it has no right to be.
Fear ripples through the line, silent but palpable.
I focus on my breathing.
In.
Out.
Just one more day.
One more night.
Bianca’s breathing quickened beside me, shallow and ragged, rattling through her chest like a trapped bird.
Ana, on my other side, stared straight ahead, jaw clenched so tightly I could see the muscle twitch with every heartbeat.
The tension radiated off her in waves, a living thing pressing against my own ribs.
I gripped her hand lightly under my arms, a silent promise of solidarity, though I knew it could do nothing against what was coming.
The eyes of the Kompania brothers reflected nothing—no light, no mercy, no humanity. Only emptiness, a void that seemed to suck the warmth from the world.
Faint scars lined their forearms, wrists, and necks, and the edges of old tattoos peeked from beneath collars and cuffs, like whispers of deeds too monstrous to name.
Everything about them radiated predator. And we were nothing more than prey.
“The finest selection awaits your judgment.” Our master’s voice, usually a hammer of cruelty, now dripped with rare, almost worshipful deference.
The brothers didn’t respond immediately. Instead, their eyes swept over us methodically, lingering too long, appraising us like objects to be cataloged.
Possessed. Claimed before a single word was spoken.
One tilted his head slightly, murmuring something low in Albanian to the other. The second brother’s lips curved into a faint, cruel smile that did not reach his eyes.
The air grew heavier, thick with anticipation, suffocating like smoke from a fire that hadn’t yet burned.
“You,” the first brother said finally, voice gravelly and deep, carrying the weight of command and violence both.
He pointed a thick finger at Ana.
Her body stiffened. The color drained from her face, leaving her pale as bone.
Slowly, carefully, she stepped forward, shoulders trembling but refusing to slump, refusing to collapse under the sheer force of terror.
The elder brother closed the distance in two long, effortless strides.
His presence loomed over her, a living shadow that pressed the warmth from the sun itself. Without a word, without hesitation, he grabbed the thin scrap of fabric Ana had draped around herself for modesty.
The cloth tore with a sharp, hateful sound that echoed across the yard like a gunshot.
Ana did not scream.
She did not beg. She stood rigid, her gaze fixed on some distant point far beyond the yard, far beyond this day, as if sheer will alone could carry her somewhere safe.
The brother’s massive hand seized her jaw, forcing her face up.
“Pretty,” he grunted, eyes narrowing as he turned her head from side to side, inspecting her with the detached scrutiny of a craftsman evaluating raw material.
His grip was iron and the subtle tilt of his head suggested pleasure in control rather than desire.
I felt bile rise in my throat. My knuckles whitened around Bianca’s hand.
Every instinct screamed to rush forward, to strike, to scream—but I was frozen, tethered by ropes not yet in place and by the weight of inevitability.
Ana’s lips pressed together, holding her breath, holding herself like she was made of steel.
But I could see it: the trembling in her fingers, the faint quiver in her calves, the silent scream her body wanted to give but could not.
Ana had told me her story in hushed fragments, stitched together over weeks of late-night digging when the yard finally slept and the guards’ footsteps faded into memory.
It was in those moments—when survival narrowed to breath and dirt—that truths surfaced.
She’d grown up in Rome, in a narrow apartment overlooking a street that smelled of espresso and old stone.
Her father had ruled a minor slice of the city’s underworld—not powerful enough to be feared, not weak enough to be ignored. A man respected in certain circles, dismissed in others. Ambitious once. Calculated. But ambition curdled when gambling took hold.
“It started,” she said, “the way it always does. Cards after meetings. Dice to celebrate a win. Nights that stretched too long. Promises that tomorrow would fix everything.”
Tomorrow never came.
Her father had gambled it all—again and again. First, his own money, then money he borrowed, hoping to invest it wisely. But he lost it all to gambling and the syndicate he had borrowed from.