Chapter 8 #2
Calix drops the charming mask the second the photographer turns to check his digital screen.
His large hand slides from my knuckles to my waist. He settles the weight on my hip. He handles my body with the careless ease of a man gripping something he already purchased.
His thick fingers dig into the blood-red silk. It is not affection. It is inventory.
“You have the hips for it, at least.” His voice is a low, flat murmur meant only for my ears. “Good for breeding. Good for something.”
His dark, dead gaze drops from my face. It tracks slowly down to my chest. To my stomach. To my hips. The assessment is slow. Itemizing. Vile. He looks at me the way a buyer inspects livestock at auction.
“You will need to drop at least twenty before the official photos, though.” His fingers squeeze my hip. “I will have my private nutritionist call you on Monday. She works miracles.”
He says miracles like he means aggressive damage control. He calls me fat with a camera-ready smile on his handsome face.
Behind us, a champagne cork fires toward the ceiling. Polite laughter ripples through the crowd. The string quartet shifts into a new movement. The room keeps turning. The party celebrates.
Nobody notices a monster with his hand clamped on my hip.
“And the kid.”
His tone drops lower. What remains under the fake charm is flat, bored cruelty. The voice of a man discussing a minor defect in an otherwise adequate purchase.
“The bastard stays with the nanny.” He issues the command without leaving room for negotiation. “Or wherever you have been hiding her. I am not raising another man’s mistake.”
The rage detonates in my chest.
“Her name is Tyra.”
The words leave my mouth without permission. Flat. Controlled. The only fracture I allow in the mask. Not in my voice. Not in my expression. Only in the simple fact that I interrupted him at all.
Costa women do not interrupt the men holding the power.
“She is four years old.” My voice is a lethal whisper.
Calix curves his mouth into a sharp, cruel line. Not a smile. He files the reaction away. He stores the exact knowledge of my daughter. He just found the raw nerve. He knows where to press whenever he wants me to flinch.
“Tyra. That is cute.”
He releases my hip. He pats the tight red fabric twice. The dismissive gesture of a farmer checking a horse’s teeth for rot.
“She stays out of my sight.” He smooths the lapels of his expensive suit. “We will not have a single problem.”
He turns his back on me.
He lifts a fresh champagne flute off a passing tray without breaking stride. He raises the glass toward Dominic across the crowded room. A silent, crystal handshake.
The deal is closed. The asset is transferred.
I stand exactly where the butcher left me.
My ribs ache from the lack of oxygen. My face holds the mask. The spot on my hip where his fingers pressed burns like a fresh brand through the fabric.
I set the untouched gin and tonic on a passing tray. It takes concentration.
I walk.
I move through the dense crowd with practiced ease. I flash a polite smile at a wealthy woman whose name escapes me. I touch a councilman’s arm as I squeeze past his conversation.
Lovely evening. A polite nod. Thank you so much. Gracious. Pliable. Perfect.
I perform total compliance at a frequency that satisfies every Costa in the ballroom. My back teeth grind hard enough to crack enamel. The brand on my hip keeps burning.
I push through the heavy wooden door of the women’s restroom.
Empty. The music from the ballroom disappears.
I take the last stall. The door clicks shut. The metal lock slides into place with a sharp snap.
I fold onto the closed toilet lid. Cold porcelain meets the thin fabric of the dress.
I slump against the cold metal wall of the stall, the rigid fabric of the blood-red silk dress making it impossible to pull my knees to my chest. I settle for hugging my stomach, the silk feeling like a second, suffocating skin.
I collapse.
I give myself three minutes.
Three minutes to feel everything. Three minutes for every vile word Calix Ferraro spoke about my body. Three minutes for the terror of his casual threat against Tyra.
Three minutes is not new. I have been giving myself three minutes since I was seventeen years old and Dominic first brought me to a cartel negotiation and told me to smile and not speak. I started keeping a notebook that year.
Not a diary—a ledger. Every name. Every word used against me.
Every door closed in my face. Every time someone looked through me instead of at me.
Twelve years of notebooks, filled in the margins of Costa functions, on napkins in bathrooms exactly like this one, in the five-minute windows between being summoned and being required to perform.
I filled them because writing it down was the only way to make the compound feel finite.
Evidence that it was happening. Proof that I was not imagining the cage.
The notebooks are gone now—burned earlier this evening, because they were evidence of a different kind and evidence can be used against you.
But the habit of the three minutes remains. The three minutes are mine. The only thing in this compound that has ever been entirely mine.
The shaking starts in my hands. It moves up through my arms, into my chest, down through my legs. Hot, furious tears breach the dam. They streak down my face. They drip off my chin onto the crimson silk of a dress that was never supposed to fit.
The size fourteen label was specifically designed to remind me I do not fit in my own life.
I press my fists hard against my closed eyes until white sparks explode.
The waterproof mascara holds perfectly. Costa women do not cry in public, and the physical evidence of private crying is equally unacceptable.
I want to rip this blood-red silk dress off and burn it to ash on the tile floor. I want to call Rosa. I press my forehead against my knees, counting grout lines.
One. Two. Three. Fourteen.
The tears slow. Each exhale stretches slightly longer than the last. The panic recedes. I peel my spine off the cold metal wall of the stall. I straighten.
One minute left.
I blot carefully beneath my eyes with rough toilet paper. I grab the metal handicap bar to stand. The toilet flushes to cover the sound of my exit.
The stall door unlocks.
Fluorescent light blazes above the massive vanity mirrors.
The reflection stares back. My face is intact. My dark eyes are flat and devoid of emotion. The mask Dominic taught me to build is operational. It costs everything to maintain and gives nothing away to the enemy.
Forty-five seconds left.
I pull the muted rose lipstick from my small clutch. Sixty dollars. It survives hot tears, spilled gin, and the indignity of being bartered like antique furniture. The color glides over the lips Jude bruised this morning.
Thirty seconds left.
I smooth the red silk over the hips deemed good for breeding. I smooth the stomach ordered to lose twenty pounds. I adjust the breasts Dominic forced into this punishing neckline because his version of punishment looks best in a designer label.
Time is up.
I pull out my phone.
My hands are terrifyingly steady. I have rebuilt my shattered nervous system in public bathrooms since the age of fourteen. Steadiness is the only useful tool the Costa family ever accidentally gave me.
I look at my reflection.
The cage door just slammed shut. Dominic and Calix hold the keys. Fighting them alone is a guaranteed death sentence. Tyra ends up in the custody of a butcher.
A knock. Not urgent. One knuckle. Twice.
Nick’s voice, flat and even, comes through the bathroom door.
“Tiffany left some pastries on the counter. She owns Sweet Pine Bakery on Main Street. They’re warm and sweet. Eat them now, Lucia.”
No “Are you okay?” No “What happened in there?” He doesn’t ask the weak questions other men do. He just gives me a tether to reality.
I press my wet face into the paper towel and breathe.
But I am not unarmed.
The hard metal edge of the stolen USB drive bites into my sternum. The leverage exists. The bomb is primed. I just lack the muscle required to walk out of this compound alive and detonate it.
I need my own monsters.
I open the messaging app.
The security group chat sits exactly where I left it. The channel I swore never to use again after the humiliating masturbation text.
Pride is a luxury dead women cannot afford.
My thumbs fly across the keyboard. The message strips away every ounce of Costa armor. It is a total, desperate surrender.
LUCIA:
My brother just sold me to a butcher. He threatened my daughter’s life. If I walk out of this bathroom alone, I am dead. I am trapped. Please. Get me out of here.
I hit send.
My heart stalls in my chest. I stare at the glowing letters.
I just begged three lethal predators to save my life.
The small gray text appears at the bottom of the screen.
Read by Nick.
Read by Rafe.
Read by Jude.
Three typing bubbles appear simultaneously. They don’t hesitate. They don’t ask for clarification. They don’t care about Dominic’s grand plans.
The replies hit in rapid succession.
JUDE: Breathe. Stay exactly where you are. I have the perimeter exits tracked. I will not let them touch you.
RAFE: Fuck the dress. Rip it off if you have to run. I am coming to the door right now.
NICK: Breathe, Principessa. Stay in that stall. Don’t move until I tell you. We are coming through the door, and we are taking you home.