Chapter 41
Gabriella
Now
The second I stepped into the corridor, I knew I couldn’t go back for my mum.
Not yet.
The truth of it hit me so hard and so fast that I almost staggered beneath the weight of it, my hand catching against the wall as I forced myself to keep moving instead of turning around and running straight back down those basement stairs like every instinct in me was screaming to do.
Because every instinct in me was screaming to do it.
Go back. Get her. Don’t leave her there.
But instinct and survival were rarely the same thing, and survival was the only thing I could afford to listen to now.
My mum could barely stand. She was weak from months of stress and fear and whatever sickness had been quietly hollowing her out long before Nico ever locked us in that basement.
Her body was battered, exhausted, and running on little more than sheer stubbornness.
Even if I got her up those stairs, even if I somehow managed to hold her weight and get her through the house without anyone seeing us, we would never make it across the compound.
Not with men stationed outside. Not with Nico expecting me to run.
Not with my mother barely able to keep her eyes open, never mind her feet beneath her.
Trying to take her now wouldn’t be brave.
It would be stupid.
It would get us both killed before we even made it past the first fucking gate. And if I wanted to save her, really save her, then I had to do the one thing that felt unforgivable.
I had to leave her behind.
Just for now.
The thought made my stomach turn so sharply I nearly doubled over, but I forced myself upright and kept moving, one hand trailing along the wall as I tried to think through the panic clawing its way up my throat.
I needed a plan. A real one. Not just blind hope and adrenaline and whatever scraps of luck had got me this far.
And that was when one name came to me.
Natalie.
Of everyone left in this place, she was the only one I trusted enough to risk this on.
She had been there before all of this, before Nico, before the brutality and the fear and the years of being slowly crushed under the weight of what this club expected us to be.
She had been there when we were girls, when our biggest concerns had been boys and fake IDs and whether my dad would lose his shit if he caught us sneaking vodka from the kitchen cupboard.
She had been there before I became this version of myself.
And if there was anyone in this place who might still remember who I had once been, it was her.
I moved quickly, but not carelessly, keeping to the quieter parts of the house, listening at every corner before I rounded it, every nerve in my body stretched so thin I felt as though I might split in two if someone so much as breathed too loudly near me.
The clubhouse was quieter than usual, but not silent.
Men’s voices drifted faintly from somewhere downstairs, low and indistinct, and every now and then I heard footsteps somewhere in the distance that made me flatten myself against the nearest wall until they passed.
The whole place felt on edge, as though something was brewing. Almost as if Nico had set the board and was simply waiting for the pieces to move.
I hated how well I knew him, because I knew with absolute certainty that if he realised I was gone, he wouldn’t panic.
He’d enjoy it. He’d treat it like a game.
And if I didn’t get out before he realised he had lost control of me, then he would make sure I paid for that enjoyment in ways I didn’t even want to imagine.
Natalie’s room was near the back of the house, tucked away down one of the quieter hallways where the old ladies’ rooms had always been. She wasn’t an old lady, but Nico had assigned her a room in the clubhouse so if I ever visited her, I would do so under his watchful eye.
I hadn’t been down this part of the clubhouse in a long time, but my feet found it anyway, guided by memory and desperation.
I slipped inside as quietly as I could and shut it behind me, and the second I turned around, Natalie let out a sharp gasp so loud I lunged forward on instinct, grabbing her by the shoulders before she could scream.
“It’s me,” I hissed. “Nat, it’s me.”
Her whole body went rigid beneath my hands before her eyes finally focused properly on my face.
“Jesus Christ,” she breathed, her voice shaking so violently it barely sounded like her. “Gabby… what the fuck?”
She looked awful, too.
Not in the same way my mum did, not physically diminished and fading, but frayed around the edges in a way that made my stomach sink.
Her blonde hair was scraped up into a messy knot, her face pale and drawn, her eyes ringed with shadows that told me sleep was probably a luxury she hadn’t had much of lately either. She looked like someone surviving by the skin of her teeth and pretending it was enough.
“I need your help,” I whispered.
She glanced toward the door, then back at me. “How the fuck did you get out?”
“One of the guards is dead. Or dying. I don’t know.” My voice came out flatter than I meant it to, but there was no room left in me for softness. “I need to get out of here.”
Natalie’s face drained of what little colour it had left. “Gabby…”
“I know,” I snapped quietly, then immediately hated myself for it. I dragged a hand through my hair and lowered my voice. “I know. I know this is fucked. But I can’t stay here, Nat. He’s going to kill us. Me and my mum. He’s not even trying to hide it anymore.”
Her eyes softened at that, and for one awful second I thought she might cry. Instead, she just reached for my hand and squeezed it once. “I know,” she said quietly. “I know.”
The gentleness in her voice almost undid me.
Almost.
But I didn’t have time to be emotional. I had to take every lesson this place had taught me, that Nico had taught me, and shove every feeling way down deep. I’d deal with that later.
I pulled my hand free and forced myself to focus. “I need to get my mum out too.”
Natalie’s face changed again. It twisted, and I felt that awful, devastating kind of understanding that tells you someone is about to say the thing you already know but can’t bear to hear out loud.
“Gabby…” she said softly. “You can’t.”
My throat tightened immediately. “Don’t. I can and I will.”
“You can’t,” she repeated, firmer this time, stepping closer. “Not tonight. Not like this.”
I shook my head, even though I already knew she was right.
“She can barely stand,” Natalie said, and there was no cruelty in it, only urgency.
“I’ve seen her. I’ve been sneaking her what I can for weeks now, and even with that, she’s hanging on by a thread.
If you try to move her tonight, you won’t get her to the end of the hallway, never mind off this compound. ”
I stared at her, my whole body locking up as the words landed exactly where they were meant to.
“She’s my mum,” I whispered.
“I know she is.”
“I can’t leave her.”
Natalie’s expression crumpled for the briefest second before she grabbed both my hands in hers and held on so tightly it almost hurt.
“If you try to take her now, you will both get caught,” she said, her voice low and fierce and completely steady despite the tears gathering in her eyes. “And then what? What happens to her then? What happens to you? What happens to any chance either of you have of getting out of here?”
I didn’t answer.
Because she was right, and I hated her for being right, and I hated myself even more for already knowing it.
Natalie squeezed my hands harder. “You need to get out. You need to get free. You need to go to Vienna. He will help you, we both know it. And his club will help because they love him and he’s their Vice. And once you have all the pieces in play, then you can come back for her.”
“How can we even be certain?” I whispered before I could stop myself. “After what I did. After what I took from him.”
Natalie’s expression sharpened with something almost offended. “Are you joking?”
I let out a shaky breath that might have been a laugh in another life.
She shook her head. “That man would burn this place to the fucking ground if he thought it would get you out. Stop letting the past define you, Gabby. Vienna isn’t fucking stupid. He’ll know there was more to it. You two were nauseating together. He knows you loved him—still love him.”
I nodded. She was right.
“I’ll go to Vienna,” I whispered.
“You go to Vienna,” Natalie whispered back, forcing me to look at her again. “You get out of here. You get to him. You tell him everything. And then the pair of you come back for us.”
Us.
For my mum.
For Natalie.
For every part of me that had been buried alive in this place.
“I can’t just walk out the front gates,” I said quietly, forcing myself back into the practical side of things before emotion drowned me completely. “He’s got too many men on watch. He’s expecting me to run.”
Natalie went still. She looked toward the door again, then toward the small chest of drawers beside her bed, her expression tightening as though she were arguing with herself.
Then, without a word, she crossed the room and pulled open the top drawer.
My brow furrowed. “Nat?”
She ignored me, shoving aside old receipts, lip gloss, tangled jewellery, a packet of cigarettes, until eventually she found what she was looking for and pulled it free.
A small, folded packet.
“What is that?”
Natalie looked down at it for a second before lifting her eyes to mine. “Your way out.”
I stared at her.
Then at the packet.
Then back at her.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
She swallowed. “It’s called devil’s breath.
I’ve heard the men talk about it,” she continued, her voice low now.
“It’s one of those things Nico keeps around because he’s a sick bastard and he likes knowing he has options.
They use it to keep people compliant. To make them…
vague. Limp. Out of it. Like they’re there, but not really. It’s a zombie drug.”
A cold feeling crept through me.
“And why the fuck would that help me?”
“Because if we do this right,” she said, stepping closer again, “he won’t think you’re escaping.”
My mind caught up a second too late.
Then stopped dead.
Natalie held my gaze. “He’ll think you’re dead.”
For a second, I genuinely thought I had misheard her.
My mouth opened, but no words came out.
She rushed to fill the silence before I could even process it properly.
“Listen to me. If you try to run, they’ll catch you.
We both know that. He’s got too many men out there, and he’ll be waiting for exactly that.
But if he thinks you’re dead, even just long enough for them to move you, long enough for them to stop watching you as closely… ”
“I pretend to be dead… And… and he’ll throw my body out,” I said quietly, slowly beginning to understand.
“Exactly,” Natalie said with a sad smile. “He’s not going to waste time planning your funeral. Once you’re gone, you’ll be useless. And who knows, maybe he’ll do us a favour and take your body to the Devils himself,” she finished, forcing a chuckle at her weak joke.
I stared at her. “What if I don’t wake up?” I asked.
Natalie’s face tightened.
“It’s a risk,” she admitted. “Because we need to give you more than usual. We don’t want you barely here. We want you not here at all. He has to believe you’re dead. Not just sleeping.”
A bitter laugh escaped me before I could stop it. “Brilliant.”
“I know.”
“No, Natalie, I don’t think you do. I’m asking you what happens if this kills me and your answer is ‘it’s a risk’?”
Her eyes filled immediately, but she didn’t look away. “Then I’ll live with that for the rest of my life,” she said quietly. “But if you stay here, Gabby, I won’t have to. Because he will kill you. Slowly. And probably your mum too.”
That shut me up.
Because there it was—the brutal, ugly truth of it. There really were no good options left. Just the one least likely to end in all of us dying in this fucking clubhouse.
Natalie moved closer until she was right in front of me again, her hands finding mine for the second time that night.
“I’ll stay with your mum,” she said softly. “I swear to you, I will not leave her alone. I’ll keep taking care of her, I’ll keep getting food to her however I can, and if Nico so much as breathes too close to that basement door, I’ll know.”
My throat burned.
She squeezed my hands harder. “You get out. You get to Vienna. And then you come back for us.”
I stared at her for a long moment, seeing not just the woman in front of me but every version of her that had existed before this one.
The girl who used to braid my hair. The friend who used to sneak cigarettes behind the clubhouse and swear blind she’d never marry one of these idiots.
The one person in this place who still felt like something from before.
“You swear?” I whispered.
She nodded immediately. “On my life.”
“You stay with her,” I said, my voice thick now, barely recognisable as my own. “If I go through with this, you stay with my mum.”
“I will.”
“You don’t let her think I’ve abandoned her.”
Natalie’s face broke properly then. “I won’t.”
“And if I get out…” My voice caught, and I had to force the rest of it through. “If I get out, I’ll come back. For both of you.”
“I know you will. I’ll wait here whilst you take it. I’ll be the one to tell Nico you’ve died. I’ll make the suggestions about what to do with your body. I’ll plant all the seeds… and then I’ll wait.”
The room went quiet after that.
Not peacefully.
Just in that horrible, suspended way things go quiet when a decision has been made and all that remains is carrying it out.
Natalie unfolded the packet slowly, carefully, and tipped a small amount of fine white powder into her palm.
It looked harmless.
Something so small.
Something so ordinary.
And yet it sat there between us, carrying the weight of my entire future.
My entire life.
Natalie looked up at me, her own breathing uneven now. “Once you take it, you need to let it happen. Don’t fight it. Don’t panic. Just let your body go where it needs to go.”
I looked at the powder.
Then at her.
Then somewhere beyond both of us, as though maybe there was still another option waiting to reveal itself if I stared hard enough.
But there wasn’t. There was only this.
I thought of my mother in that basement. I thought of Natalie standing in front of me, risking everything she had left. And then, because apparently I was incapable of not thinking of him even now, I thought of Vienna.
Of his face if I made it to him.
Of his hands.
Of his voice.
Of the fact that if I survived this, if I got out, if I somehow made it through the next few hours without my body giving up on me entirely, then the next place I would run would be to him.
I held Natalie’s gaze for one final second.
Then I opened my mouth.
And let her kill me.