Chapter 28 #2
"Alice Brighton ran the logistics," she says.
The name lands with the weight of everything I've been afraid to hear.
"She'd show up in the wing and treat me as part of the operation.
Told me how valuable I was. How natural.
" Her voice cracks. "And I believed it. I filled out the paperwork.
Initialed the bottom of every form. S.M.
Told myself those girls were going somewhere better. "
She presses her forehead to her knees. "I knew. Somewhere under all the excuses I was building, I knew. I just didn't let myself see it."
Guards outside the door. Guards. Private wing. People who weren't supposed to be there. The compound. The interpreter's family locked in the back room. "Guards posted," the CO said. "They're safe in there." We were ordered to stand down. The family wasn't safe. We stood down anyway.
I blink hard, focusing on the here and now. Living room. Sloane's voice. Her shaking hands. I force myself back.
"Then Anna," she says, and the name comes out as if it's made of glass.
"Anna Prescott." Anna. The name she gave me in the car two years ago.
The friend she couldn't save. "We were friends," she continues, voice distant now.
Somewhere darker. "Her father was a senator.
A different one from the man my father had lined up for me.
We kept ending up at the same fundraisers, the same galas.
She was younger than me, but she made it feel less lonely.
We'd text. She'd tell me about dorm life and bad coffee and this professor she loved. " Her voice wavers.
"She came home for winter break. We were supposed to meet for lunch.
She didn't show. Then my father called. Said the hospital needed me.
" She whispers it. "Private wing. Guards outside the door.
I opened it expecting an allergic reaction.
A fainting spell." I wait. "She was on a table.
Hooked to an IV. Unconscious. Nurses I'd never seen before and a doctor I'd only ever seen in rooms where nothing got written down.
They were talking as if this was routine.
Coordinating. Checking lab work. Dosing suggestions. "
Her fingers dig into her arms, holding herself so tight. "Anna was the one I couldn't pretend away. She had a name. A face I knew. She told me about her favorite professor three weeks before they put her on that table."
"What did you do?"
"I panicked. Ran to Tobias, her security guard.
He'd been with her for years. He believed me right away.
Grabbed his keys. Moved." Her laugh comes out wet, broken.
"We were too late. By the time we got back, the room was empty.
She was gone." She wipes her face, rougher.
"My father found me there. Dragged me into his office and told me I'd embarrassed him.
Talked about timelines. Contracts. Talked about her as if she was a line item that had already gone through.
He told me I needed to 'grow up' and 'be useful.
' That girls with Anna's profile were going to be taken with or without me.
That I could make them more… presentable.
That if I helped, it would at least look clean. "
"He wanted you to prep them," I say. "Medically."
She nods, sharp and brittle. "He walked me into another room.
A girl. Younger than me. Terrified. I had a chart in my hands.
Instructions. The doctor told me what to do.
Dose. Protocol." Her voice goes almost soundless.
"I stood there and tried to talk myself into it.
Because he said if I didn't, he'd find someone else.
Someone worse. That it would be my fault if she suffered. "
I force the rage down. Lock it somewhere she can't see it. "What did you do?"
"My hand shook. I dropped the syringe. I ran." Good. My fists press hard into my thighs. Good. "That night, I heard him on the phone. He thought I'd gone to bed. He said I'd become more trouble than I was worth." Her mouth twists. "He said he'd sell me instead."
I already know this part. She told me in the car, shaking so hard the door rattled. But hearing it again, with the full weight of everything that came before it, guts me in a way I wasn't ready for.
"So I ran," she says. "Grabbed a bag, cash, and my car keys. Ended up in a hotel bar in Chicago."
"And found me," I say quietly.
She nods. Her whole body shakes. I can't sit still anymore. I push forward until I'm right in front of her. Rest my hands carefully on her knees.
"Sloane. I'm so sorry. I'm so fucking sorry that happened to you."
She shakes her head violently. "You don't get to apologize for him."
"Look at me." I wait until she does. Tears are streaming down her face. She's absolutely devastated. "You were a kid. In nursing school. Your father put a chart in your hands and told you it was care. That's coercion."
"That's what I tell myself," she whispers. "But it's the easy version."
"It's the true version."
"You don't know that." Her voice splinters. "Because that's still not the worst part."
I go still.
"When Candace came in," she says, and her voice changes.
Smaller. More ashamed than anything she's said so far.
"When you told me what her father did. That he tried to sell her to Donovan.
" My hands tighten on her knees. "I recognized every part of it, Knox.
How the debt works. How the family justifies it.
I recognized it because I used to be on the other side of the intake table.
" The room tilts. "I sat with her. Held her hand.
Told her she was safe. And the whole time I knew I'd done the same job as the people who hurt her. " Her voice breaks open.
"Then Darla. An auction. I knew the format.
Knew the setup. Knew how those rooms worked because I'd prepped girls who went into them.
" She's shaking so hard her teeth chatter.
"And the names. The ones Malachi's been pulling from the investigation.
I've been hearing names I recognize for months.
People from my father's circles. Alice's people.
" She looks at me, and the guilt in her eyes is so deep I can barely hold the gaze.
"I didn't say a word. I had a map to every corner of this thing, and I kept my mouth shut. "
"Why?" My voice is raw.
"Because the second I open my mouth, I'm not Sloane Turner.
I'm not your wife. I'm not the nurse who patches up your guys.
" Tears spill over. "I'm Sloane Mercer. The girl who signed the forms. And I was so sure that if you saw that, if any of you saw that, I'd lose everything.
The club. The girls. You." She presses her palms over her face.
"I couldn't lose you. So I stayed quiet while your people fought a war I had a map for.
And that makes me exactly what I'm afraid you'll see. "
The stove clock ticks once, twice, into the gap she's torn open. I pull her hands away from her face. Gentle. Firm. Hold them against my chest so she can feel my heartbeat under her palms.
"Look at me."
She does. Wrecked. Waiting for the verdict. "You were twenty-four years old and your father put you in a room with a syringe. You dropped it and you ran. That's the part that matters."
"Knox—"
"The silence. The names you kept to yourself.
We'll deal with that. Together. With Malachi.
With everyone who needs to know." My thumb moves across her knuckles.
"But you are not the same as the men who built that system.
You were a girl they used, then you were a girl they tried to sell. And you got out."
Her breath comes in jagged pulls. "I signed the forms," she whispers. "I checked the boxes."
"While your father stood over your shoulder and told you it was care. While Alice Brighton told you that you were good at it." I hold her gaze. "Nobody hands you the truth when they need you to keep signing."
She breaks. Full, wrenching sobs that shake her whole frame. I pull her into my chest and hold on, one hand in her hair, one arm locked around her back. She cries the way someone does when they've been holding a door shut for two years and finally let go of the handle.
I press my mouth to the top of her head and breathe her in. We stay there on the floor of our living room, her fists twisted in my shirt, my back against the wall, until the shaking eases and her breathing evens out against my chest. She doesn't pull away. I don't let her.