Chapter 1
KAYLA
The world is full of monsters. Some show their faces, while others hide in plain sight, waiting for their chance to take you alive.
I’ve met my share. Watched as they shed their skins until all that was left was the savagery beneath.
And once they show you who they are, there’s no reason for them to hide any longer. They’ll make you beg and bleed until all you have are tears. But see, they’re useless against monsters. Your tears only strengthen them.
I should know.
My monsters took everything from me.
Tore the soul from my bleeding body while I lay there on the ground, wishing for it to be over.
I was theirs for nine and a half brutal years. Raped, sold, tortured until I begged to die. But I had my friend Elsie to live for. We kept each other alive somehow.
I often think back on the day that started it all. The day we were taken, all three of us. And I regret it instantly. I’d go back in time and tell us not to go.
Just stay. Fuck the road trip.
We were young, only nineteen. Just children. But we stopped being little girls as soon as they took us.
Jade’s mom didn’t want us to go.
Neither did my parents, but they wanted me to make my own choices.
If it’s what you want, honey, then we won’t stop you.
I wish they had.
Though they don’t like to bring up what happened, I know my parents wish the same. Wish they had forced me to stay home. Locked me up in my room and thrown away the key.
Instead, we left—Elsie, Jade, and I. We decided to have one last adventure together before college started. But things took an ugly turn when our car broke down in the middle of an empty highway. And that was when we met our first monsters. Men who worked for our captors.
They shot us and took us away to be sold like property, stripped of our dignity and pride. Jade was separated from us, but Elsie and I endured together all those years.
We were nothing but toys for the ones who owned us.
Faro Bianchi and his brothers ran the Palermo crime family. Dirty and vicious, they took everything from us.
They ran a members-only sex club, where men wore those fancy masquerade masks that covered everything but their eyes. They did whatever they wanted to us…for the right price, of course.
We were nothing but dollar signs.
Elsie and I were forced to work at the club more times than I can remember. Other times, we were shipped off to fancy hotels where rich, powerful men pretended we were theirs for a night or two.
Often, I envisioned my death. Or theirs. Or both, if I’m honest. I wanted to kill them all. I wanted to pick up a knife and stab them in their throat. Over and over until they stopped breathing. Stopped touching me. Touching us.
My heart beats fast as thoughts of the past run rampant.
When they were inside me, I’d smile as I pictured their blood dripping from their throats. Once they were done, I’d realize it was just me and my imagination making me think I had power. But I had nothing but skin and bones.
And even that wasn’t mine anymore.
If I hadn’t been weak and pathetic, I could’ve done it. I could’ve killed them. So what if I’d ended up dead in the process? I was already dead anyway.
But then I’d think of Elsie and cry into the stained pillow. I couldn’t leave her. I was all she had, and vice versa. So I let the pain consume me until all I had were tears.
But monsters don’t care about tears. They’re hungry for pain to satisfy their pleasure.
And night after night, I gave them that.
I gave them everything I had. And now I’m left with eternal emptiness.
Once upon a time, I dreamed of becoming an oncologist. I wanted to help people get rid of cancer. But instead, I fed the cancer that was my torment. I gave the men power. I gave them everything they wanted. Because I had no choice.
Girls like me had no other options but to submit.
It’s been four months since I was freed by people who hated the Bianchis as much as we did. Jade’s boyfriend, Enzo Cavaleri, and his brothers destroyed that family. Killed them all.
But recently…
My heart lurches.
Recently, someone started trafficking again in their name. I try not to think about it. Because between that and the murders, I’ll lose my mind.
There’s been a serial killer on the loose. The Midnight Murderer is what they call him, and every day I wonder when they’ll catch him. If they’ll catch him.
But I have to focus on the good things, like reuniting with both Elsie and Jade again. It’s a miracle none of us thought we’d ever get.
I was without Elsie for about a month, and I hated that I no longer had her with me, but I stayed strong. I didn’t tell anyone where she was. Even when they tortured me.
I was happy she managed to get away. Happy that she found the perfect opportunity to escape, running off into a strange man’s car who happened to show up at the house we were kept in.
She begged me to come with her, tried to refuse to leave without me, but I made her go, knowing that my cowardice would only consume her. She didn’t need to pay the price for my weakness. So she left, vowing to come back for me.
And she tried. But once those bastards realized she was gone, they moved me and the other girls. Elsie looked for me, but it was Jade who found me. And a few days later, we all found each other.
Now we’re free. We have a second chance. Something to live for.
But me? I’m still there, trapped in a timeless loop of hell. I want them all to suffer. I want them all to pay. But I know that’ll never happen now.
Because most of them are dead, while the others are rotting in prison.
That should’ve brought me some peace.
But it hasn’t.
That’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.
I began seeing a therapist at Helping Hand, a center for trafficked women that Jade recently started. Can’t say it’s doing much, though.
I go every week. Talk about my feelings. Some of what happened to me. But it doesn’t do a thing.
Maybe I’m just broken. And some broken things can’t be fixed, no matter how badly you wish they could.
I started boxing and taking self-defense classes recently as a way to release all this rage. But instead, it just reminds me why I’m still so angry, still pounding on the bars that kept me caged.
When my fists connect with the punching bag, I imagine it’s their faces. Their grins, their laughs. And I destroy them. I let their blood fuel my rage, even for a moment. Even if it isn’t real.
I won’t be weak again. I won’t be the girl I used to be. It’s different now.
I’m different.
I have to be.
It’s the only way I can survive this world where bad men roam free, preying on the next weak woman they can find.
“Did you hear me, Kayla?” Doctor Eric Collins calls, his smile as soft as his crystal-blue eyes. “Do you need a minute?”
No. I need a new fucking life. Think you can help with that?
But of course, I don’t say that. Kayla is nice to people. She doesn’t talk like that. Doesn’t let anyone see what’s truly behind her pretty mask.
A flush creeps across my cheeks, for losing myself for a moment and forgetting where I am: in his office at Helping Hand.
“It’s a lot to process,” he goes on. “The things that are happening are bound to be triggering for you, and you need to be able to talk about them.”
I give him a tight-lipped smile, but I snicker to myself.
Yeah, murders are definitely triggering for people like me, especially when there’s a damn serial killer on the loose, raping and killing women.
“I can understand if speaking to me about this is hard. So if you prefer a female therapist, I can refer you to someone else.”
Helping Hand has a bunch of them on staff, but he’s the one I connected with.
I don’t know why. Maybe because he didn’t push like the other two I tried out did.
He gave me space to talk as much or as little as I wanted.
He has a kindness to him, and I almost forgot men can be kind.
It’s been so long since I met one like that, so when I was in his office and felt this ease, I chose him.
My eyes find his, and I let out a deep sigh. “It’s not about who I talk to. It’s talking about it at all that’s the problem.”
He nods and lifts his black frames up the bridge of his nose.
Dr. Collins has been as helpful as he possibly can be.
Providing me with techniques to deal with my anxiety and panic attacks, giving me a safe space where I can tell him my worst thoughts.
And he’s heard them all—the things I wish I could do to those men if I had the chance.
He just listens and writes his notes on that yellow notepad he carries with him.
But I don’t let him know all my thoughts.
Those are mine, and no one has a claim to them.
Maybe that’s why therapy sucks for me. I can’t really open up.
I can’t be myself. Not with anyone. Not even with my friends, which is odd since they know exactly what I went through.
They went through it too. But unlike me, they’re managing.
They’re living their lives. Sure, they’re hurting in their own way, but not like me.
I’m glad about that, though. They should be happy.
But when will I be happy?
Elsie’s with Michael Marino, the man whose car she escaped into after she ran away from our traffickers. He’s also the head of the Messina crime family. Yeah, I know. Why would she ever want to get involved with the Mafia after what they did to us?
But it wasn’t them. They’re nothing like the Bianchis. Everyone hated those bastards. They were rotten fruit, and no one mourned their deaths.
Michael, for all his flaws, is good to her, and together with his six-year-old daughter, Sophia, they’re a family.
I envy that.
What kind of person envies her friends for falling in love? But I do. I wonder how it feels to even trust a man. To let him touch you and do all the things those men did to us without it being ugly and cruel.
Tears sting my eyes, and I grind my molars to stop the aching.