CHAPTER THREE
“Starling! Get your ass out here—Mr. Hirsh needs you!”
Tomas’s voice ricocheted through the hallway, loud enough to pierce the silence I’d wrapped around myself like armor.
It struck something deep in me—an old, brittle place that hadn’t cracked in nearly a year.
I didn’t waver. I didn’t move. I just sat there, and stared at the wall until the echo died down.
My services.
God, I could’ve laughed. Or cried. Or both. That’s what they called it—services—like I was a damn spa treatment.
What they never said out loud was what I really was.
Not a girl.
Not a name.
Just inventory. Flesh.
I rose slowly, smoothing my dress like it mattered. Like appearances were still worth something in a place where dignity came with a cost. One I’d paid too many times in the last several months.
I’d seen the rotation. Girls came and went, their faces fading into a blur of wide eyes and whispered prayers. Some lasted a few days. Others disappeared in the night. The only consistency was the hollow look they all carried once they realized escape wasn’t a dream. It was a sentence. A dare.
Me? I’d lasted longer than anyone.
Not because I was stronger.
Not because I was smarter.
But because Mr. Hirsh liked me.
At least that’s what the others said when they thought I wasn’t listening.
“She must’ve pleased him.”
“She’s his favorite.”
“She’s his.”
As if that meant anything good.
As if being liked by a man like Mr. Hirsh was a stroke of luck instead of a curse carved into bone.
In the beginning, I fought like hell. I bit. I clawed anyone who touched me. I starved myself until my body went numb—until my will felt like it might snap under the weight of another night. I even took a mail opener and drove it into a man’s thigh when he pulled his pants down in front of me.
But fighting didn’t save you here. It just delayed the inevitable.
Eventually, I learned.
Rebellion had an expiration date. Resistance was a story they sold to newcomers. Hope? That was the quickest way to get yourself destroyed.
So I adapted.
I stopped flinching when Tomas barked orders. I stopped crying when the door clicked shut behind me. I stopped pretending my body was mine when it never really had been.
That was the only way to survive in this place.
And Hirsh…he didn’t need to beat you to break you. He didn’t scream. He didn’t shove. He just looked at you like you were a puzzle he had already solved and one he intended to take apart again.
He liked obedience, but not complete submission. He wanted a challenge—just enough fire to keep things interesting. Just enough fight to feel like he’d earned something when you finally dropped your gaze.
And somehow, I became the perfect balance.
The girl who didn’t scream anymore but still hadn’t gone quiet.
The one who knew where to kneel, how to listen, and—most importantly—when to bite her tongue.
There were nights I told myself I was in control. That I was manipulating him, not the other way around. That if I played the part well enough, I could slip through the cracks. Maybe, just maybe, if I pleased him enough, he wouldn’t sell me to someone else.
But that was the worst kind of lie—the kind you learn to believe.
Because in truth, he already owned me.
Not in the way men take. In the way that they get inside your head and rewire the definition of safety.
I remembered one night…I’d just been summoned, same as always. Hair brushed. Dress clean. Knees shaking.
He didn’t touch me at first. Just studied me. Said my name like it meant something.
“Starling. Always so careful. Always so quiet. I think you’ve finally learned what I like.”
And I had. I learned every cue. Every silent command. Every twitch of his brow that meant open your mouth, or don’t speak, or smile, even when it hurts.
That night, I let him use me. It was just a few weeks before my eighteenth birthday.
“Starling,” Mr. Hirsh finally said, his voice cool, precise. “Do you know why you’re here?”
The question wasn’t really a question. It was a test—one I was expected to answer a certain way, the same way I’d been trained to respond in rooms like this. Where saying the wrong thing wasn’t just incorrect…it was dangerous.
“Yes, Mr. Hirsh.”
He looked up, and that gaze—clinical, cold, somehow always curious—sliced through me like it always did. Like I wasn’t a person but a subject. A case study he’d been testing for months.
His fingers tapped the edge of the desk.
“Take off your dress.”
I did.
Not because I wanted to. Not because I liked it. But because that’s what survival looked like here—cooperation dressed as consent. Performance disguised as preference.
My mind went somewhere else, like it always did. I focused on the dark green wallpaper. The hum of the air vent. The exact number of steps from the rug to the window. I let my body become a thing. A shape. Something easier to forget when the lights were off.
He spoke again, something about posture, about grace. About how I was his favorite because I knew how to listen.
I smiled.
Or at least, I moved my mouth in a way that passed for one.
Because I wasn’t here to win. I wasn’t here to fight. I was here to endure.
And endurance meant knowing exactly how far to bend before you broke.
*****
Tomas shoved me back into the narrow space they mockingly called the Pet Room, like I was some stray mutt they’d scraped off the street and caged for amusement.
The door was already halfway closed before I caught my breath.
The session had ended only because Mr. Hirsh’s phone rang.
Otherwise, it would’ve gone on longer—long enough to break something else inside me.
He always called them sessions, like it was therapy, like he was helping.
Like what he did to me wasn’t just another form of ownership.
I barely had time to wipe my face—eyes still stinging, throat raw from gagging on Mr. Hirsh’s cock—when the door suddenly jerked open again.
It was Montgomery, one of the drivers.
He stood in the doorway, calm and polished in a way that didn’t match the filth clinging to my skin. His clipboard in hand like this was a delivery route, not a trafficking ring.
“I have a pull request,” he said, glancing at me. “Four girls. This one included.”
My heart stuttered.
This had to be a mistake.
I was only ever on the roster once before. That time, Mr. Hirsh claimed me before the auction could even happen. He’d said I was a favorite. Said I was too useful to sell.
The other three girls behind him were crying softly, trembling as they clung to each other. I should’ve been doing the same—letting the tears fall, releasing the ache—but I couldn’t. I no longer cried.
I was frozen, silent, and trapped inside a shell where the pain had dulled into something else entirely.
Tomas narrowed his eyes, and stepped into Montgomery’s space with that barely leashed violence he always carried like a familiar cloak.
“What the fuck do you mean, you’ve got a fucking roster?” Tomas snapped, voicing the very question I was too afraid to ask.
Montgomery didn’t flinch. “You know exactly what I mean. The Warden sends the lists. I collect. I send them to their rightful owners. That’s my job.”
“And this girl?” Tomas gestured toward me with a scoff. “She isn’t on any list unless you’re trying to get yourself killed. You know damn well who she belongs to.”
“I do,” Montgomery said evenly. “And that’s what makes this so interesting.”
*****
“You’re not on the list, Starling. You can breathe.”Montgomery’s voice was calm—too calm—as he led me toward the van, one step behind him like Hirsh’s protocol demanded. The last girl had just been handed off to some yacht owner like she was nothing more than cargo.
But I couldn’t breathe. Not really.
“Then…why am I here?” I asked, voice small, cracking. My arms wrapped around myself, still trembling from everything I’d endured earlier in the day.
“To give you a break,” he said, not looking at me. “If I had a way to drive you to safety right now, I would. But I still need more intel on this operation. If I make the wrong move, if I blow my cover too soon—both our lives are at risk.”
“I don’t understand.”
He finally met my eyes, voice low and urgent.
“I’m not delivering you or any of the other girls to buyers.
Those men you see—they’re my people. Undercover agents with the Organized Crime & Covert Operations Bureau.
They’re working the same case. That compound, the auction—it’s part of a much larger operation we’re trying to dismantle. ”
Relief flickered, but it didn’t reach the corners of my mind. “Then why am I still here? Why haven’t you taken me out?”
Montgomery’s jaw tightened. “Because they have intel on you. Intelligence that we can’t ignore. You’re important, Starling. But we need you here longer—to gather evidence, to track the people involved. If I move too soon, or if my cover’s blown, we both die.”
I swallowed hard. “I don’t understand. I just want out.”
He stepped closer, voice softer but firm. “I wish I could take you away right now. I would. But until we have everything we need to bring them down, you have to stay in it. Stay alive. And do what you do best, stay quiet.”
“Then take me to your office,” I pleaded, desperation rising. “Let me tell them everything I know. I’ll be safe there. You can go back in.”
Montgomery shook his head slowly. “Not yet,” he said firmly.
“This place watches everything—every move, every word. If they catch even a whiff that I’m working undercover here…
or that you’re connected to me, it’s over.
For you and for the operation. Trust me.
We’re closer than you think. But I need you to hold on. Just a little longer.”
I swallowed hard, bitterness rising like poison. “Mr. Hirsh was right,” I whispered, voice breaking. “No one cares about me. No one will ever come to rescue me.”
Montgomery’s eyes softened, the hardness fading for a fleeting moment. He crouched down until he was eye-level with me, his voice low and earnest.