CHAPTER NINE
Montgomery took me back to the compound—through the gates, straight into Hell like nothing had happened.
But something had.
I felt it before I could name it. The guards were sharper, radios crackling more than usual, their attention lingering in a way that wasn’t routine. It followed us as we walked, quiet but unmistakable.
Montgomery didn’t react. Not outwardly. His pace stayed even, his expression locked down, but the tension in him gave it away—the set of his shoulders, the way his awareness stretched in every direction at once.
We passed a pair of men near the entrance, their voices low but urgent.
“…Hirsh is looking into him—”
Montgomery didn’t break stride.
Like he hadn’t heard. Like it didn’t matter.
But it did.
I saw it now in the way he carried himself—too controlled, too precise. This wasn’t indifference. It was containment.
He walked beside me like none of it existed. Like he hadn’t held me like I was something worth keeping. Like he hadn’t kissed me like he meant it.
And that’s when it clicked.
He didn’t bring me back because he wanted to.
He brought me back because he had to.
Because whatever Hirsh was starting to uncover—whatever his team was beginning to question—was closing in on him.
On us.
And time was running out.
He brought me to the holding room.
No touch. No hesitation. No lingering look that would’ve given anything away.
Just turned and left like I was any other transfer. Like I hadn’t meant something.
It felt like weeks passed before I saw him again.
Time warped here. Every hallway bled into the next, the recycled air reeked of rust and sweat. It clung to your clothes, your hair, your soul. Even after a shower, it lingered—just beneath the surface. A rot you couldn’t scrub out.
This place had a way of branding you from the inside out.
I’d just finished carrying the last food tray into one of the side rooms—careful not to spill the watered-down soup on the too-shiny floor, careful not to be noticed—when I heard it.
“Starling.”
My name—whispered low, familiar and dangerous.
I turned, heart in my throat.
Montgomery.
He was standing in the doorway. His uniform—black, crisp, with that damn driver’s crest on the shoulder—looked flawless. But his eyes betrayed him: stormy, serious, and alert.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” I whispered, eyes darting over his shoulder. “They’ll—”
“I needed to see you,” he cut in. He stepped into the room and shut the door behind him.
The door gave a sharp, mechanical click. I grimaced at the sound—not from fear of him, but from fear of who else might’ve heard it.
He moved toward me, slowly. “I needed to tell you—soon. It's almost over.”
I laughed, bitter. “You’ve said that before.”
His jaw twitched. “I know. But this time it’s real. Hirsh is preparing for a sale—one involving out-of-state clients. High rollers. I’ve traced at least three buyers linked to a trafficking ring we’ve been tracking. If I vanish now, we lose the chain. I need—”
“You need me to survive this,” I cut in, harsher than I intended. “Again.”
His eyes dropped for a moment. “I need you to trust me. One more time.”
And I wanted to. God, I wanted to. But I was so tired. Of hoping. Of waiting. Of surviving.
Still—I nodded.
A sound outside the door made both of us freeze. A soft creak. Followed by a shadow slipping beneath the crack of light.
The door opened with a slow, deliberate swing.
“Well, well,” Mr. Hirsh said as he stepped in. “What is going on here? I don’t recall giving you permission with my girl.”
My body went rigid.
He looked immaculate, as always. Gray three-piece suit, gold tie pin, a small monogrammed handkerchief tucked into his coat pocket. And a gun loosely swung from one hand like it was just another accessory.
“You know,” he said conversationally as he stepped further into the room, “I had my suspicions. Always lingering a little too long. Always watching her.”
He lifted the gun and pointed it straight at Montgomery.
“I should’ve known you were a rat.”
Montgomery didn’t flinch. “You don’t know what you’re even talking about.”
“I don’t need to. Tomas says you two are close. Two peas in a pod. She is mine, Montgomery, if that is even your real name.” He clicked the safety off of the gun.
“You’re going to regret this,” Montgomery stood tall.
“No. You’re going to regret this,” Hirsh snapped.
Before I could scream, before I could move—
I saw the first strike.
A cruel, deliberate strike.
And I was frozen, paralyzed, a helpless witness as the man I needed more than anything was torn apart in front of me.
The door opened again. Two of Hirsh’s men stepped in—brutish, faceless. They didn’t hesitate.
“The lies… it was all a game for you. Stowing her away in your van, taking her somewhere secluded so you could have your way with her. Another late night alone with her in the office before the auction. What is it with you two?”
A pause. A step closer.
“And let’s not forget when you blamed Tomas’s man for roughing her up—when I’m sure it was you who laid hands on her. What am I supposed to do with you?”
They grabbed Montgomery suddenly, yanked him hard against the wall. The impact knocked the wind out of him, but there was no time to react before they threw him roughly to the ground. His arms were pinned down with brutal force, wrists pressed into the cold floor.
I lunged toward him as they pulled him up to his knees, heart pounding, desperate to help—only to be stopped cold by a crushing hand wrapping around my throat. The world tipped sideways as I was slammed backward against the opposite wall. Pain exploded through me, sharp and burning.
Hirsh loomed over me, his face inches from mine, a twisted smile played on his lips. His breath reeked of peppermint and decay, a sickening contrast to the violence he wielded so easily.
“You’re going to watch this,” he whispered, his voice a cruel razor slicing through my chest. “You’ll watch everything you’re too weak to stop. Maybe then, you’ll finally understand.”
His grip loosened just enough for me to gasp, the air caught like fire in my lungs. I sank against the wall, trembling, unable to tear my eyes away.
Montgomery’s struggles slowed, his eyes flicked up to mine with silent agony. I wanted to scream at him to fight, to hold on—but Hirsh wasn’t finished.
He circled Montgomery like a predator savoring its prey, delivering punches with calculated cruelty. Each blow was timed to silence Montgomery’s cries, to break him piece by piece.
Then Hirsh dragged something cold and heavy from the shadows—a metal instrument cruel and unforgiving. My stomach twisted sickly.
“Look at her,” Hirsh sneered at Montgomery. “She’s broken and beyond saving. Just like you’ll be soon.”
The words landed between us like acid. I could see Montgomery’s jaw tighten, his eyes flickered with helpless fury.
They dragged him to a chair set in the middle of the room while a guard held me still.
Hirsh lifted the metal beam, its weight ominous, and slammed it hard against Montgomery’s chest.
Montgomery’s breath hitched, but he didn’t cry out.
Another lash followed.
And another.
Blood bloomed across his skin, spreading in slow, heavy stains that refused to fade.
Pain wracked his face—but then, through the haze of agony, his voice broke free. Low, raw, and fiercely steady.
“My rose…Starling...stay strong,” he whispered, every word a lifeline thrown across the void between us. “I’m going to get us out. I swear it.”
His eyes searched mine, desperate for belief. “You have to hold on. For me.”
Then, quieter still—so fragile it might have been just for me—he said, “I love you.”
That single confession shattered something inside me—a fragile thread of hope in a sea of darkness.
Tears spilled freely down my cheeks, burning, blurring, but I held his gaze.
“Stop it!” I screamed and thrashed against the grip of the guard behind me. “He’s done nothing—he’s done nothing wrong!”
“Oh, Starling,” Hirsh crooned. “He’s done everything wrong.”
They switched tools. A jagged blade. A hot iron. A pair of pliers that Hirsh didn’t even use—but just showed to Montgomery, as if the threat alone could do the damage.
Still, he didn’t scream. Not once.
His breathing grew ragged. His face paled But he endured it.
For me.
“No,” I cried before I could stop myself. My voice cracked. “Stop. Please—stop. You’re hurting him.”
Hirsh didn’t even look at me.
And then—
The sound split the room.
BANG
The gunshot echoed like thunder against concrete.
Montgomery’s head snapped sharply to the side—too fast, too violent for my mind to process. I saw a flash of red, sudden and wrong, but I couldn’t tell where it hit him.
He started to fold forward, and someone caught him before he hit the ground.
“Montgomery!” The name ripped out of me, as fast as the gunshot that still echoed through the room.
Time stopped.
“No,” I whispered to myself. “No, no, no—”
I didn’t know what had happened.
Only that everything had just gone very, very still.
“Put her back in the room with the others,” Hirsh said, voice calm as ever. “Let her mourn with the filth.”
They dragged me away. I fought like a wild thing. Kicked. Bit. Screamed until my throat bled.
It didn’t matter though as the concrete room door slammed shut in my face.
And I was back in the dark, cold hole in the ground that reeked of mold, urine, and iron. Back with the girls who no longer spoke. Who barely breathed. Back in the very place I first began nearly a year ago.
My hands trembled. My knees bled from the scrape of concrete. My ears rang with the echo of that gunshot.
And my heart shattered into a thousand pieces.
Because Montgomery was gone.
Because the only person who ever looked at me like I was more than property had died trying to save me.
Because hope was dangerous—and I’d let myself believe in it.
I backed away without thinking, my legs barely holding me as the room tilted and narrowed around me. Everything—the noise, the movement, the air itself—blurred into something distant, like it no longer belonged to me.
I ended up in the corner without remembering how I got there. A small and dark hole in the room. The kind of place that made everything feel just far enough away to survive it.
I sank down, drawing my knees to my chest, my body folding in on itself as if that could keep the moment from getting inside me. I rocked faintly, not enough to calm anything, just enough to keep from falling apart completely.
“He’s gone,” I whispered.
The words didn’t feel real when I said them.
“He’s gone.”
My voice broke quieter the second time, like even it was losing strength.
And underneath the shock, underneath the grief that hadn’t fully landed yet, one thought kept circling—steady, relentless, inescapable.
This was my fault.