CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
I slam the door behind me, the sound sharper than I intended, echoing through the quiet like a gunshot. My back hits the wall as my knees finally give out. I slide to the floor, legs folding beneath me, the cold tile biting into my skin.
Everything feels too loud inside my head. My pulse. My breath. The memory of his voice.
Montgomery.
It is him. That scar. That voice. The way he hesitated just before touching me, like the contact might kill us both. I know him—no matter how long it had been, no matter how hard they tried to rewire my brain, erase the pieces of me that remembered.
But what I don’t know—what makes my skin crawl now—is how long he’s been the Warden.
Was it always him?
Had Montgomery bought me at the auction?
Or had he taken the Warden’s place after?
I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, trying to will the spinning to stop. It doesn’t .
If he was never the real Warden, then where is the man who had purchased me? Dead? Watching? Still out there, waiting for his turn?
And if Montgomery was the real Warden…why lie? Why hide behind another name, another role, when I had already offered him everything?
Unless…it isn’t about me.
Unless someone else is pulling the strings—and he is just another puppet with a mask and a ruined past.
My stomach twists.
The idea that Montgomery might be pretending to be someone who has power, just to protect me—it makes a sick kind of sense. It also makes it worse.
I’d hated the Warden. Feared him. Obeyed him.
And now I realize that all along, I might have been giving that obedience to a man who once left me behind.
My fingers curl into fists against the floor. I don’t know which version is worse.
I crawl to the vanity and pull myself up, legs shaking, arms weak. The reflection staring back at me doesn’t look like the girl who first walked into that auction room. She looks raw, used, painted in bruises and ghost memories that refuse to stay buried.
I stare at myself until the vision blurs.
A knock startles me.
A woman’s voice filters through the door, smooth as glass. “He’s waiting for you in the observation room.”
I don’t answer. Just stare at the door.
He.
The Warden.
Which one?
Am I walking toward Montgomery…or someone else entirely?
I stand, grab the silk robe from the chair, and slide it over my shoulders with slow, careful movements.
If this is the game, I’d play it.
But I’m not walking in blind anymore.
And I’m not going to spiral forever.
No—I’d follow the trail of lies to the bitter, rotted core.
And if Montgomery is at the center of it…
He’d tell me the truth.
Or I’d tear the mask off myself.
My footsteps echo down the corridor like they don’t belong to me.
Each one lands heavier than the last.
I pull the silk robe tighter around my shoulders, the fabric suddenly too thin, too delicate for the weight pressing down on me.
The door to the observation room looms ahead— imposing and final.
I don’t even get the chance to knock.
It swings open with a soft hiss, and cold air washes over me like a warning.
I step inside, and the world shifts.
The room is stark—flooded with harsh fluorescent light that buzzes overhead like a swarm. Everything gleams sterile and sharp, like a hospital dressed in high-end cruelty.
A cluster of men stand near the floor-to-ceiling window, each dressed in tailored suits I don’t recognize. They don’t look like buyers. They look like the men who send the buyers. The kind of men who make decisions that end lives with the flick of a pen.
Their gazes flick to me as I enter. Assessing. Calculating.
Predators in polished shoes.
Then I see him.
The Warden stands at the center, dressed in his signature black suit, not a wrinkle or button out of place. Impeccable. Cold. Still.
But it isn’t him who makes my blood freeze.
It is the other one.
He stands off to the side, draped in shadows, but not hiding.
His mask is different.
Not the expressionless white of the Warden’s. No, this one is silver—twisted and ornate, delicate filigree etched across hard metal like a cruel imitation of elegance. It curls around his cheekbones and jaw, but it is the eyes behind it that stop me in my tracks.
He looks directly at me.
Right at me.
Like he’s been waiting for this moment.
There is something wrong in his stare—too still, too knowing.
My breath catches. My fingers twitch at my sides, as if they want to curl into fists or claws—anything to protect the pieces of me he’s already started unraveling.
He doesn’t speak.
None of them do.
Until the Warden steps forward.
“Starling,” he says, voice civilized and unreadable.
The room feels like it is holding its breath, waiting to see what I’d do next.
So am I.
I swallow hard, ignoring the way my pulse roars in my ears.
I don’t bow.
I don’t speak.
I lift my chin and walk farther inside.
Because whatever this is, I’m not going to flinch first.
Not this time.