CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
I hear the door click shut behind him, sealing me inside with the man who could burn this entire operation to the ground.
Shaimez.
The kind of man you notice before he even speaks.
Salt-and-pepper hair curling loose around his ears, a beard that looks grown in rather than maintained—like grooming was never meant to soften him.
There’s several scars carved across his face, jagged and unapologetic, cutting through skin like a memory that refused to stay buried.
It doesn’t make him less. It makes him final.
His eyes hold steady—light, almost golden in the wrong kind of way. Not warm. Not inviting. Just observant. Like everything in front of him has already been measured, weighed, and found either useful…or irrelevant.
Ink climbs his neck and spreads across his chest of his open shirt in dense, deliberate patterns—tattoos that don’t decorate him so much as claim him.
Nothing about him looks accidental. Not the way he stands.
Not the way he breathes. Not even the silence that follows him, heavy enough to feel like pressure in the room.
He doesn’t announce himself.
He doesn’t have to.
Shaimez moves like a man who’s never once been made to step aside, never once taught restraint through consequence. Silk-smooth in motion, predator-quiet in presence—the kind of power that doesn’t arrive loudly because it doesn’t need permission to exist.
And when he looks at you, it doesn’t feel like being seen.
It feels like being assessed for survival.
And he is looking right at me.
I stay seated where Shoomaker told me to—perched on the edge of the velvet chaise, hands on my lap, chin dipped. Composed. Silent. Obedient.
Just like they trained me to be.
“You must be the famous one,” he says, circling the room slowly. “The Warden’s favorite little project. The girl who made Tomas whimper.”
I don’t answer. That isn’t my role.
Not yet.
He lets out a quiet laugh—soft, almost amused, like I’m a private joke he’s decided to enjoy.
“I was informed you break beautifully,” he says, savoring the words. Then he stops directly in front of me, close enough that the air between us feels heavy. “But looking at you now… I’m not convinced you broke at all.”
He starts to pace. Like he already owns the space and just hasn’t bothered announcing it.
“Girls who are truly broken,” he says, voice dropping lower, “tremble when I enter a room. They fold. They cower. They don’t sit there like…” his gaze drags over me, slow and assessing, “…like they’ve been placed on a throne and forgotten they’re meant to fall from it.”
He pauses.
“You sit like that anyway,” he adds, eyes narrowing slightly. “Eyes down. Controlled. Trained.” His head tilts. “But I’m wondering what you actually do when no one is watching.”
I lift my gaze just enough to meet his—carefully, not fully. A controlled defiance in the restraint itself.
“Nothing that isn’t permitted, sir,” I murmur.
“Well trained,” he says, crouching in front of me. “But are you loyal?”
His hand reaches for mine.
I don’t flinch.
Instead, I let him see the ring. The symbol. The threat.
He turns my hand over, studying the band with something between amusement and contempt.
“So it’s true,” he says softly. “He plans to marry the merchandise.”
“Property can still be marked,” I reply.
He chuckles at that. “And yet…I was told she wasn’t for sale.”
“You were told correctly.”
He pauses as if time stands still.
And then his smile falls.
“You know, Hirsh said the same thing once,” he murmurs. “That there was one girl he wouldn’t share. Said she was too valuable. Too rare. Special, even. Any idea who that was?”
I keep my expression neutral, but my spine goes stiff.
He leans in closer, his breath ghosting over my cheek.
“You look just like her. Just older.”
He stands and walks to the decanter on the side table, pouring a neat two fingers of scotch.
“I’m not one for sentiment,” he says, watching the amber swirl. “But Hirsh…he was different. Obsessed, in his way. Said this girl of his reminded him of someone. A woman from before.”
My throat tightens before I can stop it. Something cold spreads under my skin, slow and invasive, like recognition trying to surface where none should exist.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say quietly.
He finally looks at me over his shoulder.
“No?” A pause. Not doubt—confirmation that I should already be reacting differently.
“There was a woman. Beautiful. Very well trained. The best he ever had.” He turns slightly, glass resting loosely in his hand.
“Even the Warden couldn’t break her properly at first. Hirsh managed it in a few years.
Made her useful. Trusted her enough to let her move through the compound as a handler for the others. ”
Each word lands heavier than the last, not because of what he’s saying—but because of the way it feels like he’s describing something familiar in a language I was never taught to recognize.
My pulse stutters.
“That was until,” he continues, voice flattening, “he found out she’d gone behind his back. Got pregnant. A buyer’s child.”
The room tilts—not visibly, but internally, like something inside me has shifted off its axis.
“He didn’t discard her,” the man adds almost thoughtfully. “Kept her on staff, as long as she gave the child up. And the buyer—he wanted the child too. Promised that if it was a girl, she’d be brought into his world.”
A long pause.
“It became a discussion,” he says, almost conversational now.
“Between Hirsh, the Warden, and me. In the end, they agreed. She’d be brought to me for final sale.
Hirsh didn’t want her mother attached—didn’t want sentiment interfering.
The Warden only allowed it on one condition: Hirsh trains her first. Then she goes through him. Then she goes to me.”
The glass in his hand tips slightly as he watches me now, like he’s measuring where the story lands.
“And that,” he says quietly, “is how you came to be here.”
Then, almost as an afterthought—too calm to be kind—
“And that woman is still on staff currently. One of my best, now that Hirsh is no longer in the picture. I believe you two have already met a few times.”
He turns to pace the room yet again, glass in hand, eyes gleaming.
“Enough of the history lesson…I’ve asked for a test,” he says. “The Warden’s toy doesn’t get a free pass. I want to see what makes you worth all this trouble. Worth the ring. Worth the bruises Tomas couldn’t stop bragging about.”
I don’t move.
Not yet.
He steps closer.
And then—his hand reaches for my jaw, tilting it gently, mockingly. “You gonna give me a show, sweet thing? Or am I going to have to tear off that illusion of ownership myself?”
Before I can answer, the door slams open.
“Not another fucking step.”
Shoomaker.
Masked.
The Warden.
His voice slices through the room like a lash, sharp and full of fire. He crosses the floor in three strides and takes my hand—not gently. Possessively.
Shaimez laughs again. “Well, well. The Warden does bite.”
“She is no longer part of the ring,” Shoomaker growls. “You’ll choose another girl. Or you’ll choose nothing.”
Shaimez takes a slow sip of his drink, completely unbothered, like the conversation is happening somewhere far beneath his level of concern.
“That’s not what you nor Mr. Hirsh promised me,” he says evenly.
Shoomaker doesn’t so much as shift. No blink. No change in posture. Just stillness that feels intentional—controlled rather than passive.
“Mr. Hirsh is no longer here to make promises,” he replies, voice calm enough to be mistaken for polite. A beat passes. Then, colder—sharpened at the edges without ever raising in volume. “And I am not bound by the ones he made.”
The two men stare each other down—one with lazy interest, the other with fire behind a porcelain mask.
I should’ve flinched. Should’ve faltered.
But I don’t.
Because I already know this dance. Already know who I was dealing with.
This isn’t new.
This is confirmation.
Shaimez’s lips curl around the rim of his glass. “It was a promise made by you, Warden. Or are we pretending now that you didn’t make that original deal with her father?”
Shoomaker stills.
Shaimez’s gaze drifts to me, slow and deliberate, as if I’m something he’s only now deciding to properly inspect.
“Anton Pierce, wasn’t it?” he says, like he’s flipping through a file in his mind. “Ran his own little empire. Said if he ever had a daughter, she’d need to be broken in properly.”
The words land wrong in the room—too casual for what they mean.
“He said she’d have her mother’s fire,” Shaimez continues, almost conversational now. “Maybe even bite. Said she’d make a hell of a showpiece once she learned to bleed on command.”
The air tightens around my ribs. Not panic—something slower. Heavier. Recognition that doesn’t yet have a name.
Shaimez watches for it. Not rushing. Not missing a single shift.
“Funny thing,” he adds, tilting his glass slightly, “men like Pierce always talk about daughters like they’re inheritances… not people.”
My pulse doesn’t spike.
I don’t move.
Shaimez leans forward just slightly, grinning. “Tell me, Warden…when you buckled the collar around her throat, did you know who this woman was? Or did the truth only settle in after she started crawling just the way you like?”
Shoomaker’s mask tilts slightly toward Shaimez, porcelain glinting beneath the low lights like a blade in moonlight. His voice, when it came, was smooth. Controlled.
Lethal.
“I no longer make promises,” he says coldly. “Especially not with men like you. Especially not when it comes to her.”
His hand tightens at his side.
“She’s not up for negotiation.”
Shaimez clicks his tongue. “Ah, but she was, Warden. Or did we rewrite history now that Hirsh isn't here to pull the signed contracts?”
“You misunderstand,” Shoomaker cuts in. “I don’t rewrite history. I erase it.”
He turns to me then—only slightly. Just enough to remind everyone in the room that he is the one I was trained for. Conditioned under. Burned and reforged by. That I had been displayed under his hand, and under no one else’s.
And that’s when I do it.
I didn’t plan it. I didn’t strategize. I just feel it.
My voice slices through the tension like a scalpel.
“I love him.”
Silence detonates.
Shoomaker freezes.
Shaimez blinks, head tilting like he hasn’t heard me correctly.
I stand straighter, chin high, eyes fixed on the mask beside me.
“I love the Warden,” I repeat, voice steel. “And I choose to marry him.”
The words are out.
Final.
Fireproof.
And I see it—the ripple that runs through Shoomaker’s shoulders. The sudden stillness, like he doesn’t know whether to break character or fall deeper into it. His gloved hand brushes against mine. Just a ghost of a touch. But it is enough.
Shaimez lets out a quiet scoff, like I’ve said something mildly amusing rather than defiant.
“Cute,” he says, shaking his head once. “But that’s not how this works.”
His gaze stays on me—steady, assessing, unhurried.
“It may have worked for your mother then,” he continues, voice smooth but edged now with something colder underneath, “but it won’t work for you now, sweet thing.”
The endearment doesn’t soften it. It sharpens it.
If anything, it makes the room feel smaller—like the word was never meant to comfort, only to remind me exactly where he thinks I stand.
“No,” I say. “It’s exactly how it works.”
I step forward—not toward Shaimez, but toward the Warden. I reach for his hand, clasping it in mine, and for the first time…he lets me.
“This isn’t about the girl—me— anymore,” I say clearly. “This is about legacy. About control. About who has power here.”
Shaimez’s expression shifts. No longer amused. Now…curious. A predator circling uncertain terrain.
“I was promised to the Warden,” I continue, keeping my voice level even as my pulse starts to climb under my skin. “Not you. Not Hirsh. Not my father. And certainly not some last-minute bidder who thinks her worth is measured in silence and bruises.”
I let that sit for a beat, then tilt my head slightly, meeting him properly now.
“It doesn’t have a say on any paper for how long I am promised to the Warden,” I add.
A small pause—controlled yet intentional.
“And my mother?” My mouth barely tightens, not quite a smile. “If that’s who you mean…she didn’t bid like someone with influence. She bid like someone trying to prove she still mattered in rooms that stopped inviting her.”
Shoomaker doesn’t stop me.
He doesn’t silence me.
He doesn’t pull away.
Instead, he steps in.
Close.
His mask angles toward me. Voice low, unreadable.
“Why, my little survivor, what a confession,” he says, more for me than the room.
I look at him—really look.
“I love the man who stood over my body and made the monsters back away,” I whisper. “I love the shadow I bled beneath. And I love the one who let me forget—for even one second—that I was ever made to crawl.”
Heavy silence.
Shaimez straightens, smoothing his lapels. “Well then,” he says, tone unreadable. “I suppose that’s your answer.”
He looks to Shoomaker, then to me, then smiles that shark’s grin once more.
“Let’s see how long love lasts once she tires of your control. These girls break, but then they start to fight back.”
And then he turns and walks out.
Gone.
But not without leaving the room scorched behind him.
I let go of Shoomaker’s hand slowly.
His head drops for just a moment, like the weight of what I said is heavier than the mask he wore.
I turn to him—just once, before leaving the room—and whisper:
“Whatever happens next…we end this. All of it. Together.”
And then I leave.
Because I’m not just the girl afraid of the mask anymore.
I am the girl writing the final page.