CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
I lay in the dark of the punishment room, its cold edges a comfort compared to the heat burning under my skin. The door is open. I left it that way. If I close it, I might start reliving something—something I can’t quite name.
A memory.
But of who?
Was it Shoomaker?
Montgomery?
Or the Warden?
God, maybe it was all three. Maybe that’s the problem.
I press the heels of my palms into my eyes until the stars dance behind my lids, but nothing clears the fog.
I kick myself—hard, ruthless—for not knowing which hands had undressed me with cruelty, and which ones did it with reverence. Which mouth had branded me like property and which whispered promises I was stupid enough to believe.
It all blurs now. The lines between protection and possession. Between affection and control. Between who I am and who they want me to be.
This manor has too many rooms. Too many ghosts.
If I sleep in mine, they’ll find me.
They’ll touch me.
They’ll ask things of me I’m not sure I have the answers for. So I stay here. Among shadows and echoes, where I can try to think clearly, even if clarity hurts like hell.
Montgomery was right.
Shoomaker was the one who got me out. He’s the one who pulled me from that place when no one else could. When I thought I’d die in a prison and rot under Hirsh’s orders, he came. Not Montgomery.
I’m grateful. I am.
But then I remember the mask. The one he wore like it was made for him. The one he used to command me, parade me, market me. He gave me choices, sure. But he also watched while I knelt for buyers and called it strategy.
And Montgomery…Montgomery was the one who made me feel like I wasn’t some broken, dirty thing.
Back then, in the compound, before everything spiraled.
His touch was softer. His voice was kinder.
His eyes held pain I recognized as my own.
He gave me pieces of myself back when I had nothing left to give.
But if he really loved me…why didn’t he come find me after the raid?
Why didn’t he fight harder for me?
He got caught. He disappeared. And I waited. For days. For weeks. For years.
Five years.
No word. No face. Just silence where a promise should’ve been.
I wonder if they broke him.
Just like they broke me.
But it doesn’t answer the question screaming in my chest.
If Montgomery loved me, why didn’t he come for me?
And if Shoomaker saved me…
Why do I still feel like I need saving from someone I never chose?
I start to fade into sleep, the cold of the floor and the weight of exhaustion pressing down on me like a lullaby I didn’t ask for. But then—
A screen lights up.
Static first. Then sound.
That voice.
Familiar. Rougher than I remember, but still his.
“Starling Pierce, aged seventeen. I can confirm she is here. I brought her in myself.”
My eyes fly open.
I sit up fast, heart hammering against my ribs like it’s trying to break free. The light from the monitor glows faint blue across the walls of the room. I look around, wild, until my eyes lock on the screen mounted in the corner.
It’s him.
Montgomery.
Or at least…it sounds like him.
He stands by a vehicle, looking sophisticated, dutiful and not a thread out of place. A comm in his hand. He paces—agitated, determined.
“I can also confirm that she is on the roster for an auction in three days,” he says again. “I need clearance to go in undercover as a buyer. I repeat—I need clearance.”
He pauses. Silence crackles. Someone responds, but the audio distorts too much to make out the voice on the other end.
Still, my lungs won’t work. The air feels too thick to swallow.
The sounds continue, jagged and raw, filling the cold silence around me.
A door slams hard in the background—sharp, like a warning.
Montgomery’s voice cuts through the static, urgent and strained. I can’t catch every word, but his desperation bleeds through.
Then the feed glitches—flickering like a dying pulse—and words pour out, desperate and heavy.
“I know this isn’t on the docket,” he says, voice rough with exhaustion and resolve. “But we need to see who all is involved before we execute a plan to pull her out.”
A pause, then his breath hitches, the weight of what he is about to say thick in the air.
“She’s going to the Warden in a few short weeks,” he whispers, like even saying it out loud makes it more real. “I overheard the deal—Mr. Hirsh and the Warden discussing it.”
His throat works hard before he continues.
“The plan is to break her in enough to make her obedient… and then marry her off to him.” His voice roughens with disgust. “Something about staking his claim. Showing everyone who really runs this ship.”
His voice cracks.
“He wants to bring Anton Pierce down.”
My father’s name hits me like a fist.
“Correct. That’s her father,” Montgomery says bitterly.
I clench my fists, nails digging into my palms as his words shatter pieces of my past.
“No,” he continues, voice low but fierce enough to cut through the room. “You don’t understand. She won’t survive the Warden.”
His jaw tightens, eyes darkening with the memory of something he clearly wishes he’d never seen.
“I’ve watched girls go into his wing,” he says quietly. “They don’t come back out. Not really.”
A heavy silence follows.
“If we keep her here with Hirsh a little longer, we can get the names we need,” he pushes on. “The buyers. The handlers. Everyone connected to this.”
He leans forward slightly, desperation beginning to bleed through the control in his voice.
“Then we pull her out,” he says. “And when we do, we take the Warden down with the rest of them.”
The room feels colder. I swallow hard, trying to keep my vision steady.
“Sitting here driving girls back and forth to covert operatives while they think I’m delivering them to buyers?” Montgomery shakes his head once, exhaustion bleeding into every word. “That sure as hell wasn’t in my job description.”
He drags a hand over his face, jaw tight with frustration.
“I know I’m undercover,” he says quieter now. “I know I have to keep playing the part. I know what’s at stake if I stop.”
A pause.
“But how much longer?” The question comes out rough, worn thin by too many sleepless nights and too many compromises. “How much longer until they figure out who I really am?”
Another pause.
“Do we even know if Pierce is still alive?”
Silence swallows the rest of the feed.
I sink back against the cold wall, breath uneven, heart pounding like it might burst free and run.
So much I’d believed is a lie.
So much I never knew.
And in that moment, the heavy weight of betrayal and shattered hope presses down on me.
“They knew who you were. At least he did. He’s been lying to you, Starling,” Shoomaker’s voice cuts through the doorway, low and steady.
I blink, my heart skipping. “What is this?”
He steps into the room, shedding the cold authority that usually cloaks him. “The Organized Crime & Covert Operations Bureau went in undercover, hunting specific traffickers. There were three missing persons reports filed in your town, all within weeks of each other. You were one of them.”
A knot tightens in my stomach. “My job reported the crime scene when I went missing,” I whisper.
Shoomaker nods. “We investigated for weeks. Dead ends at every turn. Until we uncovered your history. Your family.”
“Anton Pierce was a well-known man in Dinah for years...until he vanished seventeen years ago,” he says quietly.
Memories flicker—fragments of a past I barely knew.
“I don’t remember much about my dad. I do remember him sending me to my aunt’s before my seventh birthday.
That’s when I found out from her my mom died in childbirth, and that my dad was so powerful—more than the President, my aunt said—that he had to leave to protect me. ”
Shoomaker’s eyes darken. “But he didn’t leave for your protection. He left because he was on the OCCOB’s most wanted list.”
My fingers tangle in my hair as I sit up straighter, the weight of his words settling over me. “So…Montgomery knew all along? About my father?”
Shoomaker exhales through his nose, like he’s sorting through pieces that never quite fit together cleanly.
“I don’t know exactly what he knew,” he admits. “We only started communicating years after you were found.”
His gaze flicks to me briefly before settling again.
“He came across information—paper trails tied to your father. That’s when he asked if our department pulled you out during the raid.”
A pause, measured.
“And when the press conferences happened for all the girls we recovered…you weren’t listed.”
His jaw tightens slightly, like the next part carries weight even now.
“You gave me a false name,” he says. “Whether you realized it or not, it stuck. No records, no public identification. It kept you off the radar.”
His voice lowers a fraction.
“It kept you safe these past five years.”
A bitter laugh escapes me. “I made the dumbass mistake of coming back. Wanting revenge on the men who stole from me what wasn’t theirs. I thought I could tear this whole thing apart from the inside.”
Shoomaker steps closer, his voice soft but fierce. “You can, Starling. You’re stronger than anyone I’ve ever met. That fire inside you…it’s what we need. Shaimez has to fall, and we need every scrap of information about your father.”
I swallow hard, my voice barely steady. “How do we do that?”
Shoomaker doesn’t blink. Just shrugs, his broad shoulders rising like it is the cruelest joke in the world. “We just keep playing the game.”
My jaw tightens. “You mean the charade? Me pretending to be claimed by the Warden? You think that’s what will draw my father out of hiding?”
He takes a step toward me, slow and deliberate. His eyes don’t waver. “Is it really a charade, Starling?”
I stiffen.
“You should know the difference by now—between being claimed by the Warden…” He pauses, voice dropping to a growl, “and being claimed by me.”
The breath catches in my throat.
He is in front of me now—close enough to make the room feel smaller, hotter. He doesn’t touch me yet. Doesn’t have to. His presence alone makes my skin hum.