Chapter 3
Tessa
All of my nights previous complaints now paled in comparison to what had just happened. I would have rather dealt with an endless loop of the stale smell of the restaurant, Larry Johnston, and my father screaming at me in a drunken rage than this.
I wasn’t even sure what this was. Clearly, my father owed a lot of money to the wrong people. But who the hell were they? Specifically, who the hell was this guy?
I glanced at him in the rearview mirror. His eyes were fixed on the road, dark and sharp, every line of his face etched with control. There was a steadiness in the way he gripped the wheel, the kind of confidence that didn’t need to be spoken aloud.
He should have terrified me more than he did. And yet, something about him drew me in. The curve of his mouth, the quiet command in his presence, the way even silence seemed to obey him.
Who was he, this man who had turned my world upside down in a single night?
As if sensing my thoughts, his gaze lifted to the rearview mirror and caught mine.
His eyes carried a dangerous allure, steady and unreadable, and something deep inside me stirred before I could stop it.
The instinct to be afraid was clear, yet beneath it, an inexplicable pull whispered at the edges of my mind, tempting me before I even realized it was there.
I tore my gaze from his, the weight of his stare too much to bear.
My chest tightened, as if even acknowledging it gave him too much power.
Instead, I fixed my eyes on the blur of headlights and buildings rushing past the window, clinging to the fleeting normalcy outside.
I wondered where he was taking me, the question looping in my mind like a warning bell.
Men like him didn’t take girls like me anywhere safe.
My stomach twisted at the possibilities—dark alleys, locked rooms, being sold off to whoever would pay the highest price.
Human trafficking. The word alone made my skin crawl, and I hugged my arms around myself as if I could shield my body from the future I was being driven toward.
I wondered if it paid better than my father organs.
It felt like both an eternity and too soon as we pulled up to an unmarked building in the middle of nowhere.
I was frozen inside of the car. That building held my uncertain future, but one thing I was certain of is that it wasn’t a good one.
The man who had taken me opened the car door and guided me out.
I stumbled slightly on the asphalt, but he steadied me effortlessly, his presence commanding even as his hold remained careful.
I should have put on some fucking shoes before I left. The asphalt cut into the soles of my feet, sharp and burning with every step. I flinched, trying to pull back, but his hand stayed lightly on my arm, guiding me forward with an ease that left no room to argue.
My gaze drifted upward, almost against my will, and I found myself looking at him again.
The curve of his jaw, the sharp line of his shoulders under the dark jacket, the calm command in his stance—it drew my eyes like a magnet.
A part of me, small and traitorous, was taking him in, noticing him in ways I knew I shouldn’t, even as fear screamed for me to look away.
One of his cronies held the door open for him and the two of us walked in together. He led me down the hallways, knowing exactly which turns to take, each step purposeful and precise. I stumbled slightly on the uneven floor, my bare feet aching against the rough surface.
“Keep up,” he said tersely over his shoulder. “I don’t have time to wait for you.”
“My feet are cut open,” I said, the words slipping out before I could stop them.
Immediately, I wished I hadn’t spoken. I was the most foolish girl in the world, talking back to a man who could probably break my neck with three of his fingers.
A slow, dark chuckle rumbled from him. “Is that so?” he murmured, eyes glinting with amusement. “Move faster, or the pain in your feet will seem like a blessing.”
I followed his command, forcing my aching feet to keep pace. At last, we reached an office, and the moment he opened the door, a wave of dread washed over me. I had to be in a horror movie.
A mirror copy of him sat at a desk, the same scowl etched on his face. This man had a twin.
“What took you so long, Felix?” The twin asked.
Felix. Logically, the man had a name, but the aura he carried made it feel almost irrelevant. He was scary and powerful, the kind of presence that made the room shrink around him and left my pulse racing without any effort on his part.
“I was showing Gianni and Stefano how to do their jobs properly.” He put his hand on my shoulder and forced me down into a chair. “The two of them can’t even collect on time.”
“Of course not,” the twin rubbed between his eyebrows.
“I was going to take the debtor as payment. But he’s a drunk; his organs are no good. Fortunately for me,” he said, motioning my way, “he offered up his daughter.”
He spoke about me as if I weren’t even there. My jaw tightened, and I clenched my fists at my sides, forcing myself to sit still. Anger boiled beneath the surface, but I carefully shaped my face into neutrality, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing me flinch.
But he could tell. He looked at me out of the corner of my eyes and I saw him smirk.
“So you’re just going to send her?” the twin asked, his voice low but edged with tension. There was a flicker of something in his eyes. I could have been imagining it, but I swear I saw concern. “Don’t do it, Felix. She’s not the debtor.”
So his twin wasn’t a heartless monster like Felix. I silently begged the universe to send me with him, because even though I was certain my fate would still be miserable, at least it wouldn’t involve being split open on an operating table.
“You think I’m that much of a monster, Rocco?” Felix said.
I silently noted the twin’s name—Rocco. He didn’t respond, but the look on his face said more than words ever could.
“I’m going to have her work at the club. We’ve been down a few girls after some incidents,” Felix continued, his tone cold and deliberate.
I thought my heart rate was already at its limit, but it spiked even higher. What kind of club was this? And what kind of incidents had left the other girls unable to work?
Rocco’s eyes swept over me, assessing, calculating, making me feel exposed under his gaze. “She doesn’t look like she’s worked a day in her life,” he said, his tone measured.
“I… I do,” I said quickly, a little defensively. “I work six days a week.”
Felix laughed, a low, dark sound that made my stomach twist. “It’s not that type of work, sweetheart.”
My stomach twisted. I knew what he meant.
“You’re going to my strip club,” he said, looking at me directly. “And if the client wants extras… well, I’ll leave that up to you.”
“Please,” I pleaded to him, for the second time that night. “There has to be something else you need me for. Anything.”
“Tell me,” Felix murmured, voice soft, the edges of his words carrying a wry humor. “What do you think you could possibly offer me?”
“I…”
I couldn’t offer him anything. I was just a waitress at a shitty restaurant, living in a shitty part of town, with a shitty life. Nothing about me could be of use to him.
Rocco, the somewhat benevolent twin, stepped in. “Are you sure you don’t need help with anything else? Cleaning out bloodstains from the back of your vans?”
My face went pale. These men were far more dangerous, far more twisted, than I could have ever imagined. And I was caught in their web of power and violence, completely at their mercy.
Felix looked at me, his gaze lingering with an intensity that made my pulse spike. Every dark, calculating glance seemed to crawl under my skin, teasing and testing me in ways I couldn’t fully understand.
“Well… I do need a maid,” he said.
A maid was infinitely better than getting my organs ripped out or becoming a stripper. “I’ll do it!”
Rocco gave a slight nod. “That should work,” he said simply, his voice calm and measured.
But the way Felix smirked at me sent a shiver down my spine. Was this truly mercy? Or just another twist in whatever dangerous game he was playing?
“Let’s get you to your new job, shall we?” Felix said, pulling me up from the chair.
The ride was tense and silent, the city lights casting fleeting shadows across Felix’s sharp features.
After what felt like an eternity, we turned onto a quieter street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
I was far too poor to be in this zip code.
I looked down at my shoeless feet and thrifted clothes and cringed, praying I wouldn’t be seen by anyone else in the cover of night.
Felix stopped in front of an old brownstone.
Except this one didn’t quite fit in with the others on the street.
The front was more worn, the windows streaked with grime, and the faded paint peeled in long, curling strips.
It looked like it had been forgotten by time, yet somehow it still demanded attention.
Helping me out of the passenger side door, he looped my arm in his as if we were lovers. The truth was far less romantic. He wanted to make sure I didn’t run. Not that I could have gone far; my feet ached and bled, making each step a reminder of how trapped I really was.
Felix unlocked the door and we stepped into the pitch-black building.
I couldn’t make out the full extent of the mess, but I knew it wasn’t clean.
Shadows clung to piles of clutter, furniture stacked haphazardly, and the faint smell of mildew hung in the air.
But, even it its messy state, I figured it couldn’t be any worse than the mess I had lived in.
The two of us stood there in the dark, the silence pressing in on me. It was overwhelmingly uncomfortable.
“Um… are you going to turn on the light?” I asked, nervously tapping my fingers together. My voice sounded small, even to my own ears.
“The electricity isn’t on,” he said simply, as if it were the most mundane thing in the world.
“The electricity isn’t on?” I repeated, my blood pressure spiking. “How do you expect me to clean this place?”
“I guess you better get started in the morning,” he replied, almost casually, leaving me to stew in the dim shadows.
I heard his boots crunch softly against the debris-strewn floor as he made his way toward the door in the darkness, each step deliberate and echoing through the empty space.
“By the way,” he called out. “You’re locked in from the outside. There’s no escaping.”
“But… what if there’s a fire?” I asked incredulously.
“I guess you’ll have to hope the fire department gets here on time.”
The sound of a key turning echoed through the room, and before I could react, the door slammed shut behind him with a deafening bang. The darkness pressed in, and I was left alone, my pulse hammering in my ears.
“Fuck you, Felix!” I screamed into the void of the dark house, my voice bouncing off the walls and swallowing me in its emptiness.