Chapter 27 Neve
Neve
The men grabbed me the second I was shoved offstage.
Hands clamped down on me. There were too many of them, and they were too strong for me to overcome. One gripped my arm so hard my vision flashed white. Another shoved my head forward, and my mask flew off my face. I stumbled as they pushed me forward, violent hands embracing me.
I twisted, shoved, wrenched my body in every direction—anything to slow them down, anything to make it harder for them. But they didn’t budge. They moved me as though I were dead weight, fast and efficient, and instinctively I knew they’d done this a hundred times before.
One of them hissed when I kicked back and caught him in the shin.
“Bitch,” he snarled, tightening his grip until my shoulder screamed.
I spat at his feet and kept fighting anyway. I refused to make this easy on them.
But my body was a knot of pain, and my energy was draining quickly.
The bruises were burning, ribs aching, and my head pounding from days without proper food or sleep.
Every inch of me hurt. Every breath was a reminder that they were winning, dragging me deeper into whatever hell was waiting for me next.
My mind was a mess of noise. An auction. I’d been in an auction.
I tried to breathe, but my chest wouldn’t cooperate; it felt too small, too tight, like my lungs couldn’t hold the terror or the relief or the grief sitting inside me.
Someone had bought me.
Someone had paid a ridiculous amount of money to own me.
And I didn’t know whether to be grateful or sick.
Whether being sold meant I would live… or simply die a slower death.
Whether the person who bought me was a savior or another monster with deeper pockets.
Either way, I was still a commodity. A number with a price tag.
And as they dragged me down the hallway, my feet barely touching the floor, all I could taste was the bitter truth: I was nowhere near free.
I was shoved into a small room behind the curtains, stumbling on my sore feet. The door slammed. The lock clicked. Silence followed, thick and absolute as I was left alone.
A single bulb hung from the ceiling, humming faintly like it might die at any moment. It threw a washed-out cone of light over a metal chair and a crate shoved in the corner.
My pulse wouldn’t settle. It punched against my ribs, frantic, uneven. My hands trembled uncontrollably until I forced them into fists, squeezing hard enough that my nails carved half-moons into my palms.
An itchiness crawled beneath my skin, like a thousand insects let loose. I rubbed my arms, like I could chase the feeling away, but it only clung harder.
I stood dead center in the room, breathing fast, thinking, calculating. There were no windows in this room with the stale air. No vents big enough for me to crawl through. No loose pipes that I could turn into a weapon.
This wasn’t a room. It was a cage. And I was boxed in.
Then came the crack of gunshots, so close it vibrated the bulb above my head.
I froze in place, lungs locking.
There were more shots before shouting erupted—deep voices, too many to count. Something heavy banged into a wall. Glass shattered. A woman screamed and then fell silent.
Chaos rushed in from every direction.
I pressed myself to the door, straining to catch anything that would tell me what was coming. Footsteps pounded the hallway. Men shouted in languages I only half recognized. Something metal scraped violently across concrete.
My throat tightened.
I smelled smoke.
It wasn’t the faint kind from a cigarette or someone burning incense. The smell was thick. Acrid. Bitter enough to scrape the back of my throat on the first inhale.
Fire.
My stomach dropped, a cold plunge that stole every bit of strength from my legs. Heat began to creep through the cracks around the door, crawling across the floor like a living, burning thing. It was small at first… then grew slowly.
Every instinct screamed the obvious truth at me, that this place was burning down. And I was locked inside it.
Maybe this was it. Maybe this was where everything finally caught up to me.
I had survived a massacre. I had survived that alley. I had survived being dragged from my home like an animal.
But dying in a windowless room, during someone else’s war, without even knowing whose bullets were flying? It felt cruel. Random. Wrong in ways I couldn’t articulate. It spelled defeat.
I sank to my knees because standing suddenly felt impossible. My palms flattened against the cold floor, grounding me, holding me together by a thread. My breath shuddered out, shaky and uneven.
I hadn’t prayed in years. Not since my family home went silent and a dark cloud fell over my life. Even at the convent, I would kneel but silence was my best friend.
But now… I felt this was something I had to do. I started to whisper, my words the only sound in this chamber.
“For peace…”
My voice broke on the word, embarrassingly fragile.
“For forgiveness.”
For killing a man. And not feeling guilty about it. For maybe feeling too alive when I did it.
“For whatever comes next.”
Heat pushed harder at the door. The wood popped, expanding, groaning under pressure. Smoke leaked through the hinges, thin tendrils that stung my eyes and clawed down my lungs.
I lowered my head, though not in surrender, but because the weight of everything I’d shoved down for years finally pressed too heavy to hold on my fragile shoulders.
A sob threatened. I swallowed it.
If this was my last moment… I wanted to go quietly. I wanted complete and utter silence. Peace. Just for a second.
A breath. A heartbeat. I wanted a flicker of sunlight over the convent gardens… Petunias and rosemary, Giuseppe humming under his breath, the world impossibly gentle for once. A memory I didn’t know I still held onto.
I was still on my knees when the door exploded inward.
The blast rattled the floor, sent splinters slicing through the air. I jerked back, palms scraping across the dirty tiles, breath strangled in my throat as the frame groaned under the force.
The big Russian stood in the doorway, before he stepped forward, crowding the tiny room, and clamped a hand around my arm. His fingers dug in deep, bruising on impact, and he yanked me upright so hard that my shoulder ripped with pain.
“Move,” he bit out, the accent heavy, unforgiving.
I jerked back instinctively, clawing at his wrist, twisting the way Giuseppe had taught me, but it was useless. His grip was iron. Final.
He dragged me toward the door.
Gunfire erupted again, and this time it was louder, nearer. The walls vibrated as it got closer. Something crashed out in the hallway. Smoke thickened, curling through the doorframe, stinging my eyes.
The Russian didn’t even flinch.
He hauled me through the doorway like I weighed nothing, even as I dug my feet into the ground. Panic surged up my throat, metallic and choking. My legs wouldn’t obey my brain as they buckled. My breath came in short, broken bursts.
The corridor was a chaotic mess of shadows and firelight, people shouting in languages I didn’t know. A man sprinted past us, bleeding from the face. Someone screamed. Something metal skittered across the floor.
I stumbled, tried to brace myself, but he dragged me harder. I gasped, choked, fighting the dizziness clawing at my vision as he pulled me toward a fate I couldn’t name.
And for one terrifying heartbeat, I realized that the fire behind me wasn’t the worst way to die tonight.