Chapter One
Talia
“Fuck,” Henry grunts, slamming into my pussy. He has me bent over his desk as he fucks me, and I am propped on my elbows for support. He tightens his grip on my waist and moans, quickening his pace.
When he nears his orgasm, he stops and pulls me off the desk so I can sink to my knees. I know the rules, so I open my mouth and let him thrust down my throat, fucking my mouth until he forces his come down my throat.
“Get up,” he grunts and turns back to sit at his desk.
Six months ago, my father traded me to Henry Frankford to clear his debt, but ultimately got his throat slit.
I spent weeks being passed around and brutalized until I stopped fighting.
Once they considered me broken, I was placed in a hotel room in downtown Chicago.
Rich men visit, get off, and leave. Everything goes through Henry; I’m just the come collector, I guess.
I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve been raped since that night in my childhood home. I was a virgin when Henry fucked me for the first time; now I’m just an expensive whore who earns Henry a lot of money.
I know that a simple visit with free rein costs fifty thousand dollars. A simple blowjob in Henry’s office or at a special event is ten grand. Henry, though, is the product tester. He samples every girl that he sells, but apparently he’s kept me around the longest.
Something about being willing without drugs.
Really, I’d just like not to die, but even that is contradictory.
I constantly beg Henry to just shoot me already, but he won’t—I’m worth too much alive.
I suppose being drug-free, young, and hot by societal standards means I’d make the perfect contract wife.
I know that I will eventually be sold to some billionaire who wants a wife but doesn’t want to do the work of finding someone willing, but I hate it. I hate it so fucking much that I am constantly finding ways to hurt myself to make myself less desirable.
I get up from the floor and drop my head.
I know better than to look him in the eyes.
“Can I do anything else for you, Master?” I ask softly.
I just want to go back to my room so I can be alone for a minute.
Henry owns this hotel and a string of others.
He mostly stays here because most of the girls he sells cycle through here.
“Go back to your room,” he says. “Oh, make sure you are presentable for dinner. You are having a public dinner with your buyer tonight.”
I look up at him, and he is leaning back in his chair, watching me. “B-Buyer?” I ask.
“Mhmm,” he muses. “Congratulations on the engagement, Ms. Slade. He paid over six million for your cunt, so do not disappoint him. You’ll have eyes on you at all times. Understood?”
“Yes, Master,” I whisper as tears burn my eyes. Henry waves me off, and I rush out of the room, desperate to be alone.
This hotel is immaculate. It’s the kind of place that guests pay thousands for a night of luxury, but it’s tainted by the exploitation of innocent souls.
Somewhere in this building, a girl is having her innocence ripped away by a predator with a hard cock and no morals.
She will beg, cry, and plead, but he will keep fucking her like she is an object, not a human.
That man will go back to his life, his family, and maybe even his kids, and pretend he didn’t destroy someone’s will to survive. And for what? Power? Money? An orgasm?
The thing is, I am not suicidal; I’m exhausted.
I don’t want to die, but I refuse to let myself remain a walking corpse.
They can buy me, rape me, beat me, and sell me to the highest bidder, but they do not get to choose how I die.
They do not get to force me into submission so deeply that I turn complicit.
Some may, but not me. Not when I have already survived so much. Too much.
When I get back to my room, I look around.
I see a gilded prison with high-thread-count sheets, expensive clothing, and a view people would die for.
I see the countless men fucking me on a bed that was never mine.
I see sleepless nights screaming into my pillow, begging God to make the pain stop already.
Begging for mercy that will never exist. Begging to turn back time and run a little faster.
If I hadn’t come home that day, maybe I could have escaped this fate.
If I pulled off the rose colored glasses and realized that my father was always the same monster that gave me up to try and save himself, maybe I wouldn’t be here.
Maybe… just maybe… I’d be someone other than me; I wouldn’t be here choosing death over survival. Survival shouldn’t be this painful.
I open the closet and pull back the row of dresses to find the rope I made from torn, braided sheets. It’s taken me a while to construct, so no one grew suspicious of missing sheets, but it’s done. This is how I set myself free.
I’ve thought this through, and I’ve decided that hanging myself is the easiest way. I’ve tried to figure out how to open the windows, but it’s simply impossible without breaking the glass.
I stand on the bed and attach the noose to the chandelier. I’ve tested my body weight on this several times, so I know it will hold me. Once it is secure, I slip the fabric over my head and close my eyes.
This is it. This is my final moment as a captive. Should I savor it? Should I thank God I have survived this long? Should I curse him for not saving me? Of course, he saved me. He gave me free will, and I am using the last shred of it to die.
I step off the end of the bed, and the fabric immediately tightens around my throat.
I instinctively thrash and claw at my throat, my brain trying to let me breathe again, but it’s just a facade.
An illusion of fighting for survival, but I’ve been there, and I’ve done that.
It’s useless. Hopeless. I chose this. I want this.
As my body weakens and the world starts to fade away, I finally know what peace feels like.