Chapter 45
Hours or minutes later—who’s to say—the metallic click of the lock comes first followed by the slow drag of heavy shoes across concrete. The sound slices through the room, and every woman reacts at once. A collective stillness, a shared inhale that seems to pull all the air out of our lungs.
I press myself further into the wall, cold seeping through my thin shirt, muscles tightening on instinct. Every sense sharpens, every nerve ending screaming ready. My eyes never leave the door.
A small hatch at the bottom slides open with a practised clink.
The noise feels louder than it should, obscene in the silence that follows.
A tray of food is shoved through, if you can even call it that.
Thin slices of bread, dry and curling at the edges, green fuzz creeping along the crust. Half a bottle of water for each of us.
It hits the floor with a dull, uncaring thump.
My stomach twists hard, hunger clawing viciously, but I swallow it down. Hunger is a weakness here. So is gratitude.
The hatch slams shut, the lock clicks again and the footsteps retreat.
Silence settles back over us, thick and suffocating, but it’s different now. Charged, and yet no one moves. It’s like they’ve all learned that safety comes in pauses, in watching, in waiting to see what happens next.
My gaze drifts to the woman with the scar.
The jagged scar running from her eyebrow to her temple should make her look intimidating. Instead, when she looks around at the other girls, her expression softens. She offers a small smile, a single nod.
That’s all it takes for the girls to move. Slowly, carefully. No scrambling, no desperation. They follow her lead, collecting food with the quiet obedience of people who know panic is punished.
I edge closer, keeping my movements small, and cautious. “Are you alright?” I whisper, pitching my voice low enough that it barely carries.
She glances at me, the corner of her mouth lifting in something that almost resembles a smirk. “As alright as you can be in a place like this,” she murmurs. Her voice is rough, worn thin by time, but there’s steel underneath it. “I’m Alice.”
“Alice,” I repeat softly, anchoring it in my mind. Names matter, and saying them out loud feels like defiance in a place designed to erase us. My shoulders loosen a fraction.
She studies me then, one sharp, assessing sweep from the top of my head down to my bare feet. “And you are?”
“Lily.” I hesitate, then add quietly, “Do you know anything about them? The people running this?”
Her jaw tightens. She leans back against the wall, eyes narrowing, not at me, but at the room itself, as though weighing how much truth it can hold without cracking.
“Not much that stays useful,” she says eventually. “They rotate guards, change locations, switch rules just enough to keep you off balance.” Her gaze drifts, lingering on each girl in turn. “But the bones of it never change.”
A chill skates down my spine.
“How long have you been here?” I ask carefully.
She exhales through her nose, slow and measured. “Long enough to stop counting.” She pauses, then, quieter, “Ten years, give or take.”
The words hit like a physical blow. Ten years. My chest tightens, breath snagging painfully at the idea of being stuck here for even a fraction of that.
“But you’re still…” I trail off, struggling to find the right words. “Here.”
Her mouth curves, humourless. “Not always this room, not always this building.”
I wait, dread settling heavy in my gut.
“They take you out,” she continues, voice steady. “Dress you up, give you a new name, tell you you’re lucky.” Her fingers curl against her thigh. “Sometimes you are. Sometimes you’re not.”
The air feels denser, harder to breathe.
“And then?” I whisper.
“And then,” she says, eyes snapping back to mine, sharp with understanding, “they get tired of trying to break what won’t bend. Send you back. Different place, same rules, new girls who don’t know what’s coming.”
Her gaze flicks to the girl with the braid. To the trembling hands reaching for bottles of water. To faces far too young.
The truth lands brutally.
She hasn’t survived ten years in one cell.
She’s been circulated. Sold, used, and returned. Over and over and over again.
And somehow—somehow—she’s still here.
“And if you make yourself useful,” Alice goes on quietly, “or interesting… or a favourite”—her mouth tightens—“they decide you’re worth keeping.”
The words hang between us, heavy and cruel but I don’t look away or soften my voice with pity.
“That doesn’t make you weak,” I start.
Her eyes snap to mine, startled.
“It makes you dangerous,” I continue, low and certain. “You learned how to survive. And you learned how to protect others while doing it. That’s not broken, that’s strength most people will never have.”
For a long moment, she says nothing. Then she exhales—slow and shaky—like she’s been holding that breath for years.
“Careful,” she scolds, even as she lets out a soft laugh, more shocked than amused. “Thinking like that gets girls killed down here.”
“Only if they stop fighting,” I reply. “I don’t plan to.”
Her mouth curves, just barely. Not quite a smile, but close enough.
“Alright then,” she says after a beat. “If we’re doing this together, you listen when I tell you when to bend.”
“And you listen when I tell you when to push.”
Something like an agreement settles between us at that—quiet, solid. And for the first time since I woke up in this place, the crushing weight of being alone eases. Just a little.
Enough to breathe.
The next time the door opens, it isn’t for food.
There’s no clatter of a tray, no brief mercy of sustenance. Instead, the lock grinds back with intent, slow and deliberate, and the door swings wide enough to let four guards spill in.
They fan out in a loose V formation, boots striking concrete in grim unison. The room reacts instantly, every woman moving as far away as she can, breath caught, bodies tightening as one. Prey recognising the shape of a predator.
I don’t need to be told someone important is coming.
I feel it.
The air shifts, heavy with authority and something far too refined for this place. A sharp edge of expensive cologne cuts through the damp rot of the room, clean and intrusive, like a lie sprayed over decay.
Then I see him.
Don Antonio Salvatore.
His suit is immaculate, perfectly tailored, not a crease out of place. He looks as though he’s stepped out of a boardroom rather than into a cell of stolen women. His expression is bored, almost mildly inconvenienced, until his gaze finds me.
And suddenly those icy eyes don’t just look. They linger in a way that has the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
“Lily Davis,” he croons smoothly, his voice wrapping around each syllable like silk. “Or should I say… Lily Murphy?” His lips curve faintly. “I never could keep up with your mother’s stories.”
My body locks up, pulse roaring in my ears, my heart hammering so hard it feels like it might crack my ribs from the inside.
“You,” I spit, venom coating that one word.
“Me,” he echoes lightly, amused. “Didn’t expect to see me here, did you? Most people don’t. Not until it’s far too late.”
My hands curl at my sides, nails biting into skin. “What is this?” I force out. “Why am I here?”
He steps closer, unhurried, hands clasped behind his back like a lecturer pacing before his students. The guards don’t move. They don’t need to.
“Because, my dear,” he says softly, “you were always meant to be.” His gaze drifts over the room, dismissive. “Poetic, really. The daughter of the woman who helped build my empire, standing in the ruins of her own mother’s legacy.”
My stomach drops, nausea surging fast and violently.
“Jen worked for you,” I say, the words scraping my throat raw.
“Oh, tesoro.” He laughs quietly, the sound low and deeply wrong. “She adored me. Worshipped me, even.” His smile sharpens. “Benedict too, in his own cowardly way. They believed they could earn my favour by offering you up when the time came.”
The world narrows, sound dulling around the edges.
“Beautiful,” he continues calmly. “Marketable. Untouched. You were their trump card.” A calculated pause. “Until Helen interfered, of course and ruined everything.”
Each word lands like a blow.
Black creeps into my vision, but I hold myself upright through sheer spite. I will not give him the satisfaction of seeing me break.
“You’re lying,” I whisper.
He crouches in front of me, bringing us eye to eye. His blue gaze is glacial, empty.
“You really think your mother wouldn’t have sold you?” he scoffs. “Cast off the dead weight slowing her down?” He exhales softly, almost indulgent. “Benedict was wavering. Guilt does that to weak men.” His smile turns knowing. “But Jennifer? She never hesitated.”
Something inside me screams.
I want to tear him apart with my bare hands. I want to scream until my throat shreds, until the walls crack and someone—anyone—comes.
Instead, I picture a bullet hole in the centre of his forehead and draw a slow, measured breath.
“You think you’ve won,” I say quietly. “But you’ve made the same mistake every man like you makes.”
His brow lifts, amusement flickering across his face. “Oh? And what would that be?”
“You underestimated me.”
For a moment, he simply studies me. Then he chuckles, rising smoothly to his feet. “Just like your mother,” he says lightly. “She said something very similar, right before she learned her place.”
He turns away, leaving me with a mountain of questions and a rage burning its way through my sanity.
The door slams behind him with a final, echoing crack that reverberates through my skull long after he’s gone.
The room seems to exhale in shaky fragments as the girls peel themselves away from the walls, huddling together.
The girl with the braid reaches for me, fingers trembling as they press into my arm. “Don’t talk next time,” she hisses, fear soaking every syllable. “Don’t make him look at you again.”
I don’t answer.
Because it’s already too late.
He’s looked at me.
And now I’m going to make sure my face is the last thing he ever sees.