CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
I thought I knew what to expect. I’d played every version of it in my head, but nothing prepares you for the moment a nightmare becomes real.
Will had begged me not to go, maybe I should have listened.
I hadn’t wanted to go either. But it wasn’t about want.
Licia was in there. And I couldn’t keep living, couldn’t breathe, knowing she was trapped in that place.
She would’ve done the same for me, I knew that.
And it wasn’t about being brave. It was about not turning away.
I didn’t know who I’d find. What Licia had become in the time she’d been caged and broken and forgotten.
Maybe she wouldn’t even recognize me. Maybe she’d hate me for taking so long.
But then, maybe I wouldn’t recognize her either.
I’d caught my own reflection in a gold-framed mirror at the hotel.
I hadn’t looked long. Couldn’t. The girl staring back was a stranger.
Would Licia look at me and see a stranger, too?
I should’ve asked Kalani what she looked like now, her face, her hair, her posture. To have something to hold onto. But I hadn’t. And it was too late.
The mansion rose before us like it had been carved dusk itself, a shadow with glowing windows, it stood tall behind an iron gate, surrounded by manicured hedges and a wall of smooth stone topped with spikes.
A gilded cage. Beautiful. The kind of beauty meant to distract you, to lure you in. I could hear the ocean behind it, just barely, a slow, hollow crash against the cliffs.
Aran’s arm was linked with mine, as if we were just two friends out for the night.
But there was nothing casual about it. We were walking straight into Hel.
And he’d spent days preparing, drinking with those men, laughing at their jokes, learning how everything worked, how a man could “pay” his way in, and how easy it was to settle a debt.
He learned what he needed to become the kind of man who could.
And tonight, that man was him.
It was the only way in.
“Are you sure about this?” Aran whispered. I didn’t answer. I was too focused. Two guards stood by the gate, bored but alert. “There’s no turning back,” he murmured.
I’d already told myself that a thousand times.
No turning back.
I gave a small nod and slipped into the act. I swayed on my feet, feigning drunkenness, and grabbed his arm to steady myself. Aran caught me just as we’d practiced. wanted to do everything I could to make them underestimate me, although I’m not sure anyone was paying attention.
“Good evening, sir,” One of the guards said as we ascended the stairs to the gate. “Invitation?”
As Aran pulled his card up, the one with the signature vouching for him, I leaned into one of the guards, clutching his shirt with just the right amount of chaos. He just smirked.
“And ladies are always welcome,” he said with a knowing look.
Disgusting.
The gentlemen’s club. Nothing gentle about those men; it needed a new name.
Hel, was way more fitting, even though the garden and the paved stone path leading to the main entrance were lovely.
Trimmed trees. Neatly arranged flowers. I was sure it had been a home once.
It couldn’t always have been Hel… could it?
To my surprise, it was a woman who opened the front doors. I hadn’t expected them all to be shackled in a basement, but still, being met with a warm smile from another woman, knowing what I was walking into, felt like true evil. The last layer of the mousetrap: a false sense of safety.
Her hair was chestnut brown, her lifeless eyes the same color, and she wore a smile that seemed plastered on.
“VIP?” she asked, and Aran nodded.
That was the code for ’is this girl here to be betrayed?’ I suppose.
Behind her shadows stretched across velvet chairs and polished tables in an empty foyer. Laughter and murmurs hummed from somewhere further into the building.
“Right this way,” she said, but she didn’t lead us toward the sound.
Instead, we followed her down a long, narrow corridor, each step heavier than the last. At the end of the hall, she opened a door and motioned us inside.
The room was small, suffocating. No windows, just bare walls and an uneven stone floor.
A single candle guttered in the corner, its light throwing jagged shadows over everything.
Three men sat waiting. One slouched on a battered red sofa, a long beard tangled down his chest, eyes sharp beneath heavy brows. Another leaned against the wall with a pistol in his belt. The third had a fresh black eye, swollen and angry, his jaw clenched as he sized us up.
Aran stepped forward.
“I’m here to settle a debt.”
The words should’ve been easy to dismiss, just part of the act, but hearing them aloud, in that place, in his voice, hit something ugly and deep inside me. For a second I imagined what it would have felt like if he meant it, how it had felt for all the other girls once dragged into that room.
The man with the black eye stepped forward, his hand clamping down around my arm, dragging me away.
“Wait—what are you doing?” I yelped, pitching my voice high and thick with disbelief. “Let me go!”
I thrashed against him, twisting, struggling hard enough that it looked real, it certainly felt like it.
“I’m sorry,” Aran said, his voice cold and detached.
And the men laughed, they were eating it up. I didn’t make it easy for the man who grabbed me though. I screamed, wrenching back hard enough to almost rip my arm free.
“Let me go!” I kicked out, my heel smashing into the man’s shin. He stumbled with a grunt. I tore loose and spun to face Aran.
“You bastard,” I spat, my voice shaking with rage that wasn’t fake anymore, not completely.
Then I slapped him, hard. The crack echoed against the stone walls as his head snapped sideways.
For a heartbeat his eyes flickered, as if he’d forgotten our plan, what we were doing.
Then his hand shot out and struck me back across the face.
Pain burst white-hot across my cheek, I stumbled, and let myself fall.
My body hit the stone floor with a sick crack, air punched from my lungs.
I’d asked for it, for him to commit to the act, to make it believable. But that didn’t make it hurt less.
“Get her up,” one of the men barked. They hauled me upright, their rough fingers digging into my arms.
“Stop! Please!” I cried out as the men yanked at my clothes.
Fabric ripped as fingers peeled the dress from my body, cool air sliding over my exposed skin.
I struggled, not enough to break free, but enough to sell the fear, enough to make it look real.
And piece by piece, they stripped me bare.
Kalani had warned me about that part, but no warning can prepare you for the moment your body stops feeling like yours.
“Arms down,” the man with the pistol snapped.
Everything inside me screamed to cover myself, to hide, but I forced my arms down at my sides.
My instincts begged for me to end it, to burn them all, to unleash the monster curled up inside me.
But I wasn’t Kera anymore. I was no one.
Just Aran’s drunken friend, sold to settle his debt.
I focused on breathing. In. Out. In and out.
I thought of Will. About the room by the ocean, and the night before.
I reached for Aran. “Please,” I sobbed. “Don’t leave me here.”
My body shook with desperate, choking sobs that wouldn’t stop coming. The man with black eye grabbed a fistful of my hair, jerking my head back.
“Stay still, girl,” he growled into my ear, as I felt cold steel kiss my skin.
The blade dragged lazily across my throat, featherlight but threatening.
And every muscle in my body locked tight, waiting for pain that didn’t come.
If only he knew that I could kill him without so much as lifting a finger.
That I could make him crawl into the corner and beg for his life.
No.
I wasn’t there as Kera. I had to pull the fire back, but gods, all I wanted was to wipe the smirk off his face.
“Fifty,” the man with the beard said.
“She’s worth at least seventy,” Aran replied, smooth, like he was bartering for cattle. “She’s untouched.”
A lie, but I stayed silent and let them believe it.
“Sixty. Final offer,” the man said and tossed a bag of coin to Aran. “Don’t waste it all tonight,” the man with the black eye said as Aran turned to leave. “Unless you have another friend for us tomorrow.”
The man with the beard, the largest of them, grabbed me by the waist, and threw me over his shoulder.
He shifted me higher and started walking, not through the lounge, but through the back halls.
The wallpaper was cracked and peeling, and carpets stained.
Every step jostled me on his shoulder, making my head swim and my stomach heave, but I forced myself to stay alert, even through the blur.
Right. Left. Right again. I counted every turn, every uneven edge of the carpet, and every crooked frame. Not because I might need to remember it, because I would. I’d have to run, and when I did, I’d need the way out already mapped in my mind.
A staircase appeared out of the dimness, wide and sagging under years of weight.
He carried me up without slowing, the chandelier above a swinging blur of dusty crystals.
Another hall. Another turn. It made my head spin, made my legs feel weak even before they touched the floor.
But I kept counting. Kept forcing the map into my memory.
Finally, he stopped, the beast of a man shoved open a door and tossed me inside.
“You know the drill. Take care of the new girl,” he grunted before disappearing back into the hall, slamming the door shut.
I barely had time to catch my balance before a girl approached.
She had tired eyes, hollow cheeks, and wore a pink silk robe cinched tight around her bony frame, like it was the only armor she had left.
The room looked eerily similar to the girls’ quarters at the theatre.
Beds lined the walls in two straight rows, facing each other.
And the far side of the room looked like a dressing area, with mirrors above vanities, stools tucked under them, powders and lipsticks scattered across the surfaces.
A rack of lingerie stood in the corner, satin and lace in pale pinks and reds. At least there were no chains or cages.
“Pretty…” she murmured as she approached me. “Let’s clean you up.”
I didn’t resist when the girls guided me to a small bathing chamber tucked off to the side.
If it had been anywhere else, it might have felt like a luxury.
The bathwater was warm, rich with the scent of crushed roses.
Steam curled against the cracked tiles, softening the sharp edges of the world.
For a moment, I almost let myself pretend.
Pretend I was at home, safe, loved, stepping into a bath drawn just for me.
But the illusion cracked as fast as it came.
When I tried to help, lifting an arm or a hand, they smacked it away.
“Sorry,” one of the girls said. “It has to be proper.”
I sat numb while they scrubbed me like a small child. I let them scrub the last pieces of dignity from my skin, and afterward they dressed me in a pink silk robe, tying it tight at my waist, rolled my hair into stiff coils, painting my nails blood red.