CHAPTER FORTY TWO
I am back in my room. The silk robe crumpled on the floor like a memory I want to burn. I cross to the dresser and grab an oversized tee—plain cotton, forgettable. A poor girl’s armor. My hands are clenched in my lap as I sit on the edge of the bed, waiting.
Waiting for him to summon me like a ghost that only lived when called.
I stare at the door.
I thought maybe I’d cry. Or scream. Or fall apart.
But I don’t .
I just wait.
Until the world outside shatters.
Shouts. Tires screeching. Boots against gravel. I bolt upright and run to the window, heart climbing into my throat.
Three—no, four—blacked-out SUVs tear into the driveway, stopping hard enough to send dust and gravel spraying. Doors fly open. Men in tactical gear flood out, weapons drawn, voices barking orders through radios and clenched jaws.
The sight punches the air from my lungs.
Because I’ve seen this before.
The black vans. The chaos. The flood of bodies moving like a machine.
I am pulled back, violently, into memory. That dark, cold room. The stench of blood and bleach. The feel of a girl’s fingers interlacing through mine asking if we will die in there.
And then—Captain Shoomaker. Pulling me out. Whispering that it was over. That I was free.
But I never was.
Because even now, I am still trapped in the walls of someone else’s choosing. Still waiting to be owned.
But the worst part, it is my own fault.
A sound behind me makes me jump.
The bedroom door slams open so hard it ricochets off the wall. My breath catches.
“Starling. My room. Now.”
The Warden’s voice is a thunderclap—sharp and commanding. But it isn’t the words that make my blood run cold.
It is the tone.
He doesn’t sound like Montgomery. There’s something more authoritative in it, but also a thread of confusion—like my name on his tongue is poison.
“Montgomery,” I breathe. Not a question. Not defiance. Just the smallest, rawest piece of recognition. Of pleading.
He storms forward, eyes cold, gloved hand catching my chin before I can move.
I don’t remember the gloves from earlier. He hadn't been wearing them when he brushed my shoulder, when he touched me like I was his and no one else's.
These gloves aren’t for elegance.
They are for control.
“What did you call me?” He growls, voice laced with something I couldn’t name—rage, fear, or both.
I don’t answer. Can’t.
He grips my chin harder. “Why are you defying me?”
“I’m not,” I whisper, but it doesn’t matter.
“My room. Now.”
And then he shoves me.
Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to remind me where the lines are drawn.
Hard enough to tell me they are no longer blurred.
My feet stumble, but I catch myself before I hit the frame. I don’t look back at him. I don’t want to see the mask he’s chosen to wear today.
I step into the hall as orders are barked from downstairs.
And as I walk, heart pounding, the truth settles like lead in my chest.
Something is wrong.
Terribly wrong.
This is not Montgomery. This is the Warden. If he is here, where is Montgomery and what is going on downstairs?
My chest tightens.
If he is here—if the Warden is walking these halls with the same face as Montgomery—then where is the man I’d known?
Where is the man who hesitated before touching me?
Where is Montgomery?
And what the hell is going on downstairs?
I reach the landing and hear the static hum of radios, the mechanical click of safeties being flipped off.
The uniforms below aren’t his usual guards.
They aren’t auction buyers or syndicate lapdogs.
They are military.
Real. Organized. Armed for something more than just intimidation.
And not just any kind of raid—this is federal. Bigger than the Warden.
I duck back from the stairwell, heart pounding.
My legs move without permission, turning down a hall towards the Warden’s bedroom but he quickly yanks me into an unused bedroom and slams the door.
I step in and my world comes to a halt.
On the wall across the doorway hang photos. Photos of my past.
Hirsh.
Tomas.
The lady who bathed me before every special night with Hirsh.
The man with the scar on his neck who only bought brunettes.
And at the center—
Me.
Not the girl I chose to be.
But Starling.
The girl I was.
Pinned to the wall like I was part of the plan from the beginning.
I move closer, stomach coiled so tight I thinkI might scream.
A file lays open on a table beneath the photos. Tabbed in red.
STARLING PIERCE.
STATUS: EXTRACT ASSET
I don’t mean to touch it. But I do. My fingers are already flipping through pages before I can stop them.
Photos. Profiles. Operation notes.
And then—
Subject retains high-value information on trafficking operations originating from the Hirsh Compound, including: buyer lists, aliases of buyers, sales dates and possible contacts.
Control the subject and extract intelligence using coercive or psychological methods deemed ethically permissible under Directive 8.
Due to mental conditioning and loyalty confusion, subject is not to be informed of operative identities or agency involvement until Phase 3 is complete.
The words punch a hole through my chest.
This wasn’t some random miracle. I hadn’t been rescued. I hadn’t survived.
I had been recycled. Reinvented. Used.
“You were never supposed to see that.”
The voice behind me freezes my spine.
I turn, slowly, fists clenched at my sides.
He stands in the doorway, dressed in the sleek black uniform I have come to associate with control, cruelty, and silence.
The Warden’s uniform.
But the mask—
The mask is gone.
It dangles from his fingers like a shed skin, distressed and blank, still holding the echo of authority he no longer needs to hide behind.
Captain Garrett Shoomaker.
Not a ghost. Not a double.
My mouth goes dry.
"You were never supposed to see that," he says, stepping forward.
“You were the one who bought me,” I say, voice low and hollow. “Brought me back into all this?”
“No,” he says quickly, eyes dark with something that looks too much like regret. “I would never.”
He takes a breath.
“I got your email. Somehow it landed in the hands of the Organized Crime & Covert Operations Bureau. They took over. Said if I wanted in, I had to follow protocol.”
I stare at him, barely hearing the words.
Protocol.
That was what they called it. Not rescue. Not mercy. Not choice.
Just another chain, wrapped in government tape and stamped with an official seal.
My knees give out before I even realize I am falling. The floor meets me hard—cold concrete against bare skin—but I don’t feel it. Can’t feel anything except the hollowness caving in behind my ribs.
He moves to catch me, but I flinch.
“Don’t,” I whisper, curling in on myself. My arms wrap around my middle like I can hold all the broken pieces together. “You were supposed to get me out. Not bring me back.”
“I didn’t know—”
“You knew enough,” I hiss, voice cracking. “You knew what they’d do. What I’d have to become again just to survive it.”
Tears blur everything. My pulse roars in my ears. The walls press closer, tighter, like they recognize me—like they remember the girl who’d screamed here once before.
And I hate it.
I hate how familiar it all feels. Hate how I’d trusted him.
I hate that part of me still wants to.
He crouches beside me anyway. Doesn’t touch. Doesn’t speak. Just lets the silence bloom between us like a bruise.
I press my forehead to my knees, fists clenched tight.
I wasn’t free.
I never have been.
“You hold the information we couldn’t get anywhere else,” he says, arm wrapping around my shoulder, voice level like he is reciting something he's told himself a hundred times.
“Hirsh. His clients. The ones who disappeared when the compound went dark. You remembered names and faces no one else could. You were the key.”
“I never agreed to this,” I say, my voice razor-sharp.
“You did,” he replies, unflinching. “Maybe not in the way you think, but you said in the email you wanted to take them down—the ones who escaped justice. That was enough for their command.”
“They twisted my words.”
“I tried to keep you out,” he says, jaw flexing. “But they overruled me. You were stable. Strong. And they saw an opportunity.”
My stomach turns.
“They kept you in longer than I wanted,” he goes on. “Let the trauma resurface—let the past wake up just enough to bait the bastards who thought they were safe.”
The words leave me thin and shaking, still on the ground, breath coming too shallow to steady.
“You used me.”
“I needed you,” he says, no apology in his voice. “And so did every girl still waiting to be saved. You were the only one who could get us in the same room with them.”
My throat burns. I stare at him like I can claw the answers from his eyes.
“And Montgomery?” I hiss. “Was he just another part of it?”
“According to him, he was always part of it. OCCOB placed him as the embedded contact. They outrank me.” He pauses, jaw ticking. “He took over field surveillance. Monitored everything including every interaction.”
I open my mouth, but the air shifts again—charged.
Another figure steps into the room behind him.
Montgomery.
His shirt is stained with blood—someone else’s, I hope—and his expression is unreadable.
He looks at the file in my hands.
He doesn’t even flinch.
“You knew,” I whisper.
He gives a slow, heavy nod. “I didn’t want this. Not for you.”
“But you let it happen,” I shoot back, my voice sharper now. “You stayed. You always stayed. You never pulled me out. This…this is history repeating itself.”
“I stayed,” he says deliberately, “to protect you then. And I’m protecting you now.”
“Protecting me from what? From who? Because right now, it looks like the two of you are the very people I need protection from.”
“When I saw what the Warden was doing—,” Montgomery starts.
“The Warden? You mean Shoomaker?”
“No, Starling,” Shoomaker chimes in. “The real Warden—Marvin Underbridge—is behind bars. He was the one running this whole operation.”
“So you decided to step in and pretend, just like Montgomery did. But you did it in a cruel way. Punishing me—for what?”
Montgomery answers quietly, “We had to, Starling. We couldn’t risk blowing the whole operation.”
Shoomaker cuts in, voice cold, “After a while, he wanted to run. Take you with him. Put the entire operation at risk.”
“I didn’t care,” Montgomery growls, eyes blazing. “She was never just an asset to me.”
I slam the file shut, my heart breaking. “That’s all I was—to you.”
“To them,” Montgomery corrects, voice softer now. “But not to me.”
Shoomaker sighs, rubbing his face like this is an argument he is tired of having.
“You want the truth?” Montgomery says. “Fine. You were the key. And now we’re close. The last auction. Tomas was in on. We have him and now we have one more to catch. We have a shot to end it for good.”
I stare at them both—one who brought me into this, one who stayed too long.
And still—
Still, my chest pulls toward Montgomery. The way his voice softened when he looked at me. The way his eyes said I never wanted to do this to you.
Shoomaker scoots closer, voice low and steady, “We’re offering you a deal.”
I let out a bitter scoff.
“Protection,” he goes on. “Once the last buyer is behind bars, we pull you out. New identity, new country. You vanish. Clean slate. Forever.”
“And if I say no?”
Montgomery’s eyes lock onto mine.
He doesn’t plead. Doesn’t try to convince me.
He simply says, “You finish this. I’ll make sure you never have to be afraid again.”
I should hate him.
I should hate them both.
But instead, I swallow my tremble, lift my chin, and step past them.
“I’ll finish it,” I say, my voice gone cold. “But when this is done—don’t ever speak to me again. Either of you. Do you understand me?”
Shoomaker gives a single nod.
Montgomery follows silently behind me.
“Don’t…please, s—”
The word almost slips out—sir.
After everything, after all this time, I still didn’t know who was who.
Maybe part of me never would.