CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
The next night, the exhibition room smells different.
Less like power.
More like a warning.
I am kneeling again, head bowed, arms relaxed in my lap. A darker negligee tonight—black lace, sheer and delicate, as if shadows have been sewn together and told to drape my body like a secret. I’m not cold this time.
I am wired.
Tuned too tightly for comfort.
Shoomaker stands behind me. Masked. Silent. Watching.
I don’t know what version of him I’ll get tonight—the cold Warden or the one who blocked a man’s hand from my skin like it was a sacred thing. Maybe both. Probably both.
The door creaks open.
Footsteps. Confident. Familiar in the worst way.
I don’t lift my head, but I don’t have to. My body knows him. The weight of his gaze. The quiet heat of him.
Montgomery.
I can feel it in the air—his tension, his performance. He is here as a buyer. I am the merchandise.
Shoomaker doesn’t move.
Montgomery circles, slow and confident, like the others had. But this time, the silence feels personal.
“She’s beautiful,” he says.
His voice is pitched deeper than usual, like he is trying to hide himself beneath it. But I know the cracks. I know the way his vowels stretch when he is trying not to feel something.
“She’s been trained well,” Shoomaker replies. “And promised.”
“To you,” Montgomery says. Not a question. Not a challenge. Just a statement laced with something darker.
Shoomaker steps forward, towering just behind me. “That’s correct.”
“I want to see what she’s learned,” Montgomery says, stepping closer. Too close. “I want to see if she remembers how to behave.”
Shoomaker tenses. “Boundaries have already been crossed this week. You’ll stick to the protocol or be removed.”
Montgomery crouches in front of me.
I feel his fingers first—trailing along the lace at my shoulder, then brushing the side of my neck like he is reading me in braille. I don’t flinch. I don’t breathe.
“You remember me, don’t you, sweet girl?” He whispers, eyes meeting mine for the first time.
And that breaks something.
Because I do.
Because he isn’t acting as a buyer.
He is wholly the man who used to pull me out of nightmares and into safety.
“I remember,” I whisper back.
His thumb brushes my lip, testing. “Then show me.”
A warning clears the air behind me.
“She’s not yours to command,” Shoomaker says. His voice is cold. Final.
Montgomery rises slowly. Still staring at me.
“She didn’t seem to mind,” he says, and there is something razor-sharp in his tone. Something he wants Shoomaker to bleed on.
Shoomaker moves.
Not fast—but with enough force to make the air shift. He stands between us now, taller, broader, more commanding than I’ve ever seen him.
“You want to play the part, fine,” he says. “But touch her like that again without permission, and I’ll make sure you regret it—buyer or not.”
Montgomery’s jaw flexes. “You forget who she runs to when the mask comes off.”
Shoomaker steps closer, their chests nearly colliding. “And you forget who taught her to kneel.”
The tension snaps like wire pulled too tight.
And I just sit there, breath held, watching two men speak in war tongues over a girl who is tired of being the prize.
But even through the anger—through the lies, the performance, the power plays—I see it:
Shoomaker isn’t pretending anymore.
He isn’t playing the Warden.
He has become him. Protective. Possessive. Dangerous.
“Gentlemen.”
The word drops like a dagger between them.
Both Shoomaker and Montgomery freeze mid-argument, jaws clenched, shoulders squared like wolves mid-snarl.
A woman’s voice—sharp, elegant, and laced with something venomous—slips through the tension like silk over the sharpest weapon.
“Is this girl really worth this kind of argument?” She asks, stepping fully into the room. “She must be quite the specimen if she’s driven two men to act like dogs in heat.”
I lift my gaze just slightly—enough to see her through my lashes.
Recognition hits, cold and immediate.
She’s taller than I remember. Or maybe it’s the way she carries herself—like the room belongs to her before she ever steps into it. A steel-gray suit hugs her curves like it’s been stitched from authority itself. Her hair is slicked back, her expression carved, her eyes unreadable.
But I know her. I’ve seen her before.
The heels. The posture. The voice that doesn’t need to rise to command attention.
Only then, she wore red.
Now, she wears power like she was born with it.
And it’s quieter than theirs. Colder. More precise. Dangerous in a way that makes my spine stiffen.
Shoomaker steps forward, his mask still in place. “And you are?”
“I represent Mr. Shaimez,” she says, unbothered. “He was recently contacted by Tomas about a girl with exceptional obedience. I’ve been through the other rooms. The girls there…lack discipline. They fawn. They cry. One even tried to bite me.”
Her lip curls faintly.
“But this one—” Her eyes land on me now, pinning me in place. “She hasn’t appeared on any lists in years. Strange, considering Mr. Shaimez marked her long ago.”
Shoomaker stills, just slightly.
She smiles.
“Five years, if I recall correctly,” she adds, almost thoughtfully. “Long before she was ever meant to be seen. It seems the list simply… caught up to his intentions.”
Her gaze drags over me again, assessing.
“She listens. She kneels. She doesn’t speak unless prompted. The things a girl like that could hear while staying so still…” Her smile is all teeth. “She could be an asset. Especially to men like Mr. Shaimez. You do train them to be silent and aware, don’t you, Warden?”
Shoomaker doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he steps behind me, placing a gloved hand lightly on my shoulder—a claim, a message.
“She’s special,” he says at last. “Not just because of how she obeys, but because of what she remembers.”
That makes her pause.
“What will something like her cost, Warden? What is your asking price?”
Montgomery crosses his arms, his posture too rigid to hide the storm inside him. “She’s not for sale.”
“And what makes you think you can say who is and who isn’t for sale when you are just a meager buyer as well?”
Montgomery walks away, his fists balling by his sides as Shoomaker speaks up. “She is one my best and bids can be placed—only for her to build what you can’t.”
“That’s not how this works, is it?” The woman says, circling slowly like a wolf scenting blood. “If Mr. Shaimez makes you a deal—one I’ve heard you’ve accepted before—would you honor that promise over a higher price?”
I don’t move.
I don’t flinch.
I don’t even breathe properly.
I just listen—quiet, steady, focused.
Like I’ve learned to.
Like I’ve learned in the concrete rooms where silence was currency, and stillness could mean the difference between being overlooked or chosen.
Her heels click against the marble. My skin prickles.
“Starling,” Shoomaker says smoothly, mask still in place. “Go to my room. Now. I’ll summon you when I need you again.”
I rise slowly from my knees, every motion purposeful.
A performance. A choice. My gaze catches Montgomery’s as I stand.
He is watching me—jaw clenched, fists tighter.
Not as a buyer. Not as a soldier. But as a man who wants to rip the mask from Shoomaker’s face and burn the entire operation to ruin.
I don’t let my face betray a single emotion.
I turn.
But Shoomaker isn’t done.
“And you,” he says coldly, facing Montgomery now. “Your bid is denied.”
Montgomery stiffens.
“You broke protocol. Touched what wasn’t yours. Next time I see you in one of my auction rooms, I’ll break your fingers.”
The room goes still.
Montgomery doesn’t move.
Doesn’t speak.
But I see it—the way his body coils, barely restrained. The kind of rage that can’t be unlearned. The kind that comes from guilt and something more dangerous: wanting to protect what he can never claim.
I walk toward the stairs without a word.
Because if I stay one second longer, I might not remember which part of this performance is mine…and which part they’ve written for me.