CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
That evening, I stand beside Montgomery in a room they’ve turned into a surveillance center after he summons me when Shoomaker doesn’t. The hum of machines, the faint buzz of radio static—it all feels like a pulse outside my own.
“Mr. Shaimez,” I pause, watching the feed flicker to life. “He was the last buyer we needed to show up to put behind bars, huh?”
“Yes, you are right.” Montgomery’s voice is low, steady. “What do you know of him?”
I shake my head, mouth dry. “I know nothing. I only saw faces. I never knew names. Mr. Hirsh never allowed me in the room when he addressed them by name.”
Montgomery nods once, his jaw tight. “Then watch closely.”
So I do.
The screen shows Shoomaker standing across from the woman in gray.
Sleek. Polished. Dangerous in a way men often underestimated.
She has presence, not just because of who she represents—but because she knows things.
You can feel it in the way she stands. Like she holds the leash and is deciding whether or not to tug.
“I’m here as a courtesy,” she says, voice smooth as glass. “Mr. Shaimez prefers his acquisitions be properly vetted, especially when rumors circulate that one girl has the attention of both your operation and Mr. Hirsh’s former circle.”
“You’ve seen what we have. If Shaimez is still interested, he can submit a bid like the rest. Not for her—” his gaze hardens, “—but for a training cycle under her oversight. She is the best asset I have. She’s been trained exceptionally well, and she can shape your girls into the same standard.
Into something just as meticulous as yourself. ”
A pause.
The woman’s smile sharpens. “He isn’t here to bid. He’s here to collect.”
Shoomaker’s voice drops into something heavier. “Understand this—she is not for sale. She will be secured under my name.”
The air in the room thins. My spine straightens.
Montgomery’s hand grazes my lower back, grounding me. Or trying to.
“Oh, I know,” she says. “By you. The Warden. The title you wore so long it stopped being a role and became your identity. And yet, that very title is why you are bound by the deal that was made long before this girl bled her first.”
My heart skips.
Shoomaker says nothing.
The woman steps closer to him, slow and careful. “You knew her father.”
The silence hits like a gunshot.
I stop breathing.
Shoomaker doesn’t deny it.
Doesn’t look away.
I have to remind myself he’s playing a role—this is a performance, a constructed truth for whatever they’re building here. He doesn’t really know any of this…at least, that’s what I tell myself.
But even as I think it, doubt slips in, unwelcome and sharp: or does he?
She smiles like a cat pulling the last wing off a fly.
“That girl wasn’t just a victim, you see.
She was promised. Her name is Starling Pierce.
Her father ran one of the founding trafficking factions—before Hirsh.
And when he suspected his time was coming to an end, he offered her as collateral for his continued protection.
He said, and I quote, ‘Break her right, and she’ll be worth more than any ten girls combined. ’”
“No,” I breathe.
It doesn’t sound like me. It sounds like a ghost learning it has died.
“The Warden—you—was tasked with honoring that deal,” she goes on. “To finish what her father started. Not out of duty, but allegiance.”
“I can’t listen to this anymore. Please,” I whisper. “Make it stop.”
But the screen keeps rolling.
And my body keeps cracking.
Shoomaker’s hands are clenched into fists. “She’s not a fucking debt. She is my property.”
The woman shrugs, unbothered. “You may not see her as one. But the others did. And if Shaimez wants what was promised to him, I suggest you remember the old rules. Because a deal made in blood doesn’t fade with time.”
I stumble back from the console.
The back of my legs hit the chair behind me, but I don’t sit. I can’t.
“I wasn’t kidnapped,” I whisper. “I was delivered.”
Montgomery turns to me, voice urgent. “Starling—”
I shake my head. “Don’t. Don’t call me that. Don’t you dare say my name like you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t,” he says, stepping toward me, eyes wide. “I swear to God, my rose, I didn’t know. I was assigned a role. I was to get all the buyers on a list and get the girls out. I didn’t even know your name until I heard Mr. Hirsh say it one night. By then we were already deep in the op.”
But I can’t hear him.
Because I am back in that concrete room. Used. Starved. Beaten into silence. All while men in suits stood above me and whispered that I had been chosen. That I was destined to belong.
Not because I was special.
But because I was sold before I was even old enough to fight back.
“I wasn’t just a product,” I say, trembling. “I was born into this. Bred for it.”
Montgomery catches my arms, grounding me, his face carved from something broken. “You were never that to me.”
“Did he know?” I ask aloud, mostly to myself.
Montgomery’s eyes cut to mine. “We don’t know that.”
“Don’t we?” I whisper. “He played the Warden so well. He knew I feared them. How I’d break. He made me crawl. He touched me like he already owned me.”
“Starling—”
“Don’t,” I snap. “If he knew…if he knew this whole time…”
“We don’t know what he knew,” Montgomery says more forcefully now. “And we can’t afford to guess—not yet. If he’s still clean, we need him. If he’s not—”
“Then I burn him with the rest,” I finish, voice low and final.
Silence stretches.
The monitors flicker again. The woman is still circling like a vulture. The deal is still echoing in my head like a song I can’t unhear.
“Starling,” Montgomery says, softer now. “Look at me.”
I do.
Barely.
“I know you want blood. I do too. But you can’t fall apart now. You’re the only one in the room who understands how they operate—because you survived it. And you can take them down. You just have to stay sharp. Hold on a little longer, my rose.”
I nod once.
It feels mechanical. But something inside me clicks.
Like a blade finally locking into place.
“Give me access to every buyer profile,” I say. “I want to know where their kids go to school. Where their wives vacation. What they order on their credit cards and what name they check into hotels under.”
Montgomery doesn’t blink. “What will you do with that information?”
“Burn the system from the inside,” I answer. “Use what they think is harmless against them. Make them understand exactly how exposed they’ve always been.”
Montgomery studies me for a long moment, something shifting behind his eyes. “You’ve got it.”
“And Shoomaker?” I ask.
“We watch him. Quietly. Carefully. No moves unless he makes one first.”
“Fine,” I say. “But if he did know—if he was part of this deal from the start…”
“I’ll stand aside,” Montgomery says, solemnly. “You’ll take the shot.”
My throat tightens, but I nod.
I step forward and face the screens again—no longer trembling.
They thought I’d break.
They thought I’d run.
They forgot one thing.
I was born into this cage.
Now I would teach them what it feels like to be hunted.