Chapter 25 – Elara
They dress me like a doll.
The silk gown slips over my body, soft and cold, mocking the fear beneath my skin.
The women who do it wear masks—expressionless, mechanical.
They don’t speak, not even when the rope around my wrists scrapes my skin raw.
One of them slides a pair of heels onto my feet, buckling the straps as if she’s preparing me for a party.
No makeup. Just a tight bun that pulls at my scalp and stings when I try to move my head.
When they’re done, they step back and study me. I can feel their eyes, even through the masks—checking if I’m presentable, if the merchandise is ready.
I look away.
The air smells faintly of roses and dust, expensive perfume masking rot. I’m still in one of my father’s off-grid establishments, and these women are preparing me to be sold off like an item.
I test the ropes again, digging my nails into the knot, but it’s useless. My wrists burn. I can feel panic clawing its way up my throat, but I force it down. I need to think.
“You look beautiful, miss,” one of the women says, and I almost spit in her face too. I don’t respond, and she simply bows her head and leaves the room with the others, leaving me alone.
The tears come hot, blurring the edges of my reflection until I can’t tell where I end and the stranger in the mirror begins. The black dress clings to me like a threat—silk over steel cuffs. I look like a woman ready for a gala, not a prisoner being sold.
My father had them dress me this way—to make me more appealing, he said. The thought makes bile rise in my throat.
I hate him. I hate the way his greed touches everything it comes into contact with. I hate that somewhere in his mind, I stopped being his daughter and became inventory.
I drag in a shaky breath and look at myself again. My eyes are swollen, red. My lip is split from when that man slapped me earlier. But under all that, there’s still a flicker of something. Anger. Defiance.
If I’m going to die here, I’ll do it on my terms.
I square my shoulders, even though the ropes bite deep. “You will not break me,” I whisper to the mirror.
For a second, I almost believe it.
The door slams open, and before I can even turn, hands are on me—rough, merciless. Six men, all masked, all silent. I kick, twist, scream until my throat tears, but it doesn’t matter. They drag me like I weigh nothing, my heels scraping the floor, the silk gown tearing at the seams.
“No! Let me go! Let me go!”
The hallway feels endless, echoing with my screams and their boots. The smell of smoke, perfume, and sweat grows stronger as we near a set of double doors. I already know where they’re taking me. The auction room.
The doors swing open, and the laughter hits me like a slap.
I see them—men in suits, drinking, eating, grinning. Their eyes find me, and I feel stripped bare. Someone claps. Someone whistles. My skin crawls.
They drag me onto the small stage under a chandelier that glitters like mockery. I thrash, kick, but two of them hold my arms while another grips my chin, forcing my face up to the crowd.
I can’t breathe.
A man with a microphone announces my name like a prize, his voice oily and triumphant. “Gentlemen, the daughter of David Chang. A rare treasure—once promised to the infamous Roman Rusnak himself.”
Laughter ripples through the room.
I want to scream, to vanish, to fight. But the hands holding me are iron, and all I can do is stare down at the crowd of monsters waiting to buy me.
My father stands by the edge of the room, half in shadow, watching like a man inspecting livestock. His expression is flat, cold, utterly detached. Not a flicker of guilt, not even recognition that I’m his child.
Something inside me fractures. Rage floods my veins, white-hot and shaking.
“Bring her over here,” he says casually, like he’s ordering wine instead of his own daughter. “Let the men have a closer look.”
The crowd murmurs in anticipation. One of the guards yanks my arm, dragging me toward the front tables where the buyers sit, their hungry eyes following me like I’m prey.
I twist, shouting, “You’re a monster! You’re not my father!” but he doesn’t even flinch.
Someone laughs. Another man reaches out to touch my arm, and I jerk away violently, my skin crawling.
My father just lifts a glass, sips his drink, and says, “Careful. She bites.”
I go feral.
I shove the nearest table with everything on it—platters, silver, a crystal decanter—and the whole damn thing collapses with a shower of glass and food. Wine spills warm across my hand; olives scatter like cannon fire. Men shout. Laughter ripples through the room, high and bright and sickening.
“You’re entertaining,” one of them calls, clapping slowly as if I’m a performing animal. “Such spirit.”
I scream so loud my ribs ache. “I will never belong to you,” I shout, voice raw. “I will kill the first man who touches me.”
A hand—broad, smelling of cigarette smoke and cheap cologne—reaches for my arm as if to steady me.
My reaction is pure instinct: I yank away and swing, nails raking across his face.
He howls, more from surprise than pain, and the crowd whoops like it’s sport.
One of the buyers laughs until wine sprays from his mouth.
Another man leans forward, eyes glittering, and for a second, I think he’s going to come at me.
Then a flat slap cracks across my cheek so hard my head spins.
The sound is obscene in the hush that follows.
The man who struck me hasn’t softened his expression; he merely regards me like a child who’s been corrected.
My cheek flames; blood beads at the corner of my lip.
The room smells of oranges and fear and old money.
I spit straight into his face. The glob lands just below his eye, sliding down his cheek. For a heartbeat, silence—the kind that crackles before a storm. Then he lunges.
Two men grab him, their laughter rough and mean.
“Easy, Viktor,” one jeers. “She’s not yours yet. Don’t ruin the merchandise before the deal is done.”
The man wipes his cheek, eyes blazing, teeth bared like an animal. “When she’s mine,” he growls, “I’ll teach her how to be silent like a lady.”
“Fuck you, piece of shit,” I snap, my voice shaking but fierce. The words taste strange in my mouth; I don’t swear like this, not usually. But it’s worth it—the way his jaw tightens, the way rage flickers behind his eyes.
Gasps ripple through the crowd, followed by coarse laughter and clinking glasses. One of the buyers whistles, saying, “She’s got spirit. I’ll pay extra for that.”
“Enough,” my father’s voice cuts through, sharp and commanding. He stands, straightening his suit jacket with the ease of a man in complete control. “She’s made her little scene.”
He nods to the auctioneer. “Start the ceremony.”
My stomach twists. The lights shift, dimming over the tables and focusing on me. The guards tighten their grip on my arms. My father steps back, a satisfied gleam in his eyes—as if this is nothing but business.
I want to scream. I want to bite. I want to burn this entire room down.
Humiliation burns through me like acid, hot and relentless, but beneath it something colder and harder takes root—defiance. I press my jaw until it hurts and force myself to breathe slow, steady. If I give them the satisfaction of panic, they’ll wear it like a prize. I will not be their prize.
The auctioneer’s voice slides over everything—velvet and knife. “We’ll open at five million,” he says, and the numbers pile up like stones thrown at a glass house.
Men clap, raise cards, leer. They argue about provenance, condition, rarity—as if I’m an object on a ledger and not a body with a name. My father watches from the shadows, that smug half-smile carved into his face. He’s a butcher in a suit, and this room is his market.
I thrust my gaze toward the crowd, searching for any crack in their armor.
I drag my mind back to the terrace, to the way Roman stood under the city lights, to the fierceness that seemed to carve the air around him.
I hold that image so tight it hurts. He promised me.
He promised he’d burn the world before he let my father take me.
I repeat it like a prayer: He’s coming. He’s coming.
Around me, the prices soar—numbers tossed around like they’re bidding on wine, not flesh.
My stomach twists. I lift my head, refusing to look away, and that’s when I see him—the pale man who slapped me.
His grin cuts through the noise, irritating and smug.
He raises a velvet box in the air, flashes it like a trophy.
Inside, a ring glints beneath the light.
A promise.
A threat.
He mouths something at me—something I can’t fully hear but don’t need to. Mine. That’s what he’s saying. That’s what they all think.
I shudder, every muscle trembling with disgust and fury. The room feels smaller, the air thicker. My wrists ache against the rope, my skin raw where it’s rubbed too long. I want to scream, to tear the place apart, but I force myself still. I can’t give in now.
Because if I lose it—if I break—then he wins. My father wins.
So I keep my eyes locked on the man, and for the first time, I smile. Just a little. The kind of smile that promises blood. His own falters.