I ran down the street, sure Anteros was going to break through the doors I’d slammed shut.

Wishing he would.

When nothing happened, I stopped, eyes stuck on the church. All I could do was focus on my breathing, count the breaths. One…people knocked into my shoulder. Two…someone uttered an insult under their breath, pissed that I was standing in the middle of the sidewalk. Three…the doors stayed closed. I still couldn’t move.

Even after everything he’d done to me, after the way he’d spoken to me, I hoped he would come after me.

It was late in the morning and the streets were flooded with New Yorkers going to work or starting their day. I was suffocated by them. With a groan, I pushed through a blur of hats and winter coats until I got to the street. I pulled out the phone, sending him a furious message.

That bottle of water was older than Jesus and the towel wasn’t sterilized. A second later I sent another. Enjoy your gangrene. Asshole.

I hated myself. I wished I could just leave him in silence and let him feel a little of the hurt I was feeling. By texting him on the phone he’d given me, I was letting him know how much I still wanted him, was giving him power.

The night before Anteros finally texted me to join him I’d gone to bed, stared at the faint cracks in the ceiling, certain he’d forgotten about me. That certainty had nearly crushed me. Then I’d waited all night in that church, wintry air blowing through the open roof. It should have been freezing, but somehow it wasn’t. I thought that was a sign—some kind of romantic bullshit. I was excited. Hopeful. Just like now, as I stared at texts that went without reply.

Laughter rang in my ear, two girls getting out of a cab. “Get off the street!” the cab driver yelled out the window as he pulled away and I jumped back onto the curb, the tires just barely missing my feet. Hair whipped my cheeks as I spun my head in all directions.

My breathing was labored, my arms felt like lead. I could feel it coming on—a flare-up, as my doctors called it—the moment when I couldn’t get out of bed. It was a miracle it hadn’t happened yet, but still, the tears in my eyes, the breath leaving my body in a rush—it was all for a completely different reason. I was always chasing him, searching him out. Carving my name into him as if that would get me closer to his heart.

I shouldn’t have texted him.

I should have just left.

He was probably pissed that I’d called him an asshole. Slaves need to be submissive and all that crap. I didn’t fucking care. I wasn’t a slave anymore, but he was still an asshole.

I elbowed through the mass of people, tears hot and thorny in my eyes when I reached the door to the club. Tall, black, and it should have been faceless, but a bunch of red flyers obscured it. The flyers were checkered with different images, alternating between one face and another.

THE PRINCESS IS A WHORE.

One face etched into the red paper was mine, the word ‘whore’ bold and outlined. I pulled the flyer off and flipped it over, finding that it wasn’t two separate flyers, but one with a front and back. My eyebrows flew into my forehead when I recognized the other face. It was Gabby’s brother, Emilio De Luca, but beneath his face, the words were much kinder.

Choose Right, Choose The Prince.

I kept flipping the flyer over, not quite sure what I was seeing, when the door swung open to reveal a burly, gruff soldier.

“Lucia has been looking everywhere—” I thrust the flyer into his chest, cutting him off. He struggled to grasp it before his eyes bounced over the door. Surprise washed over his face and I took the moment to sneak by him into the club.

I blocked out the leering smiles of men floating through the darkness like the Cheshire Cat and focused on shoes as I made my way to the stairs—satin stilettos so thin I wondered how they didn’t snap, some with wicked webbings or twisted gold vines wrapping up the heel, all so intricate they could be in a museum. They were like the ones I used to envy until they were forced upon my foot like some bizarro Cinderella. My chest constricted, realizing it was the exact same scenario for these women.

This club was like the streets of New York—surrounded by glitter and lights and the facade of magic when really it was just a bunch of strangers with a motive you wouldn’t learn until it was too late.

I got to my floor and was beginning to hope I would get to my room home free when I lifted my head to find Nikolai standing in the middle of the fucking hallway like it was The Shining. Black soot smeared his face and arms and I remembered Anteros. My glare sharpened.

“Where have you been?” Nikolai asked. I realized my hands must also be covered in soot from cleaning Anteros. Instinct told me to cover them up, but it was too late.

“A walk,” I said, pushing past him. He reached out and gripped my arm, his touch making me feel like bugs were crawling all over my skin. I summoned as much energy as I could and with a painful tug, pulled my arm from his hold. The inertia was so great that we both stumbled back. He fell to the polished mahogany floor and I stumbled into the wall.

I quickly scrambled into my room before Nikolai could do or say anything else. There wasn’t a lock on the door, so I took a chair and shoved it under the knob. I couldn’t keep it there forever, but at least for the night, I would sleep easier.

Before I hid my phone, I checked to see if Anteros had responded. The screen was blank, the only texts the angry ones I’d sent after storming out. It wasn’t like you wanted to hear from him, I tried to lie to myself. I put my phone in the safe spot I’d chosen behind the armoire and tried to listen to my brain, even though my heart felt like a crumpled piece of tinfoil.

* * *

When I awoke, my eyes were crusted with tears and for some reason I felt like I had a hangover. It was night again—at least, that’s what I thought because it was dark. I rolled over and rubbed my eyes, expecting to touch my nightstand, but hit air. I rolled back and looked up, expecting to see the white ceiling.

Dingy gray water spots.

My stomach dropped, my blood froze. The air was musty and dank. Moans floated in the background like some kind of fucked up elevator music. Sitting straight up, I scrambled back until I hit a cold, damp wall.

No, I must be dreaming.

But it was reality.

I was in the basement.

I focused on the subtly swaying velvet curtain in front of me, an ocean of blood in my ears. I gripped the mattress, afraid to look down, but knowing I had no choice. I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth and focused on the bite of pain, carefully lowering my head. I exhaled. I was still in what I’d worn to bed, so at least I had that.

I was afraid to speak, to move, fearing any slight shudder might alert people I was here. Music from upstairs was muffled, but that didn’t mean it was quiet. Moans, groans—mostly male—that was the melody down here in the basement.

Seconds later my curtain was torn open. I only had a moment to feel fear before Lucia came into my “room”. By room, I mean it was a small, sectioned off rectangle. She fingered the ruby fabric, dulled without light, until it shivered under her touch.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Lucia smiled down at me with venom. A million questions burned in my brain. Why did you put me here? What are you planning to do? “You were gone a very long time.” She stared at me, waiting for a response. The silence was stale, ugly, and if I didn’t give her something, it would turn rotten.

“I—” I hesitated. “I lost track of time.”

“We lost track of you,” Lucia replied. “When we lose track of princesses, they risk becoming whores. Just ask Gabriella.” Lucia reached behind her and pulled Gabby forward like someone holding a cat up by the collar.

“My mother…” Gabby didn’t finish so Lucia dug her nails into her neck. Gabby winced, and her voice became robotic. “My mother often ditched her guard to sleep with men. It’s what killed her.” I opened my mouth and closed it, looking from Gabby to Lucia, unable to process what was happening.

“Did you put that flyer up?” I finally asked, stunned.

“I didn’t put anything up,” Lucia said. “That flyer was a response to your behavior. You embarrassed us and jeopardized the movement. You’ll sleep here if you want to be a whore.” Lucia dropped the cloth and pulled Gabby back. She gave me a sad, chagrined look.

“I wasn’t sleeping with anyone!” I shouted, but she was gone, only the trembling of velvet letting me know she’d been there. Pulling my knees to my chest, I hid my face between my legs. The basement was more a dungeon than a ground floor, and I hadn’t willingly come back since the first time. It made me a coward, but I wished I could ignore what went down here.

This place housed the only other tie to family I had, so it was apropos it was also a den of iniquity, of lies, of evil. I shuddered, remembering the very first time I’d stumbled down the steps.

How could you do this to them?

I’d seen Dr. Wyatt, the one who’d come to me the first day with Anteros, step between the two muscled men that blocked the basement door. I’d followed him down, and that was when I’d discovered them.

The girls who didn’t obey.

The ones they got hooked on drugs.

At the time, I’d thought all Dr. Wyatt was doing to them was what he did to me, but it was so much worse. He administered the drugs that kept them compliant. I’d rushed to see Lucia, foolishly thinking we were equals. I’d thought the title princess meant something, and that because she was a woman, she was softer than Anteros. I’d thought that because she had rescued me, she cared.

Like I said, foolish.

“You know there is no such thing as a virginity test,” I’d yelled, thighs still constricting at the memory of Dr. Wyatt probing me, face drinking my reactions. “There is no way to fucking test that,” I’d continued, getting enraged. Anteros I’d understood. The men, I’d understood. I didn’t like it, but I’d understood. She should have known better.

“Granddaughter.” She’d gripped my chin and pulled me to her. It was hard and pinching, her nails biting into my flesh. “Dr. Wyatt isn’t testing them physically, he’s testing them mentally. Virgins tend to react differently to what Dr. Wyatt does.” She’d dropped me and I’d gasped.

“There is so much you need to learn,” she’d said with pity.

“I don’t want to learn this.” I’d gestured to the room, to Lucia, to my fucking dress—and brought my hands quickly to my chest, feeling the very air was tainted.

With an almost frustrated sigh, Lucia had set down the magazine she was reading and put all of her focus on me. “This is how we survive. This is what sustains us.”

“This is evil,” I’d stressed.

She’d laughed, tinkling and musical but cold. “Well, evil pays for your pretty dresses.” I’d looked at the dress I wore, the shoes on my feet. At the time, I was still playing dress-up doll, but I’d slipped the shoes off immediately and chucked them into a corner. Her smile had dropped.

Since that day, I’d stuck to jeans and a t-shirt. Lucia didn’t give me any money unless I asked, and I wasn’t going to ask for her slave money. So, I stole everything from a thrift store. I figured it was less evil. I had one pair of jeans, two t-shirts, and a jacket.

“This is all so fucked,” I’d said, backing away. “I’ll never go back down there.” I was almost out the door when her even, melodic voice drifted over my shoulder.

“Not even to visit your beloved Papa?”

* * *

I fell asleep to the memory and it became like a dream, playing over and over again in my brain until it was distorted and warped and mean. Papa was calling to me and I couldn’t get to him, Lucia kept laughing, and I felt I had to get to him or I would never know the truth of anything.

When I awoke, nothing was clearer.

I pressed my face into the mattress before immediately regretting it and sitting up. Up to that day, the only news of Papa I’d had was that he was safe, but he’d been underneath me the entire time, in the fucking basement. I’d thought when Lucia rescued me it would be different. I’d hoped we would be a real family, and in my mind, a real family meant love. It meant no lies, no deception.

I was so fucking wrong.

I stared at the ruby curtain holding me captive. I still hadn’t seen Papa. I hadn’t forgiven him for abandoning me, and most days I thought prisoner to Lucia was a fair trade for everything he’d done to me. But I had questions—so many questions. Lucia still hadn’t told me anything concrete. Living here was torture, everyone knew more about me than me. I wanted to ask him if he was really my father, or if the rumors were true. I wanted to ask him why he’d left me to the Beast. The obvious, unspoken rule was that I was to stay here…

I got up and pulled aside the velvet fabric, looking down the hall: dank, dimly lit, some curtains swayed, but no guards, no Lucia.

I tiptoed out. I didn’t really know where he was, but there were only two directions in the basement. One went upstairs, the other curved into shadow until the curtains disappeared. As I was coming around the bend, I stopped short before I ran into someone.

Nikolai.

It took me a few moments to realize he was actually there, and not just a figment of my nightmare. When I realized, I scrambled against the damp wall. I had no idea what he wanted from me, and truthfully I was scared it was the same thing all the men who came down here wanted.

Nikolai scoffed. “Get over yourself. I’m not into that doe-eyed fuck me thing you have going on.” He waved a flippant hand in my direction.

“What do you want?” I tried to sound strong even though I was in nothing but pajamas in a place where women were given away freely. Then Nikolai took all of that away by stepping closer and forcing me to flatten myself.

“I trust you haven’t broken the rules of our agreement,” he said. “The Beast is eager to find out what’s inside the needle. Imagine how furious he would be to find out it was you who tried to kill him.”

“You put it there,” I hissed. “I didn’t even know it was fatal—you said it was a tranquilizer.”

“That’s not what the tapes say.” He looked me up and down, seconds passed like minutes, and then he said, “I think I did see some men down here who are into that doe-eyed fuck me thing, though.” He grasped my pajama top between his thumb and forefinger, pulling the fabric from my body. I held my breath as he glanced down the hall, hating myself for my fear. Then he dropped it without another word, disappearing toward the curtains.

The urge to run back, curl into a ball, and cry on the mattress was overwhelming, but I pressed on.

Papa was just around the curve. His wrinkled, tan fingers and his naked foot came into view as I rounded the final bend. Lucia had him locked up behind bars—as if down here was an actual fucking dungeon.

“The game is on,” Papa muttered to himself. “It’s on and I haven’t bet anything. The fridge is empty. I have to fill it. Have to have my drinks for the game.”

“Papa?” I tested. He stopped muttering, looked straight at me, and for a moment I had hope. Then he uttered some gibberish about a horse race and looked away. Disappointment welled in my gut at his response. The years of alcohol and the stress of being taken must have broken his brain. I just hoped I could glean some information from his ramblings.

I slid down the wall, the rough stone poking at my back uncomfortably. Minutes passed as Papa rambled and I grew nervous, worried someone would notice I’d left my “room”. I looked down the curved hallway, wondering if I should go back.

“Frankie?” he called out. “Frankie is that you?” I didn’t immediately recognize that he was talking to me. I assumed it was just more incoherent mumbling, but then his eyes met mine, stare hollow yet piercing. “Frankie, I know that’s you. I love you, Frankie.”

This was it.

This was everything. I’d just opened my mouth to seek the truth Lucia denied me when another voice cut me off.

“Granddaughter.” My spine stiffened. My mind swam with excuses, a hundred different roads that all pointed in the same direction: trapped. When the lead settled in my gut and I knew I had no other choice, I slowly turned to look at the entrance, finding Lucia there with her arms folded. She’d spoken to me, but her icy blue eyes were trained on Papa.

“You always were resourceful Notte,” she continued. “Using any lie to gain leverage.” I had a half second to register the meaning of her words before she turned to me. “Don’t ever forget he left you to the Beast, Frankie.” Her frosty stare caught mine and I knew I was going to get it. I’d left the velvet room, had gone searching for Papa.

“I may have been too harsh earlier,” she said, holding her palm out for me. I eyed the open hand warily. When I didn’t immediately take it, she sighed and shook her hand. “You are valuable, bambina. When you leave, I worry.”

I chewed the inside of my bottom lip, pulling at the rubbery, wet skin with my teeth. There was no other way this ended than with me taking her hand, yet I made the seconds last. The air stilled like dew freezing on a window.

Her easy demeanor drained as I refused to take her hand, icy spider webs crawling along the window, betraying the impatience beneath. I could hear the crack of glass, see the twitch of her smile, so I reached out my hand and grasped hers. Her level smile returned and she pulled me off the floor, leading me away from the dungeon. When I looked over my shoulder, Papa had already started mumbling incoherently.

We went beyond the curtained rooms, up the steps, and into the club. I didn’t take my eyes off her the entire time. It wasn’t until we reached my room that I looked away.

There were some very noticeable new additions to my room: three small cameras clung to the corners of the ceiling. I looked to Lucia to see if she would say something, but she acted as if she hadn’t just taken me out of a dungeon where Papa was held prisoner and where I’d been kept under threat of rape.

She let go of my hand and sat on the edge of my four-poster bed. She patted it, letting me know I needed to sit too. Her kindness was a smokescreen, but I joined her. When I was within reach, she gripped the pendant at my neck, pulling it so tight that the chain bit the back of my neck. My muscles strained painfully with the effort of not falling into her lap, and she knew it.

“You should be careful who you let into your heart, bambina,” she said, eyes trained on the diamond rose. “Men are only good at breaking them.”

“What?” The surprise in my voice was too obvious. I was not like these people who were so good at hiding their real intent I often wondered if they knew it themselves. Did she know about Anteros? She dropped the pendant, put her hands in her lap, and smiled at me, crystal blue eyes glittering.

“Your papa, of course. What did you think I meant?”

I rolled my lips between my mouth, certain that whatever I said, whether truth or lie, would give away too much. A few more seconds passed between us wherein I said nothing, and then she stood, straightening the fabric of her blood red skirt with matching blazer. The material was smooth and creamy, there were no wrinkles anyway.

I kept my eyes trained on her as she went to the door. If Nikolai was a snake, Lucia was the king cobra. Before she left, her polished red nails gripped the frame and she turned back to me.

“Don’t fall into the trap of thinking I don’t know exactly what goes on around here,” she said. “I know everything, bambina. My brother fell into that trap and now he’s dead.” She shrugged with a tinkling laugh. “Or good as.”

When she left, my body released all the tension it had been holding the past few days. I was suddenly exhausted, bone weary, but the cameras made it impossible to relax. They looked like the same ones I’d had back with Anteros—black, beady bugs. I looked to the armoire. The phone was accessible, but I had to be discreet about it. I just prayed no one had discovered it while they were installing the cameras.

I kicked the rug up with my foot and bent down, pretending to put it back into place when really checking for the phone. I exhaled; it was still there. I carefully picked it up and stuffed it into my shirt then walked over to what I hoped was a blindspot. Who could have guessed that my month with the Beast was really just training for Grandma?

Even after three days of Lucia’s punishment, Anteros still hadn’t sent a text.

I’d given up my freedom for what? A man I had waited hours for, had now suffered days in a hell for, and who couldn’t even send me a text? All night I’d sat in that creepy ass church. Everything creaked in there, the shadows moving along the walls like phantoms. Truthfully, though, it was beautiful. It was beautiful in a way that I never wanted to admit because admitting it was just the final dagger through my heart. It meant he knew the way to my heart, he just didn’t want to take it.

I hated myself so much, hated that he was the first thing I went for. Before a shower. Before sleeping in a bed not covered in human secretion. I wanted to see if he’d sent me something.

And he hadn’t.

Lucia’s words echoed in my skull.

* * *

One text, five days later. Not asking to meet up, not an apology. Just one. Fucking. Text.

Still angry, my little slave?

He sent a photo of his hard cock along with the text, but only the outline it made against his satin sleep pants. The image had my body temperature rising and my core throbbing instantly—and he fucking knew that, I was sure of it. I nearly chucked my phone at the wall. Instead I cradled it in my palms, reading it over and over again, like a junky desperate for a fix. I knew he’d called me his slave to piss me off, but still, after everything he’d done to me, after the way he’d spoken to me at the church, after everything I’d gone through to meet him, I was his slave.

I’d been imprisoned. Threatened to be made a whore. My freedom had been stolen. Now I had to crouch in the corner of my bedroom to hide from cameras. And that was all he sent me?

I hated him.

I hated that I stared at the screen, wishing he would send more.

My mind spun with ways I could get back at him just as my door banged open. Horrified that I might have been caught, I waffled with my phone, struggling to hide it.

It was Gabby, and by the look of her, she was too overwhelmed to notice what I was doing. She ran over to the bed and threw herself down, face first.

“Gabby?” I asked, slowly standing. “Gabby what are you doing? Are you okay?” She lifted her head and I could see her fire red eyes. Fresh tears streaked down her cheeks, her new short blonde do in disarray, strands flying in all direction.

“Levi.” She hiccupped the name.

“Oh no, is he…?” I couldn’t finish the sentence. Had he been killed?

“No, but he may as well be!” she screamed, standing to her feet.

“Calm down, someone will hear us,” I said, heading to the door she’d left ajar and looking down the hallway as if someone was going to pop out of the walls. It was nearing dusk; colors were springing to life in the sky and painting the hallway in the purples and pinks and oranges of sunset.

“He never listened,” she sobbed. I shut the door and turned back to her. “He is determined to get to Beast.” The way she said his name made me shiver, with such vitriol, it practically singed off the hairs on my arm. I thought to the phone in my pocket. What would she think if she knew I ached for contact from the man who would kill her love?

“Even after you called his precinct they still let him continue?” I asked quietly.

“No, he fucking permanently transferred to 72 and now he’s doing his own undercover operation.” She sat up, voice ratcheting, and wiped her eyes. “He saved him, Frankie. Beast could be dead by now and all of our problems gone but he saved that monster.”

“I—” My throat constricted at the thought of Anteros dead. “I don’t understand.”

“There was a bomb and Levi pulled him from the flames because he thinks Beast is his only hope at finding his mom. You can’t tell anyone. If Lucia finds out she’ll be furious. Promise me.”

Only a month before Gabby had been so excited to watch movies with Levi. I’d thought that meant she’d found her happily ever after, but now Levi had saved Anteros, and as elated as I was, the consequences for Gabby were like a doomsday clock.

How had we gotten so tangled up?

“Frankie?”

“Of course,” I quickly said. “I promise.” Gabby stood up and walked to the other side of the room, putting her palm flat on the dresser. The room was still, too quiet. The shadows moved as the sun went down and the room got that hot, glowy orange color of sunset that only lasts for a minute, as if the world is being set on fire in a final display before the sun falls to the night.

“I don’t want to be my mom. I don’t want to love a man who will get me killed.” Gabby pressed her head to the armoire and I thought again to the phone in my pocket.

If only we could choose who we love.

* * *

Gabby was asleep in my bed when I slipped out of my room. She’d cried herself to sleep and I wasn’t about to wake her up and make her leave. There were no elevators in the building, so I had to walk down the grand staircase and through the club, had to push my way through throngs of beautifully dressed monsters.

I really didn’t want to do this.

I wished I could pretend the basement didn’t exist.

I wanted to go back, crawl under the covers with Gabby, feel the lumps in my bed, and hold the phone, rereading the one text Anteros sent me while drooling over the picture. It was pathetic. It was heart sick. But it made me feel closer to him. Still, the basement was the only hope I had for getting truth, especially as Lucia was intent on giving me nothing. So I pushed my way through the crowd.

It was foolish to take the phone. I should have hidden it, but instead it was in my pocket, burning. I thought everyone could see the bulge as I walked through the club. I definitely wouldn’t have much time before Lucia or one of her soldiers came searching for me—the cameras clearly showed me leaving the room.

I was nearing the basement door when I saw Nikolai and Lucia, so I quickly hid among the club goers. I couldn’t see what they were talking about, but Lucia held up a red flyer—the same one from earlier in the week. She waved it furiously and if I hadn’t been in the club’s heart with pounding music in my ear, I might have heard her actually yelling. I paused because for the first time ever, she was undone. Just then I felt another vibration in my pocket.

Playing hard to get?

I read the text until the screen went blank. How dare he? After the way he treated me at the church and then going days without contact, how dare he say I’m playing hard to get? My face was hot, my tongue felt thick, but I didn’t want him to win. I grabbed the nearest tuxedoed crocodile.

“Will you take a picture with me?” It was dark and I wasn’t going to turn on the flash—lest cameras caught me and my secret got out—but it would be enough. The man was confused, but even still, his lips were on my neck instantly. Wet, slobbery—it was disgusting and I hoped it was worth it.

All I sent Anteros was the picture of the man’s lips on my neck. Then I pried myself off and went to the two goons at the entrance.

“I need to do something for Lucia,” I explained. They exchanged looks. “Go ahead and call her, I’m sure she’d loved to be bugged while she’s busy dealing with the flyer.” Their eyebrows furrowed and sweat prickled the back of my neck as I wondered if they would call my bluff, but they finally parted.

The walls down to the basement were wallpapered with bright pink Pavoni Princess Lives flyers. The slightest movement made the ends lift up. I hated them. They mocked me, reminded me how little power I had in this world, that I was simply a figurehead. I wanted to rip them all down, especially as I walked into the basement. They were such a cruel irony for these women.

Feeling more determined, I kept my eyes to the ground, trying to ignore the various velvet curtains. I had to squint to see, light never reaching the corners. It was completely different from the magic and beauty of upstairs, but then the men who came down here weren’t like the men upstairs—at least, not overtly. The men who came down here were brazen in their disregard for water spots.

My phone vibrated again so I found a discreet corner, hiding in the shadows.

Looks like you need to be reminded who you belong to.

I wet my lips; I wanted that, but then I remembered the newly installed cameras.

You’ll get caught and they’ll kill you. There are cameras decorating my room now because I waited all night to see some asshole who didn’t care. I sent it, then a second later I added, So maybe you should come.

The wait for him to respond was agonizing. I hated that I’d waited days for a text and still just waiting five seconds had me counting the number of heartbeats it took for him to respond.

I don’t give a shit. Send me a picture like that again and I’ll die ripping his lips from your neck. A small smile came to my lips, but then he sent a follow-up message. I’ll crawl through your window, fuck you so deep and hard that anytime someone touches you, you’ll only feel me.

The smile dropped instantly. How could he say that? He was everywhere—on my skin, in my blood. Once again, Anteros didn’t just win the game, he demolished the playing board. I stared at the text until a velvet partition rustled. I flattened myself against the wall as two men came out of an amethyst curtain.

“The Catacombs always give the best pussy,” one man said as he zipped up his trousers. The second guy glanced back into the room, closing the curtain with a shrug. I’d learned The Catacombs was the underground name for Lucia’s club. Fitting, since it was where souls came to die.

“Wish they were more…” He turned to his friend. “I dunno, into it?”

“Costs extra,” the first guy said. The second guy nodded as if that was all that needed to be said on the matter, and they walked up the stairs. I stared at the swaying velvet. A morbid curiosity poked my gut, telling me to go pull it aside, even though I knew what was there.

There was nothing I could do for her. I couldn’t pick her up and run away and save her.

The only thing looking would do was subject her to another violation.

I put my phone away and continued. When I got to Papa, he was asleep or passed out. He wasn’t moving and at first I feared he was dead, but then I saw his chest rise with a shallow breath. I slid down the wall and pulled out my phone. I sent a lie because it was the only play I had left.

You don’t own me.

I waited in the dungeon for an hour, hoping Papa would wake up. The ugly sounds of men getting off on unconscious or barely conscious women were too close, like whispers right into my ear, but I couldn’t get up. I knew in my marrow that Lucia was just using me, had said those things about men only breaking hearts to fuck with me, but her barbs of distrust had caught.

My eyes hurt from not blinking, from staring at Papa’s sleeping body. This far down in the basement, everything was just leeching, yellow light. After thirty more minutes of being frozen to the floor, I kicked myself in the ass and left.

Just before I reached the club, I felt a buzz in my pocket.

There’s no need to own you, Frankie. You’re going to give yourself to me.