Prologue
_ALLESIA_
The room is dark as it always is.
A single flickering bulb overhead casts more shadows than light, dancing across the cracked concrete walls like silent ghosts. They stretch long and crooked, reminding me of limbs reaching, watching, and waiting. I’ve grown used to the dampness that clings to the walls, to the sting in my nose from cigarette smoke that’s seeped into every inch of this place. Even when the air feels still, that stench lingers on my skin like a second layer I’ll never scrub off.
Beyond the heavy, bolted door, laughter bursts suddenly, it’s sharp, slurred, and mean. It doesn’t belong to joy. I’ve learned to tell the difference. Their laughter always carries a weight beneath it: violence, triumph, cruelty.
I pull my knees up to my chest, hugging them tight beneath the thin, frayed blanket draped over my shoulders, it’s barely enough to keep me warm. The fabric is scratchy and smells like mildew, but it’s mine. One of the few things I have never had to share. One of the few things they haven’t taken.
They’re celebrating something tonight. A deal, maybe or more money, more guns, more girls. I don’t ask, I never ask.
Good girls don’t ask questions.
That’s what they taught me, not with words, but with fists, with sharp slaps across the face, with lashes that burned across my back until I forgot what softness felt like. I can’t even remember who first taught me that lesson, I only know that I never forgot it.
Silence is safety.
I was taken before I even knew what being taken meant. A little girl with pigtails and scraped knees, plucked from the street like a coin someone found and pocketed. They told me I was lucky, that I could’ve died out there in the real world. That this life, their life, was a gift.
Pain was how I’d earn a place.
Obedience was how I’d stay alive.
And so I learned. I swallowed their lies like bitter medicine, one dose at a time. I wore their cruelty like a second skin and taught myself to disappear inside it. To move without sound. To exist without protest and never look anyone in the eye unless I was asked to.
And through it all, I never spoke, not one word. I never could.
Some said I was broken, cursed and worthless. They were wrong.
I wasn’t worthless, I was just... surviving.
But something is different tonight.
A sound breaks the silence, a sharp and hard knock, the kind that doesn’t wait for permission. My heartbeat stutters and my fingers clench around the blanket.
The scrape of a key turning in the lock follows. The door groans open, revealing a familiar silhouette.
Leo.
He fills the doorway with his bulk, smelling like sweat, cheap beer, and power. His smile is a crooked line of teeth stained by years of smoke. It’s not really a smile but more like a warning.
“Get up,” he slurs, his voice heavy with drink. “Boss wants the upstairs rooms cleaned.”
His hand rests lazily near the gun on his hip. Another silent reminder.
I don’t hesitate.
I rise quickly, letting the blanket fall to the floor. My bare feet hit the cold concrete as I move past him, eyes on the ground, spine straight. A second too slow and the punishment would follow. A wrong look, and I’d pay. Speaking, that’s if I could...would be unforgivable.
The hallway is dimly lit, lined with closed doors that hide other girls, other screams, other ghosts. I never look or stop.
But...something’s off tonight.
The air hums with tension and the voices are louder, harsher. Boots thud against the floor above me as shouts bleed through the walls. My skin prickles as though something invisible is crawling over it.
At the top of the stairs, I pause.
Then it happens.
Bang.
One gunshot. Then another and a crash. Yelling and screams follows.
My breath catches and I freeze, fingers digging into the wooden railing.
Leo curses behind me. I glance back to see him reaching for his gun, eyes wild.
In that moment, before thought, before fear, I run.
Down the stairs. Past the kitchen. Through the corridor lined with crates and crates of unspoken things. My body acts before my mind catches up, driven by instinct I didn’t know I had.
The back door is ajar.
The cold night air slaps my face as I burst into the alley. The world outside hits me all at once, it’s damp and dark. My feet slap against wet pavement, the cold biting into my skin like teeth. I don’t dare stop.
The city is a blur of shadows and streetlamps, too fast, too loud. My lungs burn. My legs scream in protest as I push forward.
Because I know they’ll come for me.
I turn a corner and nearly collapse. My body, so used to stillness, struggles to keep going. I stumble into another narrow alley and press my hand to the brick wall, gasping silently.
And that’s when I see him.
At the mouth of the alley, standing beneath a broken streetlamp that buzzes and blinks like it’s afraid of him, is a man, tall, impossibly still and dressed in black.
He doesn’t move or speak. But I feel his eyes lock onto mine.
My steps falter and my chest tightens.
Something about him feels wrong.
Power clings to him like a second skin. His face is beautiful, in a cold, cruel way, sharp jaw, piercing eyes, expression unreadable. He radiates control, violence and danger.
Everything I was taught to avoid.
I should run. But I don’t.
Because for the first time in my life, danger isn’t snarling at me. It’s simply watching.
He doesn’t reach for a weapon or bark orders. He just watches as I tremble before him like a leaf caught in a storm.
And something inside me, an aching part I’ve kept hidden whispers that maybe this is what freedom looks like.
Then, I take a step forward.
