Harper kept talking.
“Lilah made me drink a blue liquid. I don’t know what was in it, but it hit me like a sedative. For three hours, I was awake but not. She made me recite mantras, over and over: ‘I am valuable. I am wanted. I bring pleasure. I obey.’ She said they were—affirmations, but with a kick.” She paused, wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “After three sessions, I couldn’t say no to anything. I realized later they were powerful spells. Not that it mattered. Steiner always got what he wanted no matter what.”
I tried to keep my face neutral, but my teeth ached from clenching.
“The day of my first show, Lilah came to the club and dosed me with something else. This one made my skin feel electric. Every touch, every breath, was like—” She broke off, searching for the word. “Like being tickled from the inside out. When I went on stage, I couldn’t stop myself. I danced my heart out.” She looked up at me, almost apologetic. “After the first month, I was attacked in the hallway. Someone went for my knee. They bashed it. Steiner had the club doctor look at it. He said I tore a meniscus. While it was healing, he had the doctor wrap the outside of my knee in thin strips of silver. Steiner wanted to be sure that it didn’t heal as well as it could. I’d never dance ballet again. It was effective. My knee healed eventually, but I still have pain when I make some moves. And I can’t do some steps at all.”
A sob worked its way up her throat, but she swallowed it down.
I wanted to kill. I wanted to rip out every vein in Steiner’s body and spell out the word MONSTER with the pieces. I reached for her hands.
“I worked six nights a week at the club. After the first six months, the witches’ potions weren’t needed anymore. My body just… did what it was told.” She flexed her toes as if remembering the phantom instructions. “VIP rooms started after month two. Mostly it was blow jobs, hand jobs. Some men just wanted me to dance or watch. Some liked it rough. There were nights I thought I’d die in there.”
Her voice dropped lower.
“Steiner took my virginity. He did it in front of several clients. They paid handsomely for the privilege. Then he made a big show of it, paraded me through the main hall letting everyone know.” She shuddered. “After that, I belonged to him.”
My vision tunneled, black at the edges. The wolf in me screamed, but the soldier kept it on a tight leash.
“He kept me in an apartment a floor beneath his own. It had bars on the windows and an armed guard at the door. I was let out for shows, for VIP sessions, and sometimes for dinner with the other girls. Steiner came down four nights a week, sometimes more unless he was out of town. He said I was his ‘favorite.’ He said I should be grateful, because he was a man of his word and hadn’t hurt Brie. But he always hinted he could change his mind.”
She was shaking now, the fine tremor spreading from her knees to her jaw.
“Last week, I’d asked about the contract. I thought it had to be getting close to the end of the three-year obligation. But Steiner told me he’d never let me go. He said there were clients coming in from out of town, that my price had gone up. That’s when I started looking for a way out. It was a miracle when I sawyou the night you were at the club. I knew the goddess was going to fix things.”
I told her I didn’t believe in coincidences either.
She nodded. “I thought I was hallucinating. You looked like a ghost. But then you walked out and never looked back.”
I remembered that night—the way my heart leaped when I caught her scent, the way my bones nearly vibrated out of my skin. I’d left because I couldn’t risk blowing the mission, but in that moment, I’d almost thrown it all away for a chance to touch her.
“I wanted to call out to you. But I was so ashamed,” she said her voice small.
I brushed her hair back from her face.
“The last night at the club,” she said, voice thin as wire, “they told me a VIP was coming. Maltraz. They made me wear the black dress, the one that barely covered my ass. Darlene, the club witch, gave me some kind of tea. It made me feel strange. I remember how tall Maltraz was. And his eyes. The smell of sulfur and cologne. He was monstrous; his skin was gray like iron and every part of him was inhuman. He put his hands around my neck and made me do things. Made me beg.” She trailed off, eyes unfocused. “It hurt. Then when Maltraz left the room to clean up, Steiner made me finish him.” She shuddered. “After I changed clothes, Rage walked me to the alley where the truck was waiting to take me home like every other night. But you guys were there. Then you, Wrecker, Papa, and the girls all saved me.”
I wanted to hurt something. I wanted to put my fist through every wall between here and Houston. But I kept my voice level.
I pulled her back onto my lap. “You’re safe now,” I said. “He can’t touch you again. I swear it on my life.”
She shook her head, a miserable, fragile arc. “It’s not over. He’ll come for me. He doesn’t like to lose.”
I reached up and took her hand. “Not while I’m breathing.”
She tried to smile, but failed. The tears ran down her face in perfect silence.
I wiped them away with my thumb, marveling at the resilience of the girl who once pirouetted across summer lawns, who could now sit here and bleed without ever raising her voice.
When the silence settled again, I said, “You’re the bravest person I know.”
She huffed a laugh. “I’m a coward. If I were braver, I’d have run years ago.”
I shook my head. “If you’d run, they could have killed your sister.”
She closed her eyes. “It doesn’t matter now. My mom got Brie out before Steiner could find her. I think they may be hiding in France. I’ve caught snippets of conversations Steiner has had with his men, angry that he can’t find them.”
I had to ask the hardest question. "Why didn't you contact me before you'd gotten into the situation with Steiner? While you were still in school?"
