They didn’t ask for a scream. They asked for stillness. And I gave it to them. Because stillness was mine.
The chain tightened when I shifted. My wrists tugged high, shoulders aching from the weight. I had to stay upright. I had to let the posture be the punishment. But I wasn’t collapsing. Not for them. Not for this.
Ellis didn’t look at me when he stepped forward. His coat cut sharp across his frame, black on black, like he wanted to vanish into the city behind him. His eyes flicked to the floor. To the papers in his hand. To the man walking beside him.
The buyer.
I knew he was a buyer. Not by the suit or the money or the way his face didn’t twitch when he looked at my body and then looked away. Not by the quiet he carried like it belonged to him.But by the fact that he never once saw me. Not really. Just the outline. The price. The potential return. He held the envelope like it weighed more than I did. Ellis accepted it without comment. Their hands brushed. Business. Clean.
Camille used to say the most dangerous men were the ones who never had to get their hands dirty. The ones who could sell you with a signature and still sleep after. She was right. Ellis turned to me. Smiled.
“Do you want to know what she said?”
His voice was smooth. Measured. Polished like everything else he wore.
I didn’t answer. Didn’t blink. He stepped closer. The light shifted. Cast him in shadow. Let me pretend I couldn’t see the truth behind his mouth.
“Camille died thinking her voice mattered.”
The words hit my chest like a second chain.
“You’re not going to make that mistake, are you, Cloe?”
He reached forward. Tucked something into the waistband of my dress. A folded slip of paper. His fingers brushed my stomach.
I didn’t move.
“You’re not inventory,” he said.
His mouth hovered just beside my ear now.
“You’re the echo.”
I didn’t flinch. Echoes don’t beg. Theywarn. And Wolfe? Wolfe doesn’t answer with sound. He answers with smoke.
He stepped back. And I smiled.
I was never the silence. I was what came after.
And when Wolfe answered—it wouldn’t be with mercy. It would be with fire.
39
WOLFE
Devane Holdings looked abandonedfrom the outside.
Rust-stained siding. Shattered windows. A fence chained shut with a lock that had long since been broken. The kind of place no one questioned. The kind of place where silence was stored like inventory.
I scaled the fence. Dropped down hard. Fell to one knee. Pressed my palm to the concrete to steady myself. My side screamed. The wound pulsed beneath the tape. Fresh blood bloomed under my shirt. The world tilted. Not from blood loss. Fromrage.
I bit down. Hard. Against the scream clawing up my throat. I was too close. Too fucking close to lose now. I got up. Step by step. Toward the door. No guards. No resistance.
The inside of Devane was colder than it should’ve been. Not chilled. Vacuumed. Like the building had exhaled everything human and replaced it with rot and power. A long corridor led me forward. One light flickered above. Every door was closed. Except one. At the end.
I stepped inside. There were no cages. No girls. No buyers. Just one chair. Facing a wall of screens.
The chair was leather. Black. Reclined slightly. Waiting. And the screens? Lit up. Twelve of them. Each displaying a different angle. The rooftop. The pole. The chains.Cloe.
