My phone buzzes in my clutch. A text from my study group:Where are you? We're starting the cardiac arrhythmia review.
Before I can respond, Enzo reaches back and holds out his hand. "Give it to me."
"What? No."
"Bianca." His voice is flat. "The phone. Now."
I hesitate, but Sal turns to look at me with that same funeral expression. "Please," he says quietly. "Don't make this harder."
I hand it over. Enzo pockets it without another word.
***
The building is industrial, windowless, tucked into a part of the city I've never visited. We pull into an underground parking structure, past a guard who waves us through without checking ID.
"Out," Enzo says, killing the engine.
My legs don't want to cooperate. "I'm not getting out until someone tells me—"
Enzo is around the car and opening my door before I can finish the sentence. His hand closes around my arm—not rough, but firm. Immovable.
"Walk," he says. "Don't make a scene."
"A scene? Enzo, what the hell is—"
"Walk, Bianca."
I walk. What choice do I have? My brother is twice my size, and wherever we are, I doubt screaming will summon help.
We enter through a service door, navigating a maze of corridors that smell like concrete and cleaning chemicals. The click of my heels echoes off the walls. Somewhere in the distance, I hear music—something classical, muffled by layers of concrete. The fluorescent lights above us flicker intermittently, casting strange shadows on the walls.
I count the turns we make. Left, right, right, left, straight for a long stretch, then right again. If I need to find my way out, I want to remember. If I get the chance to run, I want to know which direction leads to freedom.
Finally, we reach a door. Enzo knocks twice, pauses, then knocks once more. The door opens.
The room beyond is small and windowless, furnished with a single couch and a vanity mirror. Two other women sit inside, both young, both beautiful, both wearing expressions of barely controlled terror.
"Wait here," Enzo says, pushing me gently through the doorway. "Someone will come for you."
"Enzo—"
The door closes. I hear the lock click into place.
I stand frozen, my brain refusing to process what I'm seeing.
The other women look up at me with hollow eyes. One is crying silently, mascara tracking down her cheeks. The other sits perfectly still, her hands folded in her lap, staring at nothing. The crying one is blonde, delicate, probably mid-twenties. The still one is darker, Mediterranean features, impossible to age.
"What is this place?" I whisper.
The crying woman laughs—a broken, hysterical sound. "You don't know? God, you really don't know."
"Know what?"
The still woman speaks without moving, her voice flat. "It's an auction. They're going to sell us."
The words don't make sense. Can't make sense. This is America. This is the twenty-first century. People don't get sold like—like—
"That's impossible," I hear myself say. "That doesn't happen. There are laws. There's—"
