He releases my jaw and settles back in his chair, smoothing his jacket with deliberate care.
"Drake Moses walked into a trap an hour ago. A trap set by his own brother." Victor's tongue darts across his lower lip, that reptilian gesture that makes my stomach lurch. "By now, he's either dead or dying in a warehouse on the south side. The great and powerful king of the docks, brought low by family betrayal. Poetic, don't you think?"
No.
The denial roars through me, silent and desperate. Not Drake. Please, not Drake.
But Victor sees the fear that flashes across my face, and his smile widens with satisfaction.
"Ah. You care for him. That makes this so much sweeter." He leans forward, elbows on his knees, like a grandfather about to share a secret with a beloved grandchild. "You see, Katriana, I've been watching you for a long time. Longer than you know. When your father came to me with his gambling debts and his desperate dreams, I saw an opportunity. Not just for money, but for something far more valuable."
"You're insane."
"I'm patient." He corrects me without heat. "Patient enough to wait five years. Patient enough to watch you struggle and suffer and sacrifice everything to protect a family that had no idea what you were enduring." His gaze flicks to my mother and sister, huddled against the wall with matching expressions of horror. "They know now, of course. I've explained everything while you were sleeping. The payments. The threats. The night I wrapped my hands around your throat and told you exactly what I would do to your sister if you didn't comply. It was beautiful to watchtheir expressions morph from awe, to fear and finally settle on the same exact horror you see in their eyes right now."
Gemma lets out a sob that tears at my heart.
"They know about the wish, too." Victor continues, relentless. "The desperate plea you dropped into that box at Scarlet Thorn. The contract you signed with Drake Moses." His eyes glitter with malicious pleasure. "Your mother was particularly devastated to learn you've been whoring yourself out for protection."
"That's not what happened." The words feel weak even as I speak them. "Drake never forced me. He’s not the monster you are. The choice was always mine with him. With you, you think you own everyone and everything."
"A choice." Victor laughs, soft and cruel. "The choice between his bed and my establishments. Some choice that is." He shakes his head slowly. "But it doesn't matter now. Whatever arrangements you made with Drake Moses ended the moment my men put him in the ground."
He is lying. He has to be lying. Drake cannot be dead. He cannot be gone from this world.
But the doubt creeps in anyway, cold and insidious.
"Here is what happens now." Victor rises from his chair and begins to pace, his footsteps echoing against the concrete like a metronome counting down to my doom. "You're going to work in one of my establishments. You'll start as entertainment for my more discerning clients. Men who pay premium prices for women with your particular combination of beauty and defiance."
My stomach revolts. I swallow bile and force myself to keep listening.
"Your sister will join you." His gaze slides to Gemma with a hunger that makes my blood freeze. "She's younger. Prettier, perhaps. And untouched, I imagine, given your family's prudish tendencies. Men pay extraordinary amounts for that kind of freshness."
"Don't you touch her." The words rip from my throat, raw with a fury that burns hotter than my fear. "Don't you dare touch her." There’s not a damn thing I can do to enforce my words, but I still throw them into the space between us.
"Or what?" Victor spreads his hands, amused. "You'll fight me? You're tied to a chair, Katriana. Naked. Helpless. The only power you have left is the power to accept your fate gracefully."
He moves toward my mother, who cowers against the wall with silent tears streaming down her face.
"As for this one..." He cups my mother's chin with deceptive gentleness, tilting her face toward the light. "Too old for my establishments. Too broken to be useful. But I'm not without mercy. She can watch while her daughters learn their new roles. Or she can have a tragic accident. The choice is yours, Katriana."
The choice is no choice at all. He is stripping away every option, every hope. The bastard is boxing me into a corner where the only path forward leads through his twisted vision of my future.
But I am not the woman I was five years ago.
I am not the terrified girl who let him wrap his hands around her throat and accepted it as the price of survival. I am not the victimwho paid his blood money month after month and prayed for a miracle that never came.
I am Katriana Bellrose. I survived five years of his threats. I signed a contract with a dangerous man and fell in love with him anyway. I gave my body to someone I chose, on my terms, for my reasons.
And I refuse to let this monster win.
I think of Drake. Not the man who might be dying in a warehouse somewhere, but the man who held me in the darkness and promised me a future.
I think of Persia, who walked through fire and came out the other side with a ring on her finger and a baby in her arms. Trust builds in a thousand small moments.
I think of Jane Eyre, who walked away from the man she loved because staying would have cost her too much of herself. And who came back on her own terms.
I will not break. I will not surrender. I will stall and scheme and wait for my moment, and when it comes, I will take it with both hands.
