I don’t know how much time has passed. Minutes. Hours. A lifetime.
Two men step inside, and my body goes rigid before my mind catches up. Every muscle pulls against the restraints, pain flaring hot through my shoulders and hips.
One of them laughs softly. “Still got some fight in her.”
The other one doesn’t laugh. He’s older, maybe. Or maybe he just feels older because he moves slower, calmer, like he’s done this enough times that nothing about it touches him anymore. That calm makes me hate him more. He stops beside the bed, looking down at me like I’m something to inspect. Not a person. Not Olivia. Not a woman.
Inventory.
The word comes back from somewhere I never heard it but somehow know.
His gaze drags over me, clinical and detached. “You listen,” he says. “You listen good, because I’m not repeating myself.”
I stare at him. Not because I’m brave. Because I don’t know where else to look.
“You’re being moved soon,” he says. “Auction window got pushed up because your biker made a mess of things.”
Cobra.
His name doesn’t leave my mouth, but it hits inside me like a match. Warmth. Pain. Hope. Fear.
The man sees something flicker in my face, because his mouth curves. “Yeah,” he says. “That one. He’s loud for a quiet bastard.” The other man snorts.The older one keeps watching me. “He can break whatever he wants. Won’t change where you’re going.”
My fingers curl as much as the restraints allow. “You don’t know him,” I whisper.
The man’s smile fades.
Good.
Maybe I still have one small thing left.
He leans closer. “I know men like him,” he says. “They think violence makes them gods until they run into men with money, time, and distance. Your boy is strong up close. That doesn’t help you if he can’t you.” The words are meant to cut. They do. But not in the way he wants. Because I remember Cobra’s eyes.
I remember the way he looked at me after the alley, after I told him what that man said.
I will protect you.
He didn’t say it like comfort. He said it like law.
The man straightens. “So here’s your new reality. You behave, your next owner might be patient. Might even be kind, if that’s what he paid for. You fight, you make yourself difficult, they’ll give you to someone worse.”
My skin goes cold.
The other man steps toward Eli’s body and nudges his boot near the floor, not touching him, but close enough to make the room tilt. “Like your friend learned,” he says.
My vision flashes. Hot. White. Then black around the edges.
The older man lifts a hand, stopping him. “Enough.” His eyes come back to me. “Compliance matters,” he says. “Good girls live easier.”
Good girl.
The phrase crawls over my skin. I turn my head away from him, staring at the wall instead.
He sighs like I’m disappointing him. “You’ll learn.”
The door closes after they leave. The lock clicks. Silence returns. Not the same silence as before. This one has teeth.
I stare at the wall until the shadows blur. My body hurts. My mind hurts worse. There’s a place inside me that wants to float away. To leave this room without moving. To let my body stay here while the rest of me goes somewhere they can’t reach. For a second, I understand how easy that would be. How tempting. No pain there. No fear. No Eli on the floor. No memory. But then I hear Cobra’s voice. Not from the room. Not real. Still clear.
