The first time I met Nick Bruin, I was being shoved to the pavement by my father’s hand.
I still remember the sting of gravel cutting into the heels of my palms and the points of my knees. It hurt, but the feel of the night air cutting across my skin was possibly the best thing I’ve ever experienced. To be outside, to smell the exhaust of their cars, the ability to move for the first time in days. I remember looking at his feet—Pretty Nick, not to be confused with the Ugly one—the scuffed toes of his boots, the glowing ember of a cigarette butt as he listlessly discarded it, the weight of his eyes on the back of my neck as I panted into the blacktop.
It was a nondescript parking lot somewhere off the Avenue. Dark. Deserted. The headlights of two cars were all that illuminated the lot; my father’s sleek sedan and Daniel Payne’s imposing SUV.
“Take her,” my father growled. “You know the deal. Use her how you like.”
There was a pause, and then Daniel Payne’s voice. “Are you sure she’s—”
“Yes, yes,” my dad said impatiently. “Trust me. No one would want her. She’s fresh meat.”
“I’m not—” My breath escaped me in a pained wheeze as my father buried his foot into my side.
“If you’re not fessing up to what you’ve done to Leticia, then I don’t want to hear a single word coming out of your fucking mouth,” he hissed.
It was Pretty Nick who lifted me to my feet. It’d be stupid to describe his attention as gentle, but after three days under the whirling inferno of Lionel Lucia’s wrath, it sure as hell felt like it. I didn’t even mind him shoving me into the backseat of the SUV, not fighting when he bound my wrists or closed the door, cloaking the two of us in a frenetic, uncomfortably intimate silence.
Outside, between the beams of headlights, the two Kings made their negotiations. Flesh for a swift reprisal. Later, I’d learn my dad was explaining to Daniel how I’d lie. That I’d say I wasn’t a virgin. That it was just a ruse to get out of my punishment. That he knows for a fact no one’s ever had me.
But inside, it was just the two of us, quiet and still, and here’s the kicker.
I started crying.
I can probably count on one hand the amount of times I’ve cried, and this was one of them. It wasn’t the prospect of being Daniel’s new toy. I hadn’t even had time to process that yet. It wasn’t even the pain in my side; the bruises circling my throat, or the throb in my knuckles and knees from thrashing against the solid wood of the chest my father had me locked in.
It was relief. I was just so goddamn glad to be free that it all came crashing out into a whispered hitch of a sob.
And then Nick turned away—just a small pivot of his head to look out the window—and let out this long, unimpressed sigh. “Jesus, you Royal twats are some of the weakest bitches I’ve ever met.”
I remember my sob being stolen away in a sharp inhalation. I remember tensing and shifting, turning my back to the opposite door. I remember the sound he made when the heel of my shoe made contact with his jaw. I remember the crunch of the window breaking and the flurry of his hands, the weight of his body as he wrestled me down, expression impassive except for a small, irritated crease dividing his strong brow line.
Point being, I keep my mouth shut for a reason. Sure, I could tell the Lords about Nick being the one to break into my cell at the Velvet Hideaway. I could watch the new Payne get revenge, all the Kings gathered ‘round to place their bullets and blades into Pretty Nick’s hard stack of flesh. I bet they’d even let me watch as they snuffed the light out of his blue eyes. My father would be there—Perez too, no doubt—and then they’d re-negotiate about where to hold me until…
Well, until they won’t need to anymore.
Fuck that.
If Lionel Lucia taught me anything, it’s that secrets have power. Leverage is currency. Knowledge may be the only thing that will keep me alive.
There’s always a strange, electric optimism to being shuffled from one pair of hands to another. The night my father gave me to the Kings, the day Daniel moved me to the Hideaway—these were opportunities. I see this one for what it is.
In the afternoon, tight-lipped contractors come to repair the broken window. Cleaners arrive for the soiled laundry and bed sheets, taking away all the evidence. Then Auggy and a couple of her fellow whores do another round of checking my suite for weapons. But it’s not like it used to be. Where they once regarded me with irritated, suspicious demeanors, now they avoid looking at me altogether. They tiptoe and whisper, rummaging through my drawers so gently that it’s almost like they’d rather not bother. It casts the room into a solemn, grim silence that makes my teeth gnash.
I bristle at their pity the longer nothing happens. Day after day, the sun rises and sets, and no one comes for me. Auggy leaves me food, morning and night, but even though she gives the perfectly-made bed a quick glance, she doesn’t speak.
It goes on like this for a long while. Days, weeks—who knows? The only notable blip in time is when my period comes, confirming that Nick’s Plan B actually worked.
At least I have that going for me.
After a while of this, I start to think maybe I hallucinated the conversation between Killian and Nick—the one about me becoming the new Duchess. Maybe I confused one of my books with real life, mixing up tawdry romances with my current situation. Trauma does crazy shit to the brain. I should know; I’ve had a lifetime of it as Lionel Lucia’s least favorite daughter. There are nights I still wake up convinced that I’m trapped in the chest, legs flailing instinctively against a barrier that doesn’t exist. And then there are nights I wake up unable to move at all, paralyzed by an inevitable certainty that I never left.
You can take the girl out of the chest…
It’s just the stasis that gets me. I spend it pacing the length of the room, over and over, wound so tight with the need to get out that it could choke me. It was bad enough even before they came, but everywhere I step, everywhere I look, is a memory of that night. Their shadowy figures. Their low, gruff voices. The pinch of their grips, the ache of their touch, the sting of their needle. I think Auggy and the others assume I’m sleeping in the armchair by the door, or the floor by the closet, but the reality is a lot more embarrassing.
I sleep in the daytime, inside the cold, hard tub, with the door to the bathroom locked tight.
It’s my destiny.
Trading one box for another.
When it finally happens, I’m not expecting it.
Noise outside the door makes me bolt upright. The light from the newly barred window indicates it’s too early for dinner, so when old Ms. Crane walks in—carrying a large paper bag, not a tray of food—every cell of my body wakes to life.
It’s never good when the old bat comes down herself instead of sending one of the other girls. If Auggy is the brothel’s madam, Ms. Crane is the stubborn wart that won’t go away—or the manager, as she prefers to be called. She’s basically a den mother to the fucked-up Lords. If they’re mean, she’s half the reason.
“Smells like a goddamn kennel down here,” she says in her rough, raspy voice. Her eyes take in the space, shrewd and calculating. “Christ, have you been sulking?”
“Sulking?” I repeat, narrowing my eyes. “No, not me. I’ve been using all the free time of being locked in a fucking basement to solve the worldwide hunger crisis.” I offer her a sharp-edged grin. “After all, what could I possibly have to sulk about?”
Ms. Crane gives me a harsh scoff. “You think you’re the first girl here to get raped? You’re probably not even the first this month. You’ve got three hots and a cot, Goldilocks. At least you don’t have to go to a corner to work off the loss of expense.” Bitterly, she adds, “Hell, I had to marry mine.”
I stare at her in disbelief, but even though I sneer, “Yeah, my violent sexual assault was a real lucky break,” only half of the searing anger in my chest is directed at her.
This sickness of this city—or my awareness of it—grows every day.
She ignores the comment and sniffs. “When was the last time you bathed?”
I give an indolent shrug. “Hell if I know. At one point, the bathtub became less of a shower and more of that ‘cot’ you seem to think so highly of.”
“Well, it’s time. Go wash up.” She shoots me a look, unfazed by the thought of me sleeping in the tub. “And you better scrub that pussy until it sparkles.”
“Why?” I ask, lifting my chin.
Haughtily, she replies, “Because I said so.”
I go rigid, knowing this is it. My life feels like a series of befores and afters. After I was put into the chest. Before Leticia disappeared. After my father gave me over to Daniel. Before being moved to the Hideaway. After the…
Rape, my thoughts scream, even though I can’t even claim it as one.
Either way, I’ve learned to recognize the moments, to see the seams between a before and an after, and I can feel it now. That nervous crackle in the air, the impatient look from the old crone, the way my eyes zero in on that door, hungry for escape from yet another box.
I nod at the bag she’s holding. The logo on the side is from a shop I might not be personally familiar with, but it’s well known that the Avenue girls keep it in business. “Sending me on a date? You don’t exactly look like a fairy godmother.”
“I left my wand in the carriage.” She tosses the bag on the end of the bed, and I stare at it. “New clothes for transfer day. Can’t have you walking out of here looking like a wet blanket. Bad for business.”
Transfer.
Not release.
“Lucky me,” I mutter, standing and picking up the bag. Inside, the clothing is all black. Some kind of shredded cotton trying to pass for a shirt, along with black pleather leggings. “Oh goody, whore clothes.”
“Sorry it’s not a ball gown, Cinderella,” she snaps, looking annoyed, “but if I were you, I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
I hold up the clothes. “You think this is a gift?”
“I think you don’t want to live down here the rest of your life, and this is your only choice. You had something worth half a shit.” Her eyes drop down to my crotch. “You lost it.”
My erstwhile virginity, no doubt.
“I didn’t lose anything. It was taken, and on your watch.” It’s a lie, but she doesn’t know that.
Except when I meet her gaze, she’s raising an eyebrow. “Maybe the jolly green jackoffs who come in and out of here buy that horseshit, but I don’t. Look at you. You probably lost that cherry to the first wet-lipped maggot who humped your thigh.” She gives me a long, considering look. “Not because you were easy. Curious, more like. I bet you sent that sucker back home with a limp, didn’t you?” She lets out a low, raspy laugh. “Yeah, one of my boys told me about you. Called you a bruiser, and he wasn’t lying. God only knows what Daniel was thinking.”
My lips smash together with the restraint of not answering.
She’s not wrong.
About any of it.
When she speaks again, her voice is slightly less harsh. “I’ve seen a lot of pussy in my time, girl. I can spot the types from a mile away. The hard hustlers, the bitches with claws, the delicate little dolls who’d break down if a man breathed on her too hard…” She shakes her head, staring me down. “You’re not the right kind of girl for this business. If Killian kept you, put you to work upstairs, you’d be dead or in jail in a week, and we both know it.” She nods to the bag in my hand. “This’ll be a better fit for you.”
I give a sharp, bitter laugh. “Serving three fuckboys who are caught up in fake royal titles? Yeah, I’m really moving on up in the world.”
She doesn’t look surprised that I know where I’m going. “It’s up to you what you make of it.”
I could tell her right now that Nick was the one who attacked me. Maybe it’d wipe that smarmy, impatient look from her expression if she realized what she was sending me to. Then again, maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe she’d tell me I’m still coming out on top.
“You’re something else, you know.” I tilt my head, regarding her with calculating eyes. She thinks she has me pegged? “I wonder how many girls you’ve ruined with that bullshit you’re slinging.” Her eyes narrow as I casually stalk forward. “I bet you tell yourself you’re just toughening them up, preparing them for the harsh, cold reality of the world. You’re not a villain here. You’re just a gold star victim. You’ve perfected it. Nothing bothers you anymore. Some girl gets raped and beaten, she should just pull herself up, pretend it never happened, and be grateful it wasn’t worse. Oh, yeah, you’re doing them a service,” I mock, grinning at the flash of anger in her eyes. “You’re not a friend to these girls. You’re a traitor. I have more respect for the shit-stains who held me down and fucked me.” I hold up the bag. “At least they never dressed it up.”
She gives me a bored look. “I could give a rat’s flaming fuck about gaining your respect. If I coddled every girl who got bad-touched, I wouldn’t have time for anything else.”
“Of course, you use your time so much more constructively.”
Her eyes bore into mine, flaring indignantly. “Now it’s time for you to do the same.” She jerks her thumb toward the ceiling. “This is an opportunity that no one else in this pussy trap will ever see. You may have to spread your legs for them, suck their dicks, cook their food, and wash their clothes. So what? Any one of my girls would give their left tit for a chance at a Royal position.” When she goes to yank open the door, Auggy is standing there with a duffel bag, waiting. “Get her cleaned up and presentable,” Ms. Crane says to her, throwing me a dirty look. “They’re coming for you at dinner. I don’t give a fuck where you go, so long as you’re not soiling my sheets anymore.” She leaves, slamming the door behind her as Augustine regards me.
After a moment of suspended silence, she tips her chin up, looking down her nose at me. “You’re wrong about her. Ms. Crane isn’t a traitor. She’s saved more girls from the street than you probably ever deigned to think about in that big fuck-you mansion you grew up in.”
I meet her glare, but I can’t call up any heat for it. “You don’t know anything about how I grew up.”
Arching an eyebrow, she says, “I’m betting you never went hungry.”
“Then, again,” I repeat, emphasizing, “you don’t know anything about how I grew up. Hunger was nothing.” Better to feel my stomach cramp with starvation than to be forced into six square feet of hell. She has no idea what lengths my father will go to get what he wants.
“Whatever,” she sighs, stalking past me to the bathroom. “Let’s get this over with.”
If I thought a rigorous shower was all I’d be getting, then I’m sorely mistaken.
“You’re fucking with me,” I say twenty minutes later, hair dripping as I survey the counter of my bathroom.
Auggy snaps a pair of latex gloves against her wrists. “Don’t worry. I wax all our girls myself. I know what I’m doing.”
“I’m not letting you near my twat with hot wax.”
She brandishes a flat, wooden spatula-thing and counters, “If we do it now, they won’t have to do it themselves later.”
I blink at her. “You can’t seriously mean—”
“Oh, I very much mean.” She nods to the pile of blankets laid out on the floor. “There’s a reason you ride into battle hairless. Never give them something to pull.” I must be experiencing some form of conditioned psychosis, because that’s so close to being profound that I find myself getting my body hair ripped out for the next half hour. “Everything from the waist down,” Auggy notes, slathering wax on my shins.
I can’t even remember the last time I was able to shave my legs—let alone my cunt—so each rip of the paper hurts like a son of a bitch, making me growl, slapping the floor in useless anger with each strip.
She pointedly ignores this. “You’re lucky to be so blonde, you know. It’s almost white. My hair’s so dark, I can see it growing back after a week, but I bet this lasts a month or more.” She runs a finger over an angry, red patch of skin. “Sensitive, though. Your skin’s too fair. You bruise easily, don’t you? Some of them like that.” The look she gives me is full of significance as she grabs the next strip plastered at the crux of my inner thigh. “Those are the ones to watch out for.”
Rip.
“Son of a motherfuck!” I screech.
After that, she plucks my eyebrows, moisturizes my face, and then spends a long time combing the tangles from my hair, looking unbothered by the verbal abuse I hurl at her along the way.
“How much do men pay for this?” I sneer, head snapping back forth with each pass of the comb. “Am I getting the sadistic whore premium?”
“I think I’m going to miss you,” she says, smiling at a knot. “Coming down here every day to feed you? It’s kind of like having a really mean pet you can’t bring yourself to put down.”
“Fuck you.” I stare sightlessly into her bag of horrors. There are all kinds of things in there; curling irons and makeup and hair dyes. It’s the kind of shit my sister would know her way around. Leticia would spend hours getting ready in the mornings, always berating me for rolling out of bed, throwing my hair up into something sloppy, and applying nothing more than a layer of lipstick. I always suspected she was jealous. Now I know.
Auggy touches her chest. “Aw, see? My days just won’t be the same without you snapping at me.” Gradually, her smile disappears, voice carrying a more serious tone. “It doesn’t have to be so bad. Ms. Crane was right. Give them what they want, and I bet they’ll treat you like a queen. Not all Royals are monsters. Just look at the Lady. She’s got a cushy life and three strapping, powerful men who love her like crazy.”
I meet her gaze in the mirror, not missing the thread of envy in her voice. “You wish it were you.” Truthfully, I pity Augustine. I wonder how many men she services in an average week. How many abusive assholes she has to smile at? How many dicks she has to take inside herself just to earn her place beneath the Lords’ ruling fists?
I don’t ask.
Instead, I jerk my chin at her bag, throbbing all over in a strangely familiar way. “That hair dye in there,” I wonder, reframing this into just the thing she’d described before. A battle I’m riding into. Canon fire and hand grenades.
This isn’t vanity.
It’s war paint.
“You have anything in a blue?” I ask.
Augustine’s red mouth lifts into a smirk. “That’s my girl.”
