1: Underground Auction

"Next item," the auctioneer bellowed. His voice was slow, coated in arrogance. "Virgin. Untouched. Twenty-two. Fire in her eyes."

They laughed.

Low, smug, expensive laughter. The kind that never needed to raise its voice because money did the shouting. Cigar smoke clouded the air. Glasses clinked. The room wasn't a room—it was a ring of wolves dressed in black silk and blood-slick teeth.

Behind the curtain, Anaya Castellanos didn't breathe. Forgot how.

She stood barefoot, shivering in a white dress that stuck to her skin like disgrace. Her spine ached from standing too long. Her jaw locked tight from holding back everything—tears, rage, fear. Somewhere far away, she was still that girl who once believed in love.

But here? Now?

She was silent in silk.

A hand shoved her shoulder.

"Go," a woman whispered. "Time to be worth what your father owes."

Anaya stepped forward.

She didn't scream or run. There was nowhere left for either.

The curtain opened with a hiss. The room was colder than hell.

She felt them before she saw them: men in velvet chairs, their suits darker than the shadows, their eyes hidden behind smoke and wealth. She could feel the weight of their gaze. It stripped her without ever touching her.

But the spotlight touched her. Brutally. It bathed her in pale light, outlining every line of her body as if she were a meat, not a girl. The dress was damp against her spine. Her heart? It had already left her.

She held on, her arms limp, like a puppet between performances.

The bids came fast.

"Two-fifty."

"Three."

"Three-fifty."

Each number was a blade, cutting through every piece of her. They weren't buying her; they were paying the cost of her freedom, of her father's betrayal, of her belief that maybe, just maybe, someone would love her enough not to sell her.

"Three-seventy-five."

She remembered Ethan's eyes. The way they'd softened when he whispered, "I'd rather burn than see you cry again."

He hadn't even smoldered.

She remembered the necklace, his gift, now on Jenna's neck like a finishing wound.

Her hands curled into fists where no one could see.

And she swallowed the fury rising in her chest. Now wasn't the time to finally realize just how much pain Jenna had caused. Hell, she could have stopped her. All this time. She saw it, felt it, knew it—and still, she did nothing. She let Jenna hurt her again and again. Because some part of her kept hoping she'd change. Not that she had any excuse for Ethan. He had connived with Jenna without any second thought, to betray her.

The room quieted.

Then came a voice.

Low.

Unbothered.

Decisive.

"Five."

It wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. It was a voice made of winter and iron and locked doors. Every syllable slid through the smoke like something meant only for her.

The silence that followed was worse than the bids. The whole room held its breath.

The auctioneer coughed. "Five million. Going once... going twice..."

Please don't. Please...

Then someone in the crowd said it—soft, drowned in burnt tobacco air and ego.

Ethan.

Anaya flinched. Just to feel her chest rise, even a little.

The gavel cracked wood.

Sold.

Her body heard it before her heart did. She had been bought.

Bought.

For five million.

The man didn't come forward. Didn't claim her. Didn't speak again. He simply rose and walked away, the velvet devouring each step. She didn't see his face. Only the reminder of his presence, stitched into her like a chill that never left.

But she knew that voice.

She had never heard it before—but she knew it.

She stayed upright. Barely.

Her knees screamed. Her throat burned. Her hands trembled at her sides like they wanted to reach backward, back when she was just Anaya, a girl with a name and a laugh and paint under her fingernails.

But that girl had not been invited here.

A man approached the stage. Not the buyer. He leaned close, reeking of everything she'd spent her life trying to survive: cigar ash, power, and the kind of man who thought she owed him something.

"Smile, little dove," he whispered. "Five million for a face like yours? You should be grateful someone still values purity."

She said nothing.

She looked through him.

She would rather choke on glass than let him win.

He chuckled. "You'll learn," he said, and stepped away.

Another figure came next. Not cruel. Not kind. A younger man with trembling hands clipped a small white-slick tag to the side of her dress.

It swung gently. Laminated. Numbered.

Anaya didn't glance at it.

She didn't need to.

She wasn't Anaya Castellanos anymore.

She was item 143.

****

They left her onstage.

The next girl was already being prepared.

But they didn't dim the light.

They wanted her there, frozen in it. A warning. A symbol. A price.

She couldn't cry. Couldn't move. Could barely think.

But she refused to fold. Her spine held, brittle but unbent. Same as before, same as always. Her spine, the only thing that stayed straight.

Because this wasn't over.

She had been sold.

But she wasn't broken.

And whoever owned her now?

He had no idea what he'd bought.