Arét POV
The pounding in my head was what pulled me back into consciousness. A low groan slipped from my lips as I shifted, every limb aching like I'd been hit by a truck. My joints cracked. My mouth was dry. And the air smelled like iron and mildew.
I blinked against the dim light, and all I saw were iron bars. Above me. In front of me. Behind me. My breath hitched as I twisted around. Bars on every side.
I was in a cage.
A fucking cage.
No windows. No bed. Just cold metal beneath me and the sour taste of blood on my tongue.
What the hell? What was I doing in a cage in 2024?
Panic surged through me, hot and blinding. I squeezed my eyes shut, searching my memory. What was the last thing I remembered? My stepsister's birthday. The cake. The awkward small talk. Delilah... my bitchy stepmother handing me a glass of wine. Watching and urging me to drink it, which was suspicious. She'd never been that nice to me. And I'd been stupid enough to drink it all.
My stomach dropped. She drugged me. That bitch drugged me.
I tried to yell, but pain flared through my jaw. I touched my face, then stared at my fingertips. Blood.
"You should know I didn't want to do this, Arét. We didn't have a choice anymore."
Her voice made my skin crawl. Delilah stepped into view from the shadows, arms crossed over her large chest.
I didn't even hesitate. "What the hell am I doing in a cage, Delilah?" I rasped, dragging myself up to my knees and gripping the bars.
Her expression shifted. The fake pity drained from her face, replaced by a smug little smirk.
"See, this is why I don't feel bad," she said. "You never respected me. Always called me by my name. You never even tried to welcome me into this family."
"Oh, I'm sorry. Should I have baked you cookies before or after you slept with my father?"
She didn't answer. Just stood there, calm and composed like this was normal.
"Your mother didn't know what she had with your father," Delilah began, voice soaked in the kind of calm that made my skin crawl. "I was just a woman who saw a man who only wanted to be loved, and I loved him in return. That doesn't matter anymore. I'm your stepmother, Arét. You were supposed to respect me. To see me as a mother figure."
I wanted to speak, God, I wanted to scream at her—but nothing came out. My throat burned. My fists curled tight against the metal floor.
Respect her? Delilah was twenty-five. I was twenty-three. Two damn years between us, and she wanted me to call her "mother?" To bow down to the woman who tore my family apart, who pushed my mother into such darkness that she took her own life?
Respect her?
Fuck her.
She opened her mouth again, probably ready to spew more delusions, but then the heavy metal door creaked open. The man who stepped in made my blood run cold. He was tall, bigger than anyone I'd seen before, and a jagged scar ran from his left eye all the way to the corner of his mouth. Pale. Cold-looking. Like sunlight had never touched him.
"We're shipping her out," he said, voice low and rough. "The money goes to your husband's account, like we promised. And if you breathe a single word of this to anyone, you won't live to see the end of the day you do. Tell anyone who asks that she ran off with some gang guy she was dating, anything..."
I gripped the bars tighter, my breath catching in my chest. "Wait… wait, my father is in on this?" My voice cracked, trembling as I rattled the cage. "My father… is selling me?"
Delilah didn't flinch. She turned slowly, the smirk already curling on her lips. "Look at you. Still so naïve. Of course he is. He's the one who came up with the idea."
She stepped closer, crouching a little, like she wanted me to see her face clearly when she drove the knife in.
"And I've got to say," she whispered, "you turned out to be pretty expensive. I almost didn't think they'd pay that much."
Then she winked, turned on her heels, shook the scarred man's hand before walking out of the room.
The door slammed shut behind her.
I stayed there in the cage, frozen. My hands dropped from the bars. My knees gave out. My head was spinning so fast it felt like the room was tilting.
My own father sold me.
"I take you out of here," the man with the scar muttered as he unlocked the cage. "You fight this, I beat you till your bones break. Capisci?"
His accent was heavy, Italian... I think, and his eyes were dead and cold. Like he'd watched people die and never blinked.
He stepped aside, nodding for me to move.
I could fight. Right now. This was the moment. Like every survival podcast said; don't let them take you to a second location. Except… this was the second location. And according to all the crime stories?
No one made it back from the third.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I raised my hands a little, my voice shaky as I tried to bargain. "Look, man. I don't know how much you bought me for, but I'll pay double. Triple. I swear, just give me a phone, an account number, hell, even crypto, I'll work hard, and in two months, I promise to pay up. You can get a prettier girl, cheaper too. I'm scrawny, I'm plain, I'm not even worth..."
He stopped. Looked me over like a butcher checking his meat.
"Mamma mia… I say the same to my boss," he scoffed. "You brutta. No big tits. I don't know why he want you."
I blinked, confused. "Brutta?"
"Ugly," he said flatly. "He buy you for… cinquecentomila dollari. Five hundred thousand. Too much."
Wait.
"What did you say?!" My voice jumped an octave. "Did you just say five hundred thousand dollars?"
He was already walking ahead, waving me to follow like I was a dog.
"Si. You hear me. Cinquecentomila. It's ridiculous. He can buy model, supermodel, porno star. Instead? He buy you." He repeated with a dry laugh.
Before I could react, he shoved me into the back of a moving van. My knees hit the metal floor with a dull thud. I scrambled up, but it was too late.
The doors slammed.
Locked.
Pitch black.
And all I could do was sit there, trying not to hyperventilate as the engine roared to life.
Five hundred thousand dollars.
For me?
It made no sense, it had to be some bad joke. Maybe I was in a bad dream.
I don't know how long the drive lasted. Hours maybe.
We hit bumps, rocks, potholes that sent my body jolting with every swerve. My wrists ached from the position. My knees were sore. I screamed... I screamed until my throat felt like it was bleeding.
I know someone heard me.
They just didn't care.
Somewhere along the way, I heard the heavy clank of gates opening. Metal dragging against metal. Voices in the distance.
Then there was silence again, until the van stopped.
My heart raced like it was trying to crawl out of my chest. I stayed low, legs ready, and waited.
The moment the doors creaked open, I launched.
Foot straight into someone's face. The impact was solid. He dropped with a curse, and I didn't wait to see if he was down for good. I kicked him again for good measure, right in the nose and ran.
I ran like my life depended on it. Because it did.
I didn't know where I was going.
Didn't care.
My bare feet slapped against stone, then dirt, then grass. Everything was a blur. My arms flailed, hair stuck to my face, and all I could think was go, go, go.
Then... bam.
I hit something. Hard.
A wall? A person? I didn't know. But arms grabbed me before I hit the ground.
"Let me go!" I yelled. "Please, that man... he trafficked me... he... he bought me..."
The words tangled in my mouth, but I looked up.
And froze.
I knew that face.
I didn't know where. Or how. But I knew it.
And behind him... was a huge castle.
"I... I know you..." I whispered, stepping back as he let go of me.
He just stared, unbothered.
Then he turned and started walking away.
"Running's pointless," he said casually, like we were chatting about the weather. "Two hundred acres. No outsiders. You'll get caught again, hopefully it's before the coyotes find you."
My chest heaved. I didn't move.
Because suddenly, I knew exactly where I was.
Dante Valemont's Estate.
The place no one was ever invited to. But before I could react, I felt something hard connect to the back of my head, and my vision dimmed.