There was nothing else—no furniture, no decoration, no attempt to soften the space. Just clean, clinical emptiness that swallowed warmth and amplified sound.
Our footsteps echoed too loudly.
My breathing sounded wrong—ragged, uneven.
Dmitri moved ahead of me without hesitation and pushed open the second set of double doors.
The sound they made—metal grinding against metal—sent a shiver straight down my spine.
The main room beyond swallowed us whole.
It was cavernous, easily the size of a small warehouse, with a ceiling so high the lights barely reached the corners. No windows. No furniture. No chairs. Just an expanse of raw concrete floor, stained dark in places I refused to name.
Eighty-nine people sat in ragged rows on the ground.
Men. Women.
Wrists bound tightly behind their backs with thick plastic zip ties that bit into skin already bruised and swollen.
Ankles shackled to heavy iron rings bolted into the floor, chains pulled taut so they couldn’t shift more than a few inches.
Duct tape sealed every mouth—layered thick, carelessly applied, some already darkened with spit and blood.
Their eyes followed us as we entered.
Wide. Desperate. Animal with terror.
The smell hit harder here—crushing, unmistakable.
Sweat. Urine. Fear. The coppery tang of blood already spilled.
I knew this smell.
I had breathed it for a year.
My chest tightened, air refusing to move properly through my lungs.
For a moment the room tilted, memory surging up violently—dark corridors, bare stone, hands grabbing, voices laughing.
I forced myself to stay present, to anchor myself in the feel of the baton still absent from my hands, in Dmitri’s steady presence just behind me.
I scanned the faces slowly.
I didn’t rush it. I didn’t look away.
Most were strangers—hardened enforcers with dead eyes, mid-level traffickers who’d never laid hands on their merchandise but had signed orders and collected money all the same. People who’d convinced themselves they were businessmen, not monsters.
Then I saw him.
He recognized me at the same moment I recognized him.
He tried to duck his head, shoulders curling inward, gaze dropping to the floor—but it was too late.
Memory slammed into place with brutal clarity.
The husband.
The one married to the woman who had come to Lake Como that night to collect me after Dmitri made his choice. He hadn’t touched me then. He’d watched instead, eyes calculating, lips curved in faint amusement.