I take the last stall. The door clicks shut. The metal lock slides into place with a sharp snap.
I fold onto the closed toilet lid. Cold porcelain meets the thin fabric of the dress. I slump against the cold metal wall of the stall, the rigid fabric of the blood-red silk dress making it impossible to pull my knees to my chest. I settle for hugging my stomach, the silk feeling like a second, suffocating skin.
I collapse.
I give myself three minutes.
Three minutes to feel everything. Three minutes for every vile word Calix Ferraro spoke about my body. Three minutes for the terror of his casual threat against Tyra.
Three minutes is not new. I have been giving myself three minutes since I was seventeen years old and Dominic first brought me to a cartel negotiation and told me to smile and not speak. I started keeping a notebook that year.
Not a diary—a ledger. Every name. Every word used against me. Every door closed in my face. Every time someone looked through me instead of at me. Twelve years of notebooks, filled in the margins of Costa functions, on napkins in bathrooms exactly like this one, in the five-minute windows between being summoned and being required to perform. I filled them because writing it down was the only way to make the compound feel finite. Evidence that it was happening. Proof that I was not imagining the cage. The notebooks are gone now—burned earlier this evening, because they were evidence of a different kind and evidence can be used against you.
But the habit of the three minutes remains. The three minutes are mine. The only thing in this compound that has ever been entirely mine.
The shaking starts in my hands. It moves up through my arms, into my chest, down through my legs. Hot, furious tears breach the dam. They streak down my face. They drip off my chin onto the crimson silk of a dress that was never supposed to fit.
The size fourteen label was specifically designed to remind me I do not fit in my own life. I press my fists hard against my closed eyes until white sparks explode. The waterproof mascara holds perfectly. Costa women do not cry in public, and the physical evidence of private crying is equally unacceptable.
I want to rip this blood-red silk dress off and burn it to ash on the tile floor. I want to call Rosa. I press my forehead against my knees, counting grout lines.
One. Two. Three. Fourteen.
The tears slow. Each exhale stretches slightly longer than the last. The panic recedes. I peel my spine off the cold metal wall of the stall. I straighten.
One minute left.
I blot carefully beneath my eyes with rough toilet paper. I grab the metal handicap bar to stand. The toilet flushes to cover the sound of my exit.
The stall door unlocks.
Fluorescent light blazes above the massive vanity mirrors.
The reflection stares back. My face is intact. My dark eyes are flat and devoid of emotion. The mask Dominic taught me to buildis operational. It costs everything to maintain and gives nothing away to the enemy.
Forty-five seconds left.
I pull the muted rose lipstick from my small clutch. Sixty dollars. It survives hot tears, spilled gin, and the indignity of being bartered like antique furniture. The color glides over the lips Jude bruised this morning.
Thirty seconds left.
I smooth the red silk over the hips deemed good for breeding. I smooth the stomach ordered to lose twenty pounds. I adjust the breasts Dominic forced into this punishing neckline because his version of punishment looks best in a designer label.
Time is up.
I pull out my phone.
My hands are terrifyingly steady. I have rebuilt my shattered nervous system in public bathrooms since the age of fourteen. Steadiness is the only useful tool the Costa family ever accidentally gave me.
I look at my reflection.
The cage door just slammed shut. Dominic and Calix hold the keys. Fighting them alone is a guaranteed death sentence. Tyra ends up in the custody of a butcher.
A knock. Not urgent. One knuckle. Twice.
Nick’s voice, flat and even, comes through the bathroom door.
“Tiffany left some pastries on the counter. She owns Sweet Pine Bakery on Main Street. They’re warm and sweet. Eat them now, Lucia.”