[Chapter Two: Cold Leather | Her POV – The Van]

  It was cold.

  Not the kind of cold that came from air-conditioning or drafty metal walls.

  It was the kind that sank into your skin and told your bones something terrible had just started.

  Her back smmed against the van’s metal floor as the doors locked shut behind her. The hum of the engine kicked in—low, guttural, like some beast waking. Her wrists were tied with something soft but unbreakable. Velvet rope. Who the hell uses velvet?

  She struggled upright, eyes wide, breath coming too fast.

  Panic made everything louder—

  The engine.

  Her heartbeat.

  The faint clink of a knife in someone’s pocket.

  “Emily,” she choked out, voice hoarse. Her sister’s name burned on her tongue. “Emily—”

  A figure loomed across from her. The woman in bck. Seated like a queen, legs crossed, gloved fingers tapping once… twice… against her own thigh.

  And those eyes. Bck as grief, gleaming with something cruel.

  “You screamed like a little mb,” the woman said, voice like wine left too long in the dark. “It was cute.”

  “What do you want from me?” Her voice cracked.

  The woman leaned forward, chin resting on her palm. “That depends. What’s your value?”

  “I—I don’t know what this is, but my dad—he’s—he’ll call the police. I swear to God, he’ll—”

  “Your father,” she cut in, smiling, “can barely afford his wife’s pills. Do you really think he has the stomach to take on me?”

  She didn’t have an answer.

  She could only feel.

  The sharp corners of the van digging into her spine.

  The metallic scent of danger.

  The awful realization that this wasn’t a mistake.

  They’d come for her.

  “I didn’t do anything,” she whispered. “Please… let me go.”

  The woman stood slowly, walking over. Her boots were silent on the floor. She knelt. Face inches from hers. Voice low.

  “You didn’t. But you’re what he owed me.”

  She reached out, and for a terrible second she thought she’d be hit—but instead, the woman brushed a lock of hair from her cheek.

  “Besides,” she whispered, “I like pretty things.”

  The van jolted, turning sharply.

  She bit her lip until it bled.

  Because deep down, something told her—

  This was just the beginning.

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