Two men wrapped Pearl carelessly in a blanket and carried her out.

Lucian played the video again.

The woman who looked like me stood naked beneath the spotlight, stripped of every scrap of dignity.

I didn’t know her.

I pitied her.

To the people watching, she was no longer a person.

She was livestock.

The host ordered her to turn so the buyers could inspect her from every angle.

She bit her lip and refused.

A whip lashed out of the darkness.

It tore her skin.

Tears filled her eyes. The electronic collar at her throat tightened and shocked her.

Eventually, she turned.

I looked away.

Miles sounded distressed.

“She’s so proud. Being humiliated like this, recorded for people to watch… Even if we bring her home, how could she face anyone? It might hurt her more than death.”

I frowned.

If that woman really were me, why should I be ashamed?

The people committing these crimes got to hide and congratulate themselves, while the victim spent her life being judged?

What kind of bullshit was that?

I would do everything I could to survive.

Then I would make them pay.

“Who told you that’s Stella?”

Lucian’s voice was low and level.

For an instant, I could only stare.

One moment, I had been falling into despair.

The next, he had caught me.

He knew.

As calmly and certainly as that.

It wasn’t me.

“But she looks exactly like her,” Miles said. “How can you be sure?”

Lucian put the phone on the table.

The video paused on the woman’s tearful face.

Humiliated.

Fragile.

Helpless.

“Stella wouldn’t look like that.”

He looked at Miles.

“At nineteen, she walked into my house alone and gambled her life against me. You think she’d be afraid of those worthless bastards?”

He paused.

A pale, unreadable smile touched his mouth.

“They could break her bones, and she wouldn’t beg. Julian was the exception.”

I couldn’t argue.

I had learned too late.

The price had been my life.

Before going upstairs, Lucian told Miles to send Hayes the recording of Pearl’s admission and her surgical records.

And to give copies to several media outlets.

She hadn’t finished saying my name.

But she had said enough.

That red beauty mark was identical to mine. Anyone who knew my face could work out the rest.

Someone had used the police and public opinion to force him to release her.

He was returning the favor.

I watched him, my eyes stinging.

My hands rested over my chest.

There was no heartbeat there.

Yet for a moment, I felt as though my heart had settled safely back into place.

“Thank you. If there’s another life, Lucian, I’ll spend it repaying you.”

Miles had started away.

He stopped.

“Sir.”

Lucian was already in the elevator. He looked up without expression.

Miles hesitated for several seconds.

“If the woman in the video isn’t her, and Pearl probably has her skin…”

He swallowed.

“Doesn’t that mean Stella is dead?”

For the first time, someone said it aloud.

I looked at Lucian with Miles, waiting for him to confirm it.

He said nothing.

He pressed the button to close the doors.

I went inside.

So close to him, I still couldn’t find sadness on his face.

Someone that intelligent must already have understood.

I was dead.

And it had been terrible.

My skin peeled away. My eyes removed and given to the girl I had called my sister.

He seemed unmoved.

Why did that disappoint me?

Since dying, I had learned so many things I hadn’t known in life.

The hatred I once felt for him was gone.

He had saved me three times.

He was the only person who had ever fulfilled my birthday wish.

I wanted to believe the fireworks had been for me.

Even if it was a beautiful misunderstanding, I would keep it.

I was already dead.

Let me be selfish once.

Let me claim one beautiful thing.

Otherwise, everything I remembered about my life was pain.

I gave a small, bitter laugh.

In the end, the last sweetness in my life had come from the man I considered my enemy.

He entered his bedroom without switching on the lights.

Only two motion-activated lamps came on.

At the bar, he rolled up his sleeves and poured a drink.

Ice chimed against the glass.

Vodka followed.

Even that simple movement looked like something from a luxury advertisement.

I stood opposite him as he drank.

One glass.

Another.

As though it were water.

Only when he reached the third bottle did he set the glass down.

He carried the bottle past me. Alcohol hung heavily around him, and a faint red flush marked the corners of his eyes.

On the terrace, cold moonlight covered his shoulders.

The wind lifted the edge of his clothes.

He stood silently, looking into the sky.

Darkness filled his eyes.

After a long time, he spoke.

Low.

Rough.

A little drunk.

“There are no stars tonight.”

His eyes were red.

I couldn’t tell whether it was the alcohol.

Or me.

“Does it hurt, Lucian?” I asked softly. “That I’m dead?”

The wind carried my voice away.

I suddenly felt regret.

While alive, I had seen only Julian.

With Lucian, there had been nothing but dislike and suspicion.

We had never sat down and spoken peacefully.

I had only begun to know him after dying.

Too late.

Bitterness filled my throat.

I reached out and let my fingers pass through the deep, familiar lines of his face.