Chapter 2

Ashley

*****

Few Months Ago

“The auction is next week,” my father says, his icy hands playing with a loose strand of my hair. I hate when he touches me. It is never the touch of a father, but that of someone who wants something a father never should. Something seedy and vile.

My eyes search my mother’s face. She can’t meet the ones of her almost twenty-one-year-old daughter, her gaze fixed on the intricate patterns of the rug beneath her feet. “You gonna say anything? Or are you okay with me being sold like some sort of street hooker?”

She stands beside my father, wringing her hands, looking like the perfect little mafia wife—complacent, quiet, taking all his punches and abuse without saying a damn word.

My father steps between us. His body brushes against mine, making me feel sick to my stomach. “She does what she is told, just like you will if you know what’s good for you.”

That is the thing about caged animals: they either get defeated or they learn to be darker, worse than their c