The first thing she noticed was the cold.
Not the ordinary kind—
but a silence that bit into her bones,
as if the air itself had forgotten how to be warm.
Sarah's eyelids trembled open.
Darkness.
Concrete.
A single metal chair bolted to the floor.
Cuffs cutting into her wrists like hungry teeth.
Her breath escaped as a ragged whisper.
"…where am I?"
No answer.
Only the rhythmic dripping of water somewhere behind her—
a patient metronome counting down to something inevitable.
Her head throbbed.
There were flashes—
screams, engines, masked men, her brother's voice.
Her own voice.
Then nothing.
Not nothing— a van turning too fast, hands over her face, the smell of gasoline, a needle in her arm.
Then oblivion.
Panic clawed up her throat.
She jerked against the restraints. Metal rattled, sharp and merciless.
"Hello?"
Her voice cracked.
It sounded small, childlike—
a stranger she didn't recognize.
No one answered.
Her body shook, not from fear—
but from the sensation of being watched.
She scanned the room.
Bare walls.
No cameras.
No door she could see.
Just a black square in the far corner,
swallowed by shadows.
Then—
a soft click.
A door she hadn't noticed slid open.
Light spilled in, cold and sterile,
cutting the darkness into a perfect, cruel line.
Footsteps approached— measured, controlled, unhurried.
A man walked in.
He did not look like a thug.
Nor a gangster.
Nor a monster from nightmares.
He looked like someone who would sign contracts,
give presentations,
and get black coffee at 8:00 AM every morning.
Tall.
Composed.
Black hair combed with unnatural precision.
White shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows,
no tie, no wrinkles.
Like violence had never touched him.
Like pain was beneath him.
Except—
his eyes.
Cold steel.
Emotionless.
Almost bored.
His gaze slid over her bound body with clinical detachment,
not lust,
not anger,
not pity—
something worse.
Disinterest.
She swallowed the instinct to shrink. Her voice shook anyway.
"Who are you?"
He didn't answer.
He didn't even look at her face at first.
He just walked past,
picked up a clipboard from a metal table,
and flipped it open.
A moment of quiet,
as he read something unseen.
Then—
a question:
"Name."
His voice was low. Even.
Professional.
Sarah stared.
"What?"
He lifted his eyes, finally meeting hers.
"Your. Name."
She hesitated only a second.
"Sarah."
His lips curved—
not into a smile,
but into something faintly amused.
"No last name?"
She bit down hard,
the taste of defiance grounding her.
"You already know it."
A pause.
"I do."
He set the clipboard down,
as if that single answer satisfied something.
Then he walked toward her.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
His shoes echoed against the floor—
a countdown she couldn't stop.
When he stood in front of her,
close enough that she could feel the faint warmth of his body,
she forced herself to meet his gaze.
"Why am I here?"
He studied her face as one would study a broken machine.
"Because your father forgot what loyalty costs."
Her chest tightened.
"My father left that life years ago."
"People don't leave,"
he said simply.
"They escape. Or die."
A shiver crawled down her spine.
"What do you want from me?"
He tilted his head.
"Nothing."
Her heart stuttered.
"But your value is… negotiable."
Before she could question that,
he reached out and gripped her chin—
not violently,
but with a sterile kind of control,
as if her face was an object,
not a person.
She tensed.
His thumb pressed beneath her jawline,
forcing her to face him directly.
"No tears,"
he murmured.
A command, not a comfort.
"I'm not crying."
"Yet."
His hand dropped,
and he stepped back.
He pressed a button on the wall.
Lights surged awake overhead—
too bright, too white—
illuminating two more chairs, four chains, and a bloodstained floor drain.
Her lungs froze.
"Where—where are my brothers?"
"No longer your concern."
Something inside her snapped.
"You hurt them, and I swear—"
Her voice broke.
Not from fear—
but from a fury so raw it tasted like iron.
The man regarded her with an unreadable expression.
"You threaten poorly for someone who cannot move her arms."
She spat the words through grit teeth.
"You think pain scares me?"
For the first time,
his eyes shifted—
not much,
barely perceptible—
but enough to reveal something behind them.
Something familiar:
recognition.
He leaned down just enough for her to hear the quiet brutality in his voice.
"Pain isn't meant to scare you, Sarah."
A pause.
A breath.
A promise.
"It's meant to break you."
Her pulse crashed against her ribs.
He straightened.
"Let's begin."
And with a motion of his hand,
two masked men stepped forward from the shadows,
wheeling in a case of steel instruments,
lined like surgical tools for a patient already condemned.
Sarah's voice cracked, louder this time.
"WAIT—"
But her voice was swallowed whole
by the metallic snap of gloves being worn,
the sterile scent of antiseptic,
the man's final, chilling words spoken as he walked away:
"Your father killed my brother."
He didn't look back.
"And I intend to return the favor—slowly."
The lights dimmed.
Hands gripped her shoulders.
Metal kissed skin.
And Sarah learned,
with the first cut and the first scream,
that there are prisons built from much more than walls—
There are prisons built from people.
And she had just met hers.