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“Don't worry, I didn't kill him—” Stopping to adjust my jacket, I flipped up the collar. “Yet.”

* * * *

Salt,

I know, even as I write this letter, that my life means nothing to you. You don't know me and you have no reason to believe a word I tell you. But putting pen to paper like this could very well get me killed.

And I'm willing to risk that, because I have to believe in something.

So here I am, spilling my guts to a stranger, trapped in this place like a caged rat, willing to put my life in your hands.

When I met you, there was something about you that was different. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, because I don't know a damn thing about who you really are.

But you gave me something I haven't had in years, you gave me hope.

It's been so long since I've felt that, and this was the only thing I could do with that feeling.

You're probably wondering what the point of this is, but it's simple. I need your help.

This place isn't what you might think it is. It's all smoke and mirrors.

I didn't come here by choice, I'm not a poor girl who needed to make a quick buck. I didn't agree to sell my body and I never would. But it isn't up to me, because I'm not free, I'm owned.

You told me there were things you could do for me, and if that's true, then I need your help now more than ever.

Please set us free.

If you are the man I hope and feel you are, then you'll know what to do.

Either way, no matter what you're thinking or what you decide, I still say thank you. Thank you for giving me something back that I had lost a long time ago.

It means more than you could ever imagine.

—Drowning Girl

Folding up her note, I set it on my chest and stared up at the ceiling in my hotel room. Her words hit a nerve, they filled me with an endless hate for Virgo. I never really liked the guy, I always thought of him as a piece of shit, but what he did was never my business before. My family was paid for a service and we provided it. The ink was set, no questions were ever asked.

Now I had the voice and power to do all kinds of things.

You'll start a war. . .

And I'll end one too.

My brain was playing a game of tug of war, going back and forth between what was right and what was wrong. I felt strange, this foreign feeling of concern had started to work its way through my body.

It doesn't matter, it's not your place.

This wasn't my home, I had no business getting involved in such matters. What he did on his own grounds wasn't my concern. So long as it didn't trickle down onto me and my business, I shouldn't give a fuck.

But this shit, it didn't sit right, it made me uncomfortable, and it always had. When my father ran things, he was the one who decided who we worked with, what jobs we would take, and who would execute them.

Now it was all on me. I didn't have to look the other way, because I was the one who held all the power.

Laying my arm over my head, I picked up Berlin's letter and read it again, then I read it a third a time. The woman was desperate, and she had no clue she was reaching out to a man that in all forms was just as bad as her owner.

You're not like him, you don't sell women. . .

But we're both evil, we take lives, we don't give them.