The underground club stank of rot and excess—sweat, blood, cheap perfume, and the sickly-sweet scent of decay. The air was thick with cigar smoke, curling like phantom hands through the dim red lighting. Laughter, slurred and gluttonous, filled the room, punctuated by screams from the fighting pit below.
A boy no older than 15 was dying.
He had been thrown into the pit against an echo twice his size, its claws carved from jagged bone, its eyes burning with the madness of something starved and feral. The fight had lasted less than a minute. Now the boy was twitching in a pool of his own blood, his throat ripped open. He was trying to scream, but nothing came out—only a wet, rattling gasp.
The crowd cheered.
They enjoyed this. They had paid for it.
Men and women in silken suits, with golden rings wrapped around bloated fingers, clinked glasses and whispered bets, already eager for the next fight. Some had their arms draped over the flesh they had purchased—girls and boys dressed in fine clothes that hid the bruises beneath.
Tatiana was among them.
Fifteen years old. But here, she wasn't a girl.
She was property.
She had been trained well. A smile when spoken to. Eyes lowered in the presence of her betters. A gentle laugh when they touched her, their hands roaming too freely, their breath sour against her skin. Because if she failed—if she hesitated—she would be corrected.
She had learned what correction meant a long time ago.
A thick hand gripped her waist. The man beside her—bald, sweating, disgusting—leaned in, his tongue flicking over his yellowed teeth. "Smile, darling," he murmured, voice slurred from too much wine. "Pretty girls should always smile."
Tatiana smiled.
She wanted to carve his throat open.
The collar around her neck was cold. Delicate. Expensive. A symbol of ownership. Her buyer had been pleased with his purchase. She had cost a fortune, after all. The bidding war for her had lasted hours. Now... She will work here...
After all, beauty like hers was rare. And in this place, beauty was a curse.
Another scream tore through the club. This one was human. A woman—a fighter who had just lost—was dragged out of the pit by a pair of handlers. The winner, a monstrous echo with too many eyes and a mouth full of human teeth, was rewarded with a fresh corpse tossed at its feet.
This place was hell. A festering pit where the worst of humanity gathered to indulge in their vilest urges without consequence.
The stench of sweat, alcohol, and rotting flesh clung to the air, thick enough to choke on. The floors were sticky with things she didn't want to name—blood, filth, remnants of suffering. The walls seemed to pulse, not with life, but with the echoes of screams that had long since been silenced.
Tatiana knew those screams well.
She had been one of them.
Fifteen years old, barely more than a child, and yet she was nothing but meat to them. A toy. A thing. Something to be sold, used, broken, and passed around until there was nothing left but an empty husk. She had been taken—ripped from whatever pathetic excuse for a life she had before—and tossed into this nightmare where men paid to see pain. Paid to inflict it.
They liked it when she fought back. The first time, they had laughed. Pinned her down. Stripped the fight from her piece by piece. They had taken turns, each one hungrier than the last, each one angry at her for not breaking fast enough.
The next time, she didn't fight. She thought that would make it easier.
It didn't.
They liked that too. The defeat in her eyes. The way she had finally stopped screaming. They wanted her broken. They got off on it.
They didn't just touch her. They paraded her. Put her on display like some rare, exotic prize. Let their friends grope and fondle and whisper things that made her skin crawl.
But the worst part?
The worst part was the other girls.
The ones who had been here longer.
They weren't kind. There was no sisterhood in suffering. No shared comfort in pain. They clawed at her. Cut her. Hated her for being new, for being fresh, for being something they could no longer be. Of course, not everyone was so selfish and pathetic but many were.
And the men laughed.
They let them fight. Made bets on who would survive longer. Gave the winner a night without chains and the loser another lesson in obedience.
Tatiana had no illusions about this place. She had long since abandoned hope.
So when she saw the young man approaching her, she felt nothing.
No fear. No disgust. No anticipation.
It was just another routine.
Another pair of hands. Another night spent pretending she wasn't screaming inside.
He was young. Maybe a little older than her. That didn't mean anything. Some of the worst ones were young. Some of the ones who smiled the sweetest left the deepest scars.
So she did what she always did.
She forced out a smile.
A dead, hollow thing.
Would he want her on her knees? Would he make her beg? Would he use her gently, whispering soft lies as he shoved himself into her, or would he be the kind who liked to hear bones crack? Or will he defile her in most disgusting of ways?
Her stomach twisted.
Again. Again and again and again.
But then… something strange happened.
The young man stopped in front of her, hands tucked lazily in his pockets.
And he smiled.
Wide. Bright. Too cheerful. Too alive for this place.
And for the first time in years—
Tatiana felt something worse than disgust.
Something worse than hatred.
Something worse than the numb, crushing void she had grown so used to.
She felt afraid.
Girls stood in a line, their eyes hollow, their bodies stiff with the kind of obedience that had been beaten, burned, and forced into them. Some were younger than Tatiana. Some were older. But all of them shared the same look—one that said they had already died long ago.
The madam—because that's what she was, a woman who sold flesh like it was nothing more than cattle—stood beside Klaus, her lips curled into something that might have passed as a smile if it weren't for the hunger lurking beneath it.
"Here they are," she purred. "Our finest selection. Each one is well-trained and obedient. You may inspect them as you please, my dear boy."
Tatiana kept her eyes low. She knew better than to look a buyer in the eye.
Please don't pick me. Please don't pick me.
She had endured so much already. The pain, the humiliation, the endless cycle of being used and discarded.
But some men were worse than others.
Some were cruel in ways that went beyond the body. Some enjoyed breaking spirits more than flesh.
She prayed this one wasn't like that.
She prayed he wouldn't notice her at all.
Klaus took a step forward. His boots clicked against the marble floor. Slow. Leisurely. Like he had all the time in the world.
Tatiana's stomach twisted.
He was handsome. Too much so. His beauty wasn't soft or delicate—it was unnatural, inhuman. The kind of beauty that didn't belong in a place like this.
But there was something else, something worse.
His smile.
Too easy. Too amused.
Like he was enjoying this.
"Well, well," he mused, glancing at the line of girls. "So many choices. I feel spoiled."
Tatiana's fingers curled into fists.
He was playing with them.
He would enjoy making them beg.
Her breathing hitched when he stopped in front of her.
No.
Not me.
Please.
Not me.
Klaus tilted his head, studying her like one might a particularly interesting insect.
Tatiana forced herself to stay still.
Her body was tense, waiting for the command. For the humiliation.
For whatever twisted game he was about to play.
But instead of reaching for her—
He smiled.
And turned away.
Tatiana almost collapsed.
Her heart slammed against her ribs, relief and confusion warring inside her.
She had been sure he would pick her.
They always picked her.
But Klaus only turned to the madam, his voice smooth, cheerful.
"I'll take them all."
Silence.
A ripple of shock ran through the girls. The madam blinked, thrown off for the first time.
"Pardon?" she said.
Klaus stretched, looking far too pleased with himself. "You heard me. Every last one of them. I'll pay whatever price you want."
The madam's confusion faded into something greedy.
"Well, if you insist," she said.
Tatiana felt like she had been dunked in ice water.
All of them?
Why?
No one did that. No one bought them all.
It didn't make sense.
Unless—
Her stomach twisted again.
Unless he had something worse planned.
The stench of sweat and alcohol hung heavy in the air, mixing with the faint scent of fear that permeated every corner of the place. Tatiana stood in the darkened corner of the room, her heart pounding in her chest. The other girls were huddled together, their eyes wide with terror as they looked around the grim surroundings. The Lady of Silk's establishment was nothing but a cage, a prison dressed up in luxury, where beautiful faces were sold for a price, and their dignity stripped away with every cruel transaction.
Tatiana wasn't like the others. She had no family to mourn her, no one who would search for her, only her unnatural beauty that had drawn the wrong attention. It was that same beauty that had led her here, trapped in the filthy grip of the powerful and corrupt.
But now... now there was a chance. She didn't know who the man was, only that his presence had shattered the silence, the stillness of death that had been creeping in the moment he entered. Klaus. He hadn't spoken to them yet, hadn't revealed himself fully, but the weight of his gaze, the unblinking intensity, had the room quiet in an eerie stillness.
He had whispered something low under his breath, and her heart skipped a beat as the words reached her ears.
"467 square meters. Bar, casino, fighting arena... separate rooms for sex... 43 kidnapped women. 214 targets... Let's get started."
And then the massacre began.