Another woman ran forward, more curious than afraid. She crouched, checking for breath.
“Wait,” she said after a moment, pressing two fingers against Georgia’s lips. “She’s still breathing. Barely. Get the guards.”
Georgia lived.
But survival was no mercy.
Because more pain, more humiliation, more madness lay ahead. And piece by piece, it would destroy the girl who once believed in love, justice, and truth.
Three years had passed, and the woman stumbling along the cracked sidewalk looked nothing like the person she once was. Her frame had grown frail, little more than skin and bone beneath her oversized coat, and her gait wavered as though the pavement might betray her at any moment. She clutched a torn plastic bag that crinkled with every step. Inside it a handful of crumpled bills and a dog–eared identification card–everything she owned, everything she had left.
Her complexion was ashen, bruises blossoming beneath her skin like fading violets, and a jagged scar–about three centimeters long–cut across her face, a permanent reminder of pain endured and never quite healed.
Three years. It was a lifetime. Everything had changed.
A bitter smile touched Georgia’s chapped lips, the gesture fleeting and cynical. Of course things had changed. It wasn’t just the world beyond the werewolf prison that had shifted. She had changed too–profoundly, irreversibly.
She didn’t know where to go. There was no pack waiting for her, no tether back to human society. Her name meant nothing now. She was a rogue, a stray stripped of identity, and far too weak to survive among others like her. Even the desperate turned their backs on someone like Georgia.
Then she noticed it–her dull eyes catching on the brightly colored flyer taped to the dusty glass window of a nearby storefront. A help–wanted sign, the words bold and oddly hopeful against the bleakness of her surroundings.
She moved closer, standing before the paper like it might hold an answer to something deeper. Her gaze hovered over a few lines, skipping past meaningless promises until it landed on the only words that mattered: “Cleaners wanted. Accommodation and lunch provided.”
Her jaw tightened, and with a breath so shallow it barely moved her chest, she pushed through the door of the place called Vetro.
A blast of cold air from the central air conditioning hit her immediately, seeping through her threadbare clothes and crawling across her skin. She shivered.
*Name,” barked a voice from behind a sleek counter.
A woman sat there–impatient, manicured, expensive. She didn’t look up, her pen poised above a form waiting to dismiss.
“Georgia, she rasped, her voice little more than gravel dragged across concrete. It was rough, jarring. The sound of it made. the woman glance up sharply, startled. Her elegant fingers almost dropped the pen,
“What the hell happened to your voice?” the woman asked, her tone more accusatory than curious.
Georgia knew better than to react. Three years in that place had taught her how to keep her head down, how to swallow pain and pride alike. She answered evenly, almost flatly, “Smoke damage.”
That caught the woman’s attention. Her expression shifted, eyes narrowing as she studied Georgia more closely. “You rhean… from a fire?”
Georgia nodded once, her eyes falling. “Yes. A fire.”
But she didn’t say the rest: that the fire had been deliberate, lit by someone who wanted her destroyed.
The woman tilted her head, as though weighing whether it was worth caring. Deciding it wasn’t, she gave a dismissive sniff, “Well, that’s unfortunate. Vetro isn’t just some dive bar. Our clientele expects a certain standard”
Her gaze slid over Georgia again, this time with visible disdain. Her nose wrinkled at Georgia’s oversized clothes, which
<Chapter 5
hung on her like repurposed burlap. Clearly, she didn’t belong here. Vetro was exclusive, high–end. Even the waitresses looked like runway models.
And this girl? This girl looked like she’d crawled out of a shelter. A rejected soul.
The woman stood up abruptly and made a shooing motion. “Forget it. You’re not even fit to carry drinks. We need someone with presence. You’re not qualified.”
She turned to walk away.
“I just want to clean,” Georgia said, her voice low, but firm enough to halt the woman mid–step.
The woman hesitated, turning back, eyebrows arching in surprise. “I’ve never met a woman your age eager to scrub floors.”
Georgia’s eyes didn’t flinch. “I’d rather be a call girl if I had the looks for it,” she said, her voice calm, almost detached. “But | know what I am. I’m not pretty, but I still have two hands. I can clean.”
She didn’t say the rest aloud, but it rang through her like a silent drumbeat: They threw me in prison for a murder I didn’t commit. Now I’m out, and dignity’s just another luxury I can’t afford.”
There was something broken but honest in the way she stood there, still and unafraid of judgment.
The woman blinked, the veneer of superiority faltering for a moment. She looked Georgia over again, this time with something closer to curiosity. After a pause, she returned to her desk, picked up the pen, and began filling out the form
“You’re hired,” she said.
She paused, then looked up with a glint of sharpness in her voice. “Do you know why I decided to make an exception for
you?”
She didn’t wait for Georgia to answer.
“It’s because you get it. You understand your place. So many people–twice your age, even–they still think the world owes them something. You don’t. You’ve accepted what you can do… and what you can’t.‘
Georgia said nothing. Her silence wasn’t submission, just the absence of wasted words.
The woman–whose tone had softened slightly–sighed. “Call me Charlotte. And listen carefully, Georgia. Vetro isn’t just a
club. It’s a world all its own.”
Georgia already knew. The scent clinging to Charlotte’s skin told her everything–wolf. But Charlotte didn’t recognize her as one of their kind.
Let her think that. Let them all think that.
It didn’t matter.
She wasn’t the Alpha’s daughter anymore. The girl who once belonged to the mighty Silver Stream Pack was gone. All that remained was a ghost in a cleaner’s uniform, with nothing left to lose but the fragile hope of surviving one more day.
