Chapter 93
Georgia stared at Hugo in stunned disbelief, unable to process his words as they settled over her like a suffocating shroud. Her eyes flickered across his familiar face, the brother she had once trusted, but saw only a stranger carved in flesh she used to love. Slowly, her gaze fell to the floor. All expression drained from her features until only emptiness remained.
“Mr. Cooper,” she said quietly, her voice stripped of all warmth. “Then I won’t make things difficult for you.
“Georgia, don’t be like this,” Hugo pleaded, his voice shaking with a desperate guilt that only made her feel sicker inside. had no choice. Don’t blame me.”
He fumbled for his wallet, fingers trembling as he pulled out a thick stack of bills, “Here,” he said, thrusting the money toward her, his tone almost forceful with false kindness. “Take this. Buy yourself some food or new clothes. You look…. thin.”
She stood there, unmoving, staring down at his outstretched hand as if the money were poisoned. Her chest burned with a violent ache. She felt every nerve ending in her body sparking with a trembling rage.
Hugo reached forward and grabbed her limp hand, forcing the money into her palm. “Stop acting like this,” he scolded gently, his thumb pressing over her fingers to close them around the bills. “Learn to accept others‘ kindness. Don’t be as stubborn and willful as you used to be.”
Georgia felt the folded notes against her skin, felt the coarse fibers scratch her palm, and something inside her splintered. Tears threatened to blind her vision, but she swallowed them back down into her chest, where they burned like acid
Her voice came out low and broken. “I am a call girl,” she said, her words jagged with humiliation and fury, “but I don’t want money from your family.”
With a sudden, jerking motion, she tore the bills from her hand and threw them into the air. They fluttered down around. them like dead leaves, scattering across the floor of the elevator.
“Also,” she rasped, her voice raw and shaking Chapter Unlocked, Enjoy Reading!
The elevator reached its original floor and the doors slid open with a soft chime. Georgia stepped forward without looking at him, but Hugo’s grip shot out and clamped around her arm again, fingers bruising her skin.
“No. Georgia, you can’t go out there right now. Find somewhere to hide for a while.”
“Mr. Cooper, please let go. I’m busy,” she said, her voice hollow with exhaustion. Her gaze stayed fixed on the floor, refusing to see his pleading eyes.
“No. Georgia, listen to me. If you go out now, they’ll see you,” Hugo said frantically, pulling her deeper into the elevator, His eyes darted around, searching. “Weston and the others are coming here today.”
His words sliced through her chest. Georgia’s breath caught painfully in her throat, and terror widened her eyes. Her vision swam as panic clawed its way up her ribs. Hugo’s words weren’t just sentences–they were echoes of her nightmares. Of shame. Of exposure. Of losing even the dignity of anonymity.
She didn’t want them to see her like this. She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t stand the thought of them looking at her with
disgust or pity.
She lunged forward to press the elevator button, desperate to flée, but a mocking voice cut through the hallway outside.
“Well, well. Mr Cooper, I see you’ve already found yourself a pretty little thing, having fun in the elevator.”
A man’s laughter dripped with amusement as a hand shot between the closing doors, forcing them open again.
Hugo reacted instantly. He shoved Georgia’s head against his chest, hiding her face from view. “Weston, don’t joke around,” he snapped, his voice edged with panic.
Weston chuckled and reached out as if to push Georgia’s hair back, but Hugo slapped his hand away. “She’s shy,” he said sharply, trying to sound light. “The room upstairs is ready. Go on up.”
He pressed Georgia’s face harder against his chest, suffocating her with his cologne, his sweat, the tremor of his pounding heart. “Go on, Weston, I’ll be up in a minute.”
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Chapter 93
“Come on, Mr. Cooper,” someone else called out. “Let’s go up together.”
“I’ve got something to do first,” Hugo snapped, almost snarling with desperation. “You go. Today’s tab is on me. Enjoy yourselves.”
As the elevator doors finally closed again, Georgia could still hear their laughter echoing down the hall like the jeering of ghosts. The walls felt like they were closing in around her, suffocating her with her own humiliation.
Hugo dragged her to a deserted comer away from prying eyes. His grip on her arm tightened until she flinched in pain.
“Georgia,” he whispered, his voice raw with pity. “Maybe… maybe you should take the day off.”
Her chest twisted. Shame and agony clawed through her heart, leaving gaping wounds in their wake. She lowered her head, trembling. She couldn’t bear the thought of facing them, her old friends, while looking like this. While living like this. While being this.
But when the man standing before her–her brother for more than twenty years–spoke those words, something inside her snapped. Her nails dug into her thigh through her skirt, pain sparking under her fingertips to keep her grounded, to keep her from screaming out her hatred and grief.
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‘Georgia,” she thought, her mind whispering to itself with cold finality, “you have no family. Silver Stream Pack gave up you three years ago.”
She repeated it to herself like a mantra, silent, relentless, until her shaking eased. Twenty times she whispered it inside her chest until her lungs burned with silent tears.
Finally, she lifted her head. Her eyes were calm, dark, empty..
She shook his grip from her arm. “If I take today off,” she said quietly, her voice carved from exhaustion and defeat, “what about tomorrow? Or the day after that? They’ll come here anyway, as long as Vetro Club stays open. We’ll run into each other someday. There’s no avoiding it.”
She searched his eyes, searched the face of the man she had called brother for more than two decades. She wanted to know what he would say. She wanted to know if there was any fragment of love left in him for her.
“Georgia, don’t stay here anymore. Find another job,” he said, his voice urgent but empty of solutions.
She let out a quiet, humourless laugh and lifted her chin to look at him, tears gathering in her eyes. “Find another job? Mr Cooper, do you have a job to offer me?”
She waited, trembling. She waited for him to surprise her. For him to save her. She prayed silently, desperately: ‘Georgia, if Hugo surprises you… if he offers you hope… you’ll forgive him. You’ll forgive him for abandoning you in werewolf prison. You’ll forgive Silver Stream Pack for condemning you. You’ll let it all go… just for this one miracle.”
But Hugo stayed silent. Seconds stretched between them like an eternity. When he finally spoke, his voice was small, defeated. “I’m sorry. Preston is too merciless. I can’t risk it.”
Her world blurred. Her hope collapsed with the sound of glass shattering.
“Then I’m sorry too, Mr. Cooper,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I won’t change my job.”
Anger flared in Hugo’s eyes, and he snapped, “Georgia, you’re being so willful. Why can’t you just change your job? Do you really have to work here?”
She lifted her face to him. Her eyes burned with quiet, seething fury. “Let me remind you of something. I’m an ex–con. I served my sentence in werewolf prison. I don’t have a degree like humans do. Where do you think someone like me can fi nd a ‘proper job“?”
Hugo’s expression darkened with disappointment. “Georgia, you’re not the only one in the world who’s been to prison. Other people manage to start over. They find work and survive. But you… you insist on staying here to please men. You’re…
rotten.”
Her shoulders trembled violently. She dug her nails harder into her thigh to keep from slapping him across the face.
She raised her head, looking at him through blurred vision. Three years. Three years of hell, and she realised in that moment, Hugo had changed too. She wasn’t the only one transformed by cruelty and time.
Chapter 93
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He looked at her like he didn’t recognise her anymore. She saw it in his eyes: confusion, revulsion, sorrow. He saw only what she had become, not what they had made her into. She saw his disappointment carve fresh wounds across the last fragments of her pride.
“Georgia, you’ve changed,” he said, shaking his head slowly, sadness lacing every word. “You weren’t like this before. If Mom and Dad saw you now, they’d be so disappointed.”
He paused, then his voice hardened with finality. “I’ve said what I needed to say. From now on, choose your own path. Rot like a maggot if that’s what you want, or work hard and live a real life.”
He turned away from her and walked swiftly out of Vetro Club. As he left, she heard him call Weston. “Hey, Weston. I’ve got something to do, so I’m heading out. You guys have fun. Put the tab on me. See you next time.”
When the lobby fell silent again, Georgia remained frozen in the shadows of a deserted corner, her body trembling with silent sobs. She felt like a corpse propped up against the wall, empty of hope, empty of family, empty of life itself.
