Page 30 of Goldflame

Five days. Five days trapped in this mausoleum to a man who’s now just a memory.

I drag the pen across the paper, watching the ink bleed into the fibers. My mother’s words from her diary—which I hope is still safe in my room—float through my mind, haunting me with their eerie similarity to my current reality:

Another day trapped in Lucian’s room. At least the sheetsare silk against my skin. I lie here, waiting for him in anticipation and dread, wondering if tonight he’ll be gentle or cruel. Will he come alone? I hope so because I’m still too raw and bruised to entertain a group. Regardless, the waiting is sometimes worse than what follows.

My own entry mirrors hers with a twist:

Another day in a room that only suffocates me with grief. The sheets still smell like Adrian, a ghost I can’t escape. And I lie here waiting for Julian, not in fear but in fury. When he comes through that door, I swear I’ll rip him open with my fingernails the way he’s sliced me apart with his betrayal. The waiting builds my rage into something beautiful and deadly.

We’re bound by the same chains, my mother and I, though mine are made from different metals. She was a prisoner of circumstance and cruelty. I’m a prisoner of love twisted into hatred, of trust corrupted by manipulation.

I flip back through the pages I’ve alreadyfilled, running my fingers over the words as if they could speak back to me. In the margins, I’ve been repeating my hit list so it’s always there at the edge of my vision. There are five names of those who still need to pay for what they did to my mother. Besides tearing Julian to shreds, the names have become my sole focus in this cage.

They will pay. They will all pay.

My own handwriting stares back at me, the letters sharp and jagged where my mother’s were always flowing and cursive. She took her time whereas I scratch my thoughts frantically across the page like I’m running out of seconds.

My Hit List:

Francis DeMarco

Vincent’s cousin who runs distribution for the family drug business in North Seattle now that Vincent is gone. He watched while they drugged my mother, laughing as she struggled to stand, then held her down for the others.“Tell her to stop fighting, she’ll enjoy it more,”he told Vincent while my mother sobbed. She wrote about it graphically in her diary; wrote about all of their cruel words in her diary.

Olivia Marlowe

Victoria’s sister who took over managing the family’s corruption ring. She didn’t just watch Victoria’s mother burn my mother with cigarettes; she suggested places where the scars wouldn’t show.“Try her inner thighs,”she’d said with that cold smile.“No one will see it there, and the men fucking her won’t care.”

Gregory Whitman

Marcus’s brother who now oversees the family’s gambling empire. He organized “special games” where my mother was the prize, letting men take turns with her when they won.“She’s worth every penny,”he’d brag as he collected his percentage.

Sergio Castellano

Runs human trafficking for the Consortium through his shipping business. He’s the one who first “evaluated” my mother when she was brought in, deciding her worth like she was cattle.“This one will fetch a good price with those eyes,”he’d said, gripping her face so hard he left bruises.

DeSean Smith

Handles the money laundering through his chain of luxury hotels, making sure all the dirty money comes out clean. He liked to film what happened to my mother, keeping the recordings for his “private collection.”“Smile for the camera, sweetheart,”he’d whisper while holding her chin up to face the lens.

But now, at the bottom of the list, there’s another name in letters so sharp they nearly tear through the page:

LADY HARROW

The puppet master who used us all. The woman who killed her own son and nearly succeeded in making me and Julian destroy each other. The one who stole Adrian from this world. From me. In a way, she’s even stolen Julian, maybe even from himself.

My revenge has evolved, mutated into something darker and more complex. No longer just for my mother, but for Adrian too—the man whose death left a hollowness in me I never expected to feel.

I trace his name with my fingertip. Adrian. Adrian. Adrian.

The thought of him sends an ache through my chest so profound it feels like my ribs might crack and puncture my lungs, leaving me gasping. Being trapped in his room, surrounded by his essence—the lingering scent of his cologne on the pillows, the books he touched, the space he inhabited—has unleashed a torrent of memories I’ve kept locked away.

I close my eyes and I’m suddenly back at Canlis three summers ago—it was a restaurant I told him I’d always wanted to try. Adrian had just returned from a business trip to Hong Kong, and I hadn’t seen him for two weeks. He didn’t have a lot of time before flying out somewhere else, so he asked me to meet him at the restaurant.

I remember walking in and spotting him as he lounged on some burnt sienna couches by a stunning window. The moment he saw me, somethingflashed across his face—a softness that vanished so quickly I thought I’d imagined it. But now, with distance and clarity, I recognize what it was. Longing.

Were there more moments like that, where he longed for me?

“You changed your hair,” he’d said, his voice measured as always.

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