The familiar stench of stale beer and cheap perfume clung to Amelia as she finally stepped out of The Velvet Eclipse. The humid night air of Cagayan de Oro offered little relief, but it was better than the suffocating atmosphere inside. Another shift over. Another stack of pesos tucked away. Another night of Alexander Sterling's unnerving, unwavering gaze burning into her from his table. The money was undeniably good, but it felt tainted, a golden noose slowly tightening.
She pulled her hoodie tighter, melting into the shadows of the alleyways that served as her shortcut home. The city hummed around her, a symphony of distant traffic and muted conversations. She was nearly out, almost at the familiar, brighter street, when a rough hand clamped over her arm, yanking her sharply into the deeper gloom between two buildings.
Amelia's heart leaped into her throat. A scream tore at her vocal cords, ready to erupt, but it died there, choked by a sudden, sickening recognition.
"Amelia! Don't you dare scream!" The voice was hoarse, desperate, yet horribly familiar.
Her eyes, wide with terror, adjusted to the dim light. The face staring back at her was a ghost from her past, a phantom of her deepest anxieties. It was her father, but not the man she remembered. His once-kind eyes were now sunken and haunted, darting nervously, full of a raw, unhinged desperation. His clothes were rumpled, stained, and he looked thinner, his face gaunt and unshaven, etched with the ravages of months, or perhaps years, on the run.
"Papa?" she whispered, the word tasting alien on her tongue. Disbelief warred with a cold wave of dread. He was supposed to be gone, a problem she no longer had to actively face, only suffer the lingering consequences of.
"It's me, anak," he breathed, his grip on her arm tightening painfully. His gaze was frantic, darting over her shoulder as if expecting someone to appear from the shadows. "I need help, Amelia. They're after me. The loan sharks. They found me. I need money, a lot of it, or... or they'll kill me." His voice cracked, the fear in it palpable. "Please, anak. You're dancing, I know you are. You must have money. Just a little. Enough to get them off my back. Please."
Amelia stared at him, the man who had gambled away their future, who had left her to drown in the very debts he now begged her to settle. The anger, buried deep, erupted with sudden, searing force.
"Money?" she hissed, yanking her arm free. "You think I have money for your mess? You left us, Papa! You left me to clean up after you, to pay for Mama's bills, to deal with everything you destroyed! And now you come back, like a thief in the night, begging for more?" Her voice was laced with a bitter fury. "Do you have any idea what I do just to survive? What I have to do to earn a single peso, all because of you?"
Her father flinched at her words, but his desperation quickly overshadowed any shame. "I know, anak, I know I messed up! But this is different! These aren't just small debts, these are... these people are dangerous. They'll break my legs, or worse! Just a little, Amelia. Enough to buy me some time, to disappear again. Please. Your Mama... she'd want you to help me."
The mention of her mother, a woman who had died drowning in the very medical bills her father had then compounded, felt like a deliberate, cruel twist of the knife. Amelia stared at him, a familiar trap closing around her. Her dream, her hard-won progress, felt suddenly fragile, threatened by the very ghosts she was trying to outrun.
The air in the alley grew thick, not just with the humid night, but with a sudden, suffocating dread. Amelia stood frozen, locked in a bitter, desperate argument with the ghost of her father, when a new sound pierced the night – the shuffling of multiple feet, the low murmur of angry voices, growing louder, closer.
Her head snapped up, eyes darting towards the alley's mouth. Emerging from the deeper shadows, a menacing group materialized. Three, no, four figures, their faces grim, their movements deliberate. The moonlight glinted off the cold steel of knives clutched in their hands, and the dull, threatening gleam of baseball bats.
These weren't ordinary toughs. This was the mob. The loan sharks her father had spoken of, the very men he'd been running from. They had found him.
Fear, cold and sharp, lanced through Amelia. Her earlier fury at her father evaporated, replaced by a primal instinct to survive. She took an involuntary step back, pressing herself against the damp, grimy wall, her eyes wide with terror.
"Well, well, well," a guttural voice sneered, the leader stepping forward. He was a hulking man, his face scarred, a chilling smile revealing a missing tooth. "Look what we have here. The elusive Mr. Suarez. And who's this pretty little thing you've brought along?" His gaze, predatory and lecherous, raked over Amelia, making her skin crawl.
Amelia's father, seeing the menacing figures, saw the glint of the weapons, felt the imminent danger, and his desperation ratcheted to a new, horrifying level. The bravado he'd shown moments before, the pleas for help, all dissolved into pure, abject terror. His eyes, frantic and wide, darted from the mob to Amelia's terrified face, and in that instant, a monstrous, cowardly thought took root.
He didn't hesitate. Without warning, Amelia's father crumpled to his knees, his hands clasped together in a pathetic plea. His voice, once full of desperate begging to her, now became sickeningly obsequious to the mob.
"Please! Sir! Please, don't hurt me!" he whimpered, his eyes fixed on the scarred leader. Then, he pointed a trembling finger at Amelia. "I... I can't pay. I lost everything. But... but I have her! My daughter! She works at The Velvet Eclipse! She makes good money! Take her! Take her as payment! She can work for you! For all of it! Just... just leave me alone!"
The words hit Amelia like a physical blow, colder and harder than any bat or knife. Her own father. Offering her. As payment. The ultimate betrayal. A choked gasp escaped her, raw and disbelieving. Her blood ran cold. The sheer, unfathomable horror of it left her paralyzed, suspended in a nightmare. She stared at him, her father, who had just condemned her, not just to a life of servitude, but to something far, far worse at the hands of these monsters.
The leader of the mob eyed Amelia, his lecherous smile widening, a calculating glint in his eyes. "Well, well, well," he drawled, taking another step closer. "Look at this. A lovely bonus, indeed. A dancer, you say? Interesting..."
Amelia's mind screamed. She had to run. But her feet felt rooted to the spot, encased in lead.
The leader of the mob, his lecherous smile widening, leaned in closer to Amelia. His breath, stale and acrid, fanned her face. "A dancer, you say? Interesting..."
Before Amelia could even register the full horror of her father's betrayal, the scarred man turned his attention back to her trembling father. "You think you can just hand over your pretty little girl like a sack of rice, Suarez?" he growled, a dark amusement in his voice. "We don't deal in human collateral, not yet. But you, old man, you're coming with us."
Two of the goons, silent and brutal, hauled her father to his feet. He whimpered, struggling weakly, his eyes darting frantically to Amelia. "Amelia! Anak! Help me! Please!"
Amelia could only stare, paralyzed by the sheer, gut-wrenching horror. Her father, the architect of their ruin, was being dragged away, but his last act was to try and chain her to his fate.
The scarred leader stepped back, fixing Amelia with a chilling stare. "As for you, little dancer," he said, his voice dropping to a low, venomous threat. "Your father's debt... it's quite substantial. Five hundred thousand pesos from his gambling, but with our interest, it's ballooned to a cool 1.5 million pesos. And then there's the inconvenience fee for chasing this rat." He gestured to her struggling father. "Consider it your problem now. You have two days. Two days to come up with the money. If you don't, you don't wanna know what'll happen to him." He paused, his gaze raking over her body, "And you, sweetie. You really don't wanna know what will happen to you."
With a final, chilling sneer, the mob dragged her whimpering father further into the alley's depths, and then, as swiftly as they appeared, they vanished, leaving Amelia alone in the sudden, echoing silence.
Amelia stood rooted, the words hammering in her head: 1.5 million pesos. Two days. It was an impossible sum. Her personal savings, meticulously hoarded, barely scraped 60,000 pesos. Most of her earnings still went to the lingering medical bills from her late mother's treatment, a cruel reminder of the past, and her daily necessities barely left anything over.
Panic, cold and absolute, gripped her. Who could she ask? Who would lend her such a colossal sum? Her family, fractured and poor, had nothing. Her friends from the club, while supportive, lived hand-to-mouth themselves.
She dragged herself to The Velvet Eclipse the next day, her body moving on autopilot, her mind a frantic blur. She sought out Marcus, the manager, her voice trembling as she explained, omitting the full, horrifying details.
"Marcus, please, I need an advance," she pleaded, her eyes wide with desperation. "Anything. As much as you can give me. It's an emergency."
Marcus, usually gruff but fair, looked at her with concern. "Amelia, I can give you some, sure, a few thousand, maybe even ten. But you know club policy. We don't just hand out hundreds of thousands. What's wrong?"
She shook her head, unable to articulate the nightmare. "I can't... I can't explain. Please. It's life or death."
He managed to give her 20,000 pesos, a drop in the ocean. She then approached her fellow dancers, Chloe, Sarah, even some of the older ones, swallowing her pride, baring a sliver of her terrifying truth. They offered what they could, small amounts, earned through their own grinding efforts, accompanied by pitying glances. After two agonizing days, counting every peso, every contribution, every meager earning from her shifts, Amelia had amassed a grand total of just over 100,000 pesos. A mere fraction of what was demanded.
The two days passed with agonizing speed. On the evening of the deadline, Amelia walked to the designated meeting spot in a deserted lot behind the club, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. In her hand, clutched so tightly her knuckles were white, was a worn envelope containing the 100,000 pesos. It felt like nothing.
The mob was already there, a larger group this time, their faces harder, their patience clearly exhausted. Her father wasn't with them. A cold dread settled in her gut.
The scarred leader stepped forward, his eyes devoid of amusement. "Well, little dancer? Do you have it?"
Amelia took a shaky breath, holding out the envelope. "I... I have this. It's all I could get. Please, it's a start. I can work. I can earn more. Just give me more time."
The leader snatched the envelope, quickly thumbing through the paltry bills. His eyes narrowed, and a sneer twisted his face. "This is it? One hundred thousand? This is a joke, little girl. You think 100K pays for 1.5 million plus inconvenience?"
"Please!" Amelia begged, tears stinging her eyes. "I'll work for it! I swear!"
His hand lashed out, a brutal, open-palmed slap that cracked across her cheek, sending her head snapping sideways. The force of it made her stumble, a metallic taste blooming in her mouth. "You're not working for us, you little slut," he snarled, his voice laced with disgust. "You're punishment."
Two of his men moved, grabbing her, their rough hands tearing at her clothes. Panic, raw and overwhelming, screamed through Amelia's mind. This was it. This was the end. Her body froze, paralyzed by terror as the first of them ripped her hoodie open, his other hand reaching for her jeans. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the inevitable, a silent scream trapped in her throat.
Suddenly, a blur of motion. A sharp crack, like bone hitting bone. A guttural cry of pain.
Amelia's eyes flew open. The man who had grabbed her was reeling back, clutching his face, blood spurting between his fingers. Standing over him, a dark, imposing silhouette against the dim streetlights, was Alexander Sterling. His face was set in a mask of cold fury, his eyes blazing, a stark contrast to his usual composed demeanor. He moved with a swift, predatory grace, his tailored suit somehow making him even more menacing.
"Release her," Alexander's voice cut through the tense air, a low, dangerous growl. "Now."