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2026-08-01 13:37:27 UTC

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2026-07-24 01:29:20 UTC

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@npub1rr9…pfl2 D’oh! can’t believe I missed that typo. You can change whatever spelling or punctuation you like. Thanks very much.

2026-07-22 23:32:29 UTC

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Chapter 16 cont.
The shrill buzz of her phone shattered the quiet. Diana jerked, the book sliding off her lap. Her heart hammered as she reached for the device, screen glowing with Herman's name.
Her thumb hovered over the answer button. Zane's warning echoed in her head—Luis wants to sell you. But Herman was her brother. He'd taught her to ride a bike. He'd snuck her extra food when Luis punished her for talking back.
She swiped to answer.
"Diana." Herman's voice crackled through the speaker, tight with panic. "Diana, thank God."
"Herman." She gripped the phone harder. "Where are you?"
"Doesn't matter. I can't stay in Phoenix. That raid—everything's blown to hell. Luis is going to kill me for running."
Ice flooded Diana's veins. "Where is Luis?"
"I don't know. I don't know where he is, but he's looking for me. For both of us." Herman's breathing rasped in her ear. "He knows I ran. He'll think I set up the raid."
"Did you?"
Silence stretched between them, loaded with years of shared secrets and survival.
"No," Herman said finally. "But Luis won't care about the truth. You know how he gets."
Diana closed her eyes. She did know. Luis with his quick fists and quicker temper. Luis who'd looked at her differently after her stepfather died, appraising her like merchandise instead of family.
"What do you need?" The words slipped out before she could stop them.
"Money. Enough to get back to Venezuela. Start fresh somewhere Luis won't find me." His voice dropped lower. "Please, Diana. You're all I've got. You know I'd do the same for you."
Would he? She wanted to believe it. Wanted to believe someone from her old life gave a damn whether she lived or died. But Zane's words kept circling—sex slavery, trafficking, selling you.
Herman was Luis's brother. Blood.
"I don't have money," Diana said carefully.
"But you can get it. That ICE agent who grabbed you—Bradshaw, right? Max told Luis his name. You're with him now?"
Diana's stomach clenched. "How did you—"
"Doesn't matter. Point is, he's got cash. Feds always do. Just grab what you can and meet me. Tomorrow night."
"Herman, I can't just steal from—"
"Tomorrow night," Herman cut her off. "Remember that old gas station off Route 60? The one Papa used for meetings?"
The abandoned Chevron station. Rusted pumps and broken windows, surrounded by empty desert. She and Herman had played there as children while their stepfather conducted business inside. They'd built forts from old tires and pretended the wasteland was an ocean.
"I remember."
"Ten o'clock. Come alone, Diana. If you bring that agent, Luis will know. He's got people watching."
Diana's throat tightened. Every instinct screamed trap. But Herman's voice cracked on her name, desperate and afraid, and she remembered him at twelve, protecting her from Luis's rage after she'd spilled a drink at dinner.
"Okay," she whispered. "Tomorrow night. Ten o'clock."
"Thank you." Relief flooded Herman's words. "Thank you. I knew you wouldn't abandon me."
The line went dead.
Diana sat frozen, phone clutched in both hands. Through the bedroom window, Phoenix sprawled under harsh afternoon sun—concrete and heat and endless sprawl. Somewhere out there, Luis hunted for them both. And tomorrow night she'd walk straight into the desert to meet her stepbrother.
Alone.

2026-07-22 23:31:21 UTC

50 Tints of ICE
Cheaper 16
Diana wandered through Zane's house with new eyes, cataloguing details she'd been too frightened to notice before. The furniture matched—dark leather and clean lines—but lacked the warmth of photographs or personal trinkets. No clutter on the counters. No mail stacked by the door. The only signs of life were the coffee mug in the sink and the jacket draped over the back of a chair.
She paused in the doorway to his bedroom. The sheets still held the ghost of their bodies, rumpled and twisted. Heat crept up her neck at the memory.
Her phone sat on the nightstand where he'd left it. Just sitting there. Waiting.
Diana picked it up, the weight familiar in her palm. No missed calls. No texts. She checked the battery—forty percent. He hadn't turned it off or hidden it away. He'd simply placed it there, within reach, as if he trusted her not to betray him.
The thought made her chest ache.
She set the phone down and turned to the bookshelf she'd noticed the night before, when she'd been searching for clues about the man who'd become her captor, her protector, her—
What was Zane to her now?
The shelves held practical volumes mostly. Immigration law. Criminal procedure. A field guide to Arizona flora. But tucked between a worn almanac and a Spanish dictionary sat a slim hardcover with faded green cloth binding.
Diana pulled it free. Pride and Prejudice.
The spine cracked when she opened it, the pages soft with age and handling. Someone had loved this book. Read it multiple times, judging by the way it fell open naturally to certain chapters, the margins marked with pencil notations in a careful feminine hand.
He is too proud, someone had written next to a passage about Mr. Darcy.
Diana smiled despite herself. She'd read this in high school, back when Mrs. Chen had still believed she could make something of her. Back when Diana had devoured stories about women who said no, who demanded more, who refused to settle.
Before Luis had made it clear that women in their world didn't get choices.
She turned to the front of the book. On the first page, written in the same neat hand as the margin notes, a name stared back at her.
Emily Bradshaw
Diana traced the letters with her fingertip. Zane's mother, perhaps? Or his sister? The ink had faded to sepia, suggesting decades had passed since someone had claimed this book.
She imagined a woman curled in a chair, losing herself in Regency England, escaping into a world where love conquered pride and prejudice both. Had she given this book to Zane? Had he kept it after she was gone?
The thought of Zane reading Austen made something warm unfurl in Diana's chest. She pictured him sprawled on this same couch, this book open in his large hands, following his mother's penciled observations. Learning about love from a dead woman's favourite story.
"Who was she?" Diana whispered to the empty room.
The house offered no answers. But the book felt like trust in her hands—another piece of Zane's carefully guarded heart, left out for her to find. Like the phone on the nightstand. Like the unlocked door.
Like the way he'd held her last night, as if she were something precious instead of evidence.
Diana clutched the book to her chest and returned to the bedroom. She settled onto the bed, back against the headboard, and opened to the first chapter.
It is a truth universally acknowledged...
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