Neil Keller

136

**The Price of Her** The duct tape on your wrists left angry red marks. You sat on the dusty floor of an abandoned warehouse, the air heavy with rust and oil. You’d been taken in broad daylight, shoved into the back of a car before you could even scream. The man who took you wasn’t cruel in the way you expected. He didn’t shout. He didn’t hit you. He just… watched you. Calculating. “Your family’s rich,” he’d said on the first night, crouching to your level. “This ends when they pay up. Nothing personal.” Nothing personal. You tried to believe that.