“The Yellow Bird of Cirque L’Amour”!!!

Pulp Suspense
By Charlotte Lucas

Chapter One: The Devil's Trapeze

The silk rope screamed before it snapped.

Lena heard it from the stage—a sound like a woman's shriek stretched too thin—and looked up in time to see Anya's body tumble through the strobing lights. The aerialist had been thirty feet up, suspended in a cocoon of crimson silk, when the fabric gave way. For one crystalline second, she hung in midair, arms windmilling, sequined costume catching the spotlight like a dying star.

Then gravity remembered its job.

Lena's breath stopped. Time stretched like taffy as Anya fell—really fell, not the controlled descent of a performance but the helpless plummet of something broken. The aerialist's blonde hair streamed upward. Her mouth opened in a scream that never came. The sequins on her costume caught the lights in rapid-fire flashes: red, gold, red, gold. Twenty feet. Ten. Lena's body moved on instinct, lurching forward as if she could somehow catch her, somehow stop what was already written.

The impact echoed through the empty theater—a wet, final sound that Lena would hear in her nightmares for weeks. She felt it in her bones, that terrible percussion of body meeting floor. The piano bench clattered behind her where she'd knocked it over. Her fingers were still outstretched, reaching for nothing. Around her, the other performers erupted into motion: shouts, running feet, someone screaming for an ambulance. But Lena's eyes stayed fixed on the catwalks above, where the silk had been rigged.

There. In the shadows of the fly gallery, forty feet above the stage. A figure in black, pulling back from the railing. Not running toward the emergency like everyone else, but away from it. Moving with purpose. Moving with guilt.

"Jesus Christ." Finn materialized beside her, his stage makeup making him look like a beautiful corpse in the harsh work lights. "Don't look, Lena. Don't—"

But she was already looking. Anya lay twisted in the orchestra pit, her neck bent at an angle that made Lena's stomach lurch. Blood pooled beneath her blonde hair, spreading across the scuffed hardwood like spilled wine. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing.

"I saw someone," Lena whispered. "Up in the—"

"Lena." Finn's hand closed around her arm, his grip tight enough to hurt. His voice dropped to barely audible. "Not now. Not here."

She turned to look at him, really look. His face had gone pale beneath the greasepaint, and something flickered in his dark eyes. Not shock. Something else. Something that looked almost like recognition.

Before she could ask, Irina Volkov's voice cut through the chaos like a blade through silk.

"Everyone away from the body. Now."

The troupe's business manager appeared at the edge of the stage, her steel-gray hair pulled back so severely it must have hurt. She wore her usual black suit, expensive and austere, and moved with the rigid efficiency of a woman who'd survived harder things than death. Behind her came Victor Dubois—the self-styled "Viscount"—all flowing scarves and theatrical despair.

"Mon Dieu," Victor moaned, pressing manicured fingers to his temples. "My beautiful Anya. My angel of the air." His Quebec accent thickened with emotion, though Lena had learned in her three days here that everything Victor did was performance. The man had been born Vic Leblanc in Montreal, not some French château.

"Spare us," Irina said flatly. She pulled out her phone, already dialing. "Ambulance is two minutes out. Police will follow. No one speaks to them without consulting me first. Understood?"

The assembled performers—aerialists, contortionists, musicians, magicians—nodded mutely. Lena counted seventeen people, all watching Irina with the wary respect accorded to poisonous snakes. The woman didn't just handle Cirque L'Amour's finances; she was the money. Victor might play ringmaster, but Irina held the leash.

"You're new." Irina's pale eyes fixed on Lena. "The singer from Chicago."

"Yes. Lena Hart."

"You saw the accident?"

Accident. The word sat wrong in Lena's mouth, but she swallowed it. "I heard the rope break."

"Silk," Victor corrected absently, still staring at Anya's body. "Aerial silk. It should never break. German-made, rated for four hundred pounds." He looked up suddenly, tears streaming through his stage makeup. "Someone will answer for this."

The figure in the gallery, Lena thought. Someone already knows.

The next two hours blurred into a nightmare of questions and statements. The paramedics confirmed what everyone already knew—Anya Kozlov, twenty-four, aerialist extraordinaire, dead on impact. The police were bored Las Vegas cops who'd seen worse and smelled insurance fraud. They took statements, photographed the snapped silk, and left with promises to file a report.

"Equipment failure," the older cop said, not unkindly. "Happens more than you'd think. We'll follow up, but..." He shrugged.

Lena wanted to scream. She wanted to grab him and drag him up to the fly gallery, make him see what she'd seen. But Finn's earlier warning echoed in her head, and when she looked around, she found him watching her with those same dark, cautionary eyes.

Not now. Not here.

By midnight, the Bellagio's rival casino—the Palazzo Luna, all marble and mirrors and fake European grandeur—had returned to its synthetic normality. The theater was closed for "maintenance," but the slot machines still sang their siren songs, and the high-rollers still lost fortunes with smiles on their faces. Three floors up, in the troupe's dressing rooms, Lena sat alone among the costumes and wondered if she'd made the biggest mistake of her life.

Chicago felt very far away. Tyler, her ex, felt even further. She'd left him three months ago after he'd put her in the hospital with two broken ribs and a fractured orbital bone. Left him, got a restraining order, and tried to restart her singing career. But Tyler had connections—his father was some kind of union boss—and suddenly no club in Chicago would book her.

Then came the loan sharks. Twenty thousand borrowed in desperation, ballooning to fifty with interest. They'd found her at her studio apartment last month, two men in good suits who'd been terrifyingly polite. Six weeks, they'd said. Then we stop being nice.

Victor's job offer had been a miracle. Two grand a week to sing jazz standards for the pre-show crowd, housing included, nine months guaranteed. She'd driven eighteen hours straight to Vegas, sure that Tyler or the sharks or both would catch her before she made it.

Now Anya was dead, and Lena was trapped.

She stood up, trying to shake the dread creeping up her spine. Anya's dressing station was across the room—mirrors still surrounded by photos, makeup still scattered across the counter. The police had barely looked at it. Lena walked over slowly, not sure what she was looking for.

The photos told a story: Anya with other performers, Anya mid-flight in various shows, Anya with an older couple who must have been her parents. One picture showed her with a young man who looked startlingly like Finn—same dark hair, same sharp cheekbones. Brother? But Finn had said Anya was his ex-girlfriend when Lena asked about his obvious grief earlier.

Lena's fingers found Anya's costume where it hung on a nearby rack—the crimson and gold bodysuit she'd been wearing when she fell. The police had bagged the torn silk as evidence, but they'd left the costume. It was beautiful up close, thousands of hand-sewn sequins creating patterns like flames. Heavy, too. Lena lifted it, feeling the weight of all that decoration.

Something crinkled inside.

Her heart kicked. She checked the doorway—empty—then felt along the interior lining. There. A small pocket had been sewn into the costume's bodice, barely noticeable. Inside was a USB drive wrapped in a scrap of paper.

The paper read, in hurried handwriting: If you're reading this, I'm already dead. —A

Lena's throat closed. The words seemed to pulse in her vision, each letter a small indictment. Anya had known. She'd sewn this pocket herself, hidden this message, expected to die. How long had she carried this secret against her heart, performing every night with her own potential death warrant pressed against her skin? Lena's hands trembled as she reread the note, feeling the weight of a dead woman's final act of defiance. This wasn't evidence anymore. This was a dying wish. A plea from beyond the grave.

She pocketed both items, feeling like a grave robber.

She needed to get out of here, needed to think. But as she turned, the dressing room door opened.

Finn stood in the doorway. He'd changed out of his costume into jeans and a black t-shirt, his stage makeup scrubbed away. He looked younger without it, and more dangerous.

"We need to talk," he said.

"About Anya?"

"About why you're going through a dead woman's things." He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. "What did you find?"

Lena's hand moved instinctively to her pocket. "Nothing. I just—"

"Don't lie to me." His voice was soft, but there was steel underneath. "I saw you take something. I've been watching you since the accident. You saw something up in the gallery, didn't you?"

The walls felt very close suddenly. Lena measured the distance to the door.

"Relax," Finn said, reading her tension. "I'm not going to hurt you. But I need to know what you found, because Anya's death wasn't an accident, and whoever killed her is going to know she left evidence behind."

"How do you—"

"She was my sister."

The words hung in the air like smoke. Lena stared at him. "You said she was your ex."

"I lied." Finn moved to Anya's mirror, touching one of the photos—the one of them together. "I came to Vegas two months ago because Anya sent me messages. Cryptic stuff about the troupe, about Victor's 'collection,' about being scared. She said she'd found something, something that could get her killed. I got a job here as a magician's assistant to get close, to figure out what was going on." His voice cracked, and for a moment the mask slipped. His hand remained on the photograph, fingers trembling slightly. "She used to be terrified of heights, you know. When we were kids. Had to be coaxed onto playground equipment. But she was stubborn, wanted to be special, so she conquered it. Made herself into something extraordinary." He looked at Lena, and his eyes were wet. "I was too late."

The grief in his voice was real, raw. Lena felt her suspicion soften. She pulled out the USB drive, held it up. "She left this. In her costume. There's a note that says if anyone's reading it, she's dead."

Finn's face went hard. "Let me see."

"Not here." Lena glanced at the door. "Someone might—"

A sound in the hallway. Footsteps. They both froze.

"My room," Finn whispered. "Twenty minutes. Palazzo Tower, 1847. Don't let anyone see you leave."

He was gone before she could argue, slipping out with the practiced silence of a stage magician. Lena waited, listening to the footsteps pass by, then pocketed the drive and left through the back exit.

Her room was a shoebox on the fifteenth floor, comp'd by the casino but depressing as hell—beige walls, industrial carpet, a view of the parking garage. She had ninety minutes before she needed to meet Finn. Enough time to see what was on the drive.

Her laptop was ancient but functional. She plugged in the USB, heart hammering.

A password prompt appeared immediately. Lena tried the obvious combinations—Anya's name, birthdate, "password"—but nothing worked. The drive contained folders labeled with names: Victor, Irina, Pietro, Zoe, others she didn't recognize. All encrypted. But there was one file sitting outside the encrypted folders, a simple .pdf labeled "ACCOUNTS."

It opened.

Bank statements. Wire transfers. Routing numbers. Lena scrolled through pages of financial records, her confusion growing into horror as she parsed what she was seeing. Millions of dollars moving through shell corporations. Payments labeled "acquisition" and "placement" and "transport." Names and photos—young people, mostly women, mostly Eastern European.

Jesus Christ. This wasn't just fraud. This was human trafficking.

A sharp knock at the door made her jump hard enough to hurt her knee on the desk. She slammed the laptop closed, pulse thundering. The knock came again, harder.

"Room service," a voice called.

Lena hadn't ordered room service. She moved to the door slowly, looked through the peephole. The hallway was empty except for a silver cart.

Something was wrong. The cart was positioned oddly, blocking her view of the right side of the hallway. And that voice—it had been flat, affectless, wrong.

Another knock, this time accompanied by the sound of something metal scraping at the lock.

Terror shot through her like voltage. Lena grabbed her phone, her wallet, and the USB drive, shoving them in her pockets as she ran for the bathroom window. Thank God she was only on the fifteenth floor, not higher. Thank God for fire escapes.

She forced the window open—it stuck, years of paint making it difficult—and squeezed through just as she heard the room door crash open behind her. She didn't look back. The fire escape was rusted metal and questionable welds, but she took the stairs three at a time, her stage heels ringing against the grating.

Below her, the Las Vegas night sprawled in electric glory—the Strip a river of neon, cars and people moving in their own isolated dramas. Lena hit the alley at a dead run and didn't stop until she'd put three blocks between herself and the Palazzo Luna.

She found herself on a side street, lungs burning, looking at the reflection of a terrified woman in a darkened shop window. Her phone showed 2:17 AM. Finn. She needed to call Finn.

The call went straight to voicemail.

"Finn, someone just tried to break into my room. I have the drive. Call me back. I'm going to your—"

She stopped. Going to his apartment felt suddenly like the worst idea in the world, but she had nowhere else to go. No one else to trust. And if someone was after the drive, they might go after him too.

The Palazzo Tower was six blocks away. Lena walked fast, keeping to the lit streets, watching every shadow. Her heels made her conspicuous, but she didn't have time to find other shoes. At this hour, the Strip was still alive—drunken tourists, working girls, street performers, homeless veterans. She tried to blend in, just another Vegas casualty.

The tower elevator required a key card. She slipped in behind a couple too drunk to notice, rode to the eighteenth floor in silence while they groped each other. Room 1847 was at the end of the hallway.

The door stood ajar.

Lena's hand went to her phone, ready to call 911. But she couldn't involve the police, not yet. Not until she understood what she'd stumbled into. She pushed the door open with trembling fingers.

"Finn?"

The lights were on. The apartment was small but nicer than hers—actual furniture, a kitchenette, signs of human habitation. And blood. A dark pool of it spreading across the hardwood floor near the couch, glistening wet in the overhead light.

A lot of blood. Too much blood.

The metallic smell hit her then, thick and nauseating. Copper and meat. Lena's stomach lurched. She pressed her hand to her mouth, fighting the urge to vomit, and forced herself forward. Every instinct screamed at her to run, but she had to know. Had to see.

The body lay partially hidden behind the couch, one arm flung out at an unnatural angle. Lena made herself look, made herself take in the details that her brain wanted to reject. Leather pants studded with silver conchos. A vest she recognized, pockets designed to hold throwing knives. Pietro. The knife thrower from the show, the Italian charmer who'd winked at her during yesterday's rehearsal.

His throat had been opened from ear to ear, a grotesque second smile gaping beneath his jaw. The wound was deep—she could see the pale glint of vertebrae through the blood. His eyes stared at the ceiling with that horrible glassy emptiness she'd seen in Anya's face. But Pietro's death had been different. Slower. The blood spatter told a story of arterial spray, of a man stumbling, falling, bleeding out over long seconds.

Long enough to leave a message.

His right hand lay in the blood pool, fingers still slightly curved from his final effort. He'd used his own blood as ink, finger-painting on the hardwood floor with desperate, dying purpose. The letters were crude, shaky, some barely legible where his strength had failed:

COLLECTION

The word sat there in crimson, accusing and terrible. Lena's vision swam. She stumbled backward, her heel catching on something—a overturned chair—and nearly fell. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps. Pietro had known. Known enough to die for it. Known enough to use his last moments on earth to leave this single word written in his own blood.

She had to call the police. Had to get help. But her trembling fingers couldn't seem to work her phone. The screen blurred as tears sprang to her eyes—not from grief, not yet, but from pure animal terror. Someone had done this. Someone had held Pietro down and opened his throat and watched him die. Someone who might still be—

A floorboard creaked in the hallway outside.

Lena froze, phone clutched in her white-knuckled fist. Listened. Heard nothing but her own ragged breathing and the distant hum of the building's ventilation. But the silence felt wrong now. Predatory. She looked at Pietro's body again, saw how fresh the blood was. Still wet. Still spreading.

This had happened minutes ago. Maybe while she was in the elevator. Maybe while she was walking down the hall.

She ran.

The hallway was empty but she didn't stop, didn't look back, just hit the stairwell at full speed and took the concrete steps two at a time. Her heels echoed in the enclosed space like gunshots. Eighteen floors down, her lungs screaming, her legs burning. She burst through the ground floor exit into the casino proper—lights, sounds, people. Safety in crowds.

But even surrounded by tourists and slot machines, Lena couldn't shake the feeling of eyes on her back. Watching. Waiting.

She ran out into the Vegas night, Pietro's final message burned into her mind like a brand.

Chapter Two: Blood and Sequins

Lena found herself in a twenty-four-hour diner six blocks from the Palazzo Luna, shaking so hard she could barely hold the coffee cup the waitress had poured without asking. The place was a Vegas relic—cracked vinyl booths, Formica tables, ceiling tiles stained yellow from decades of cigarette smoke back when that was still legal. At three in the morning, it held the usual assortment of insomniacs and casualties: a drunk couple arguing in whispers, a homeless man nursing a water glass, two showgirls still in stage makeup eating pancakes with exhausted efficiency.

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, that particular frequency that burrowed into your skull and stayed there. Lena stared at her reflection in the window—pale, eyes too wide, mascara smeared from tears she didn't remember crying. She looked like a ghost. Felt like one too. Pietro's blood was still vivid behind her eyelids every time she blinked. That word written on the floor. COLLECTION.

Her hands wouldn't stop trembling. The coffee sloshed in the cup, nearly spilling. She set it down carefully, pressed her palms flat against the cold Formica. Tried to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth, the way her therapist in Chicago had taught her after Tyler. But Tyler had never killed anyone. Tyler had been a monster, but this—this was something else entirely. This was organized. Professional. A machine that ground up young women and Pietro and Anya and anyone else who got in its way.

She should call the police. Should have called them from Finn's apartment. But something had stopped her, some instinct that said involving the authorities would get her killed faster. The files on Anya's drive—the millions in wire transfers, the photos of young women, the clinical documentation of human cargo—that kind of operation didn't survive without protection. Someone in the system was dirty.

Her phone buzzed. Unknown number. Lena's thumb hovered over the decline button, then accepted.

"Don't say anything," Finn's voice, low and urgent. "Just listen. Pietro came to warn me. I wasn't there—I was at the theater checking the rigging from Anya's fall. By the time I got back..." He paused, and she heard traffic in the background. "I saw you leaving. I was in the stairwell going up as you were going down. I saw what he left on the floor."

"Where are you?"

"Driving. We can't meet anywhere they'd expect. Do you still have the drive?"

"Yes."

"The password is COLLECTION. Pietro figured it out. He tried to tell me three days ago but I didn't understand. I thought he was drunk, babbling about Victor's art collection. But Anya's files—that's what she called it. The collection." His voice hardened. "Meet me at the old Stardust lot. The north end where they're supposed to be building the new resort. Thirty minutes."

"Finn, we should go to the police—"

"We can't. The files implicate people in the department. We need to see what we're dealing with first." He hung up.

Lena left a twenty on the table and walked out into the desert night. The Stardust had been imploded years ago, the lot sitting vacant while investors and developers played endless shell games. It was dark out there, away from the Strip's perpetual daylight. A good place to meet. Or a good place to die.

She found Finn's car—a beat-up Honda Civic that screamed "struggling performer"—parked behind a construction trailer. He was waiting outside, pacing, and when he saw her he moved forward with visible relief.

"Thank Christ. I thought—" He stopped himself, ran a hand through his hair. "Let me see the drive."

They sat in his car with the doors locked and the interior light on. Lena's laptop balanced on the center console, the USB drive plugged in. She typed COLLECTION into the password field.

The folders opened like a wound.

"Jesus," Finn breathed.

It was all there. Years of it, meticulously documented. Victor's "recruitment" trips to Eastern Europe—Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine—framed as talent scouting but revealing themselves as something far darker in the detailed spreadsheets. Young women promised legitimate performance contracts, brought to Vegas on work visas, then trapped. Their passports confiscated. Their contracts revealing impossible debts for "transport and housing costs." The interested parties—wealthy men paying not for circus performances but for something else entirely.

Finn opened a spreadsheet labeled TRANSPORT_COSTS. The numbers were staggering—each woman marked with an "acquisition fee" of five thousand dollars, then ballooning to debts of fifty, seventy, a hundred thousand through invented charges. Housing at three thousand a month for a shared room in what the address revealed was a warehouse. "Training fees." "Costume fees." "Administrative fees." Line items designed to create inescapable debt, to transform human beings into property.

"Look at this one," Lena said, pointing at an entry near the bottom. Elena Kuznetsova, age nineteen, recruited from Kiev with promises of dancing in a prestigious Las Vegas show. Her photo showed a girl with dark eyes and a hopeful smile. The notes next to her name: Uncooperative. Disciplinary action required. Transferred to private client 8/15/24. Balance: $87,000.

"Transferred," Finn said hollowly. "Like she's a fucking commodity."

Irina's role was everywhere. She handled the money, the logistics, the careful paper trail that made everything look legitimate. Shell corporations with addresses in Delaware and the Caymans. Wire transfers broken into amounts just below federal reporting thresholds. A network that had been operating for at least five years.

"There." Finn pointed at a folder labeled BUYERS. "Open it."

The list made Lena's stomach turn. Names she recognized from the casino's high-roller suites. A state senator. A real estate mogul whose face was on half the billboards in town. And there, three names from the bottom: Detective Michael Burke, LVMPD, Vice Division.

"That's why we can't go to the police," Finn said quietly. "Burke's been running interference for them. Look at the dates—every time there was a complaint, every time someone tried to report something wrong, Burke made it disappear."

Lena scrolled deeper. Found video files she couldn't bring herself to open, their timestamps and filenames telling enough of the story. Found a document titled ACTIVE ASSETS with thumbnail photos and descriptions like livestock auction listings. Twenty-three women. Most barely out of their teens. Each photo paired with measurements, languages spoken, "specialties." The clinical coldness of it made her want to scream.

"Anya found this," Lena said. "She was trying to expose them."

"And they killed her for it. Made it look like an accident." Finn's jaw clenched. "Pietro must have known too. He was friends with Anya—I saw them talking all the time. Maybe she told him, or maybe he figured it out on his own."

"They'll come for us next."

"Yes." Finn met her eyes. "Everyone who knows is a liability. We need to get this to someone who can actually do something with it. FBI, maybe. Or a journalist."

"What about the women? The ones still trapped?" Lena heard her voice rising. "We can't just—"

A sound cut through the night. Distant but getting closer. Sirens.

They looked at each other, then Finn grabbed the laptop and shoved it at her. "Go. Take the drive, get out of Vegas. Drive to Los Angeles, find a journalist at one of the big papers, give them everything."

"What about you?"

"I'm going back. Someone has to get those women out, and I know where Victor houses them—there's an address in the files. I'll call in an anonymous tip, create enough chaos that maybe some of them can escape in the confusion." He pulled out his wallet, thrust a wad of cash at her. "This is everything I have. It'll get you to LA and keep you hidden for a few days."

"Finn—"

"My sister is dead because of these people. I'm not letting her die for nothing." His voice broke. "Go, Lena. Please."

She wanted to argue, but the sirens were getting louder. Someone must have found Pietro's body, or maybe the killer had called it in themselves, knowing the police response would flush out anyone nearby. Lena took the money, clutched the laptop to her chest.

"Be careful," she said.

Finn smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Not really the plan."

She ran to her car—parked three blocks away in a neighborhood that would definitely not have it in the morning—and forced herself to drive at exactly the speed limit back toward the Strip. The Palazzo Luna loomed ahead, all its windows blazing with light. Too much light for three-thirty in the morning. Something was happening.

Her phone rang. Unknown number again, but not Finn's. Lena answered warily.

"Lena Hart?" A woman's voice, crisp and professional.

"Who is this?"

"My name is Zoe Kirchner. I'm a singer with the troupe. We met yesterday." The German accent was faint but present. "I need to speak with you. It's about Anya."

Lena's heart kicked. "How did you get my number?"

"From the call sheet. Listen to me carefully. I know what Anya found. I helped her document some of it. I have additional evidence, files she gave me to keep safe in case something happened to her." A pause. "Something did happen to her. And tonight I received a message from Pietro, very strange, just the word 'collection' and then nothing. I think they're going to kill me next."

"Where are you?"

"My dressing room at the theater. I'm afraid to leave—there are people watching the exits. But if you come through the service entrance, the one by the loading dock, I can let you in. We can go to the authorities together. Please. I can't do this alone."

Every instinct Lena had screamed trap. But if Zoe really had more evidence, if she could corroborate what was on Anya's drive...

"I'm coming," Lena said. "Twenty minutes."

She hung up before Zoe could respond, immediately dialed Finn. Voicemail. She left a message explaining where she was going, then turned the car toward the Palazzo Luna's service entrance.

The loading dock was in the back of the casino, a utilitarian space of concrete and industrial lighting where the fantasy Vegas sold to tourists broke down into plumbing and garbage and the machinery that kept the illusion running. At this hour, it was deserted. Lena parked in the shadows and approached the service door Zoe had described.

It opened before she could knock.

"Quickly." Zoe's face appeared in the gap—pale, frightened, her stage makeup smeared as if she'd been crying. She was maybe twenty-five, blonde like Anya, with that same ethereal quality that made her perfect for the circus aesthetic. "They're doing rounds every thirty minutes. We have maybe twenty minutes before someone comes by."

Lena followed her inside, down a cinderblock hallway lit by flickering fluorescents. They passed dressing rooms, storage closets, and the physical plant that kept the theater running. Zoe moved quickly, her heels clicking on the concrete, until they reached the performers' corridor.

"In here." Zoe opened her dressing room door.

The space was smaller than Anya's had been, but similar—mirrors, costumes, the detritus of performance. Zoe closed the door behind them and locked it, then turned to face Lena with wild eyes.

"I've been so frightened. Ever since Anya died, I knew I could be next. Pietro too—he asked me two days ago if I knew anything about Victor's European trips, if Anya had ever mentioned anything strange. I lied and said no, but I think he knew." She moved to her vanity, pulled open a drawer. "The files are here. I encrypted them separately, different password. Together with what Anya gave you, it should be enough to—"

She stopped. Stared at the drawer. "No. No, they were right here. I checked before I called you."

"Zoe—"

"Someone took them. Someone was in my room." Her voice rose, panic bleeding through. "We have to leave. Now. They know. They know I talked to you."

Lena moved toward the door, but Zoe grabbed her arm. "Not that way. There's a back exit through the costume storage. Faster."

They moved deeper into the dressing room complex, Zoe leading the way through a narrow passage lined with racks of sequined costumes and feathered headdresses. The air smelled of fabric and sweat and hairspray. Emergency lighting cast everything in a sickly green glow.

"Through here," Zoe said, pushing through a doorway into what looked like a private dressing room. Larger than the others, more elaborate. "This is Victor's personal space. The exit is—"

She stopped. Lena nearly ran into her.

The room wasn't empty.

A woman hung from the aerial silk rigging that Victor apparently practiced on in private. She was suspended in the air, wrapped in crimson silk like a cocoon, but this was no performance. The silk wound around her torso in elaborate patterns, creating the illusion of wings—an angel's wings, carefully arranged. Her head lolled at an impossible angle, neck broken or nearly so. Her blonde hair—the same shade as Anya's, as Zoe's—hung down in a curtain that swayed slightly with the room's air circulation. Her arms were positioned like a dancer's, graceful even in death, held in place by the silk wrappings. She wore a performance costume, crimson and gold sequins that caught the light.

Lena's eyes traveled down the body. Took in the details. The costume. The build. The face, partially obscured by hair but visible enough to see the features. The small silver ring on the right hand, visible where the silk hadn't covered it.

The same ring the woman beside her was wearing.

Her brain stuttered, refused to process. She looked at the woman next to her—Zoe, who'd called her, who'd let her in,  who'd led her here. Looked back at the body hanging from the silk.

The same face. The exact same face. The same blonde hair, the same delicate features, the same body type. Even the costume was identical—crimson and gold, sequined, performance-ready.

"I don't understand," Lena whispered. Her voice sounded far away, detached. This wasn't possible. People didn't exist in two places at once. But there was Zoe beside her, breathing, warm, alive. And there was Zoe hanging from the silk, cold, broken, dead.

She turned slowly, every movement feeling like it was happening underwater. Looked at the woman who'd brought her here. Really looked. Saw the way she stood—not frightened anymore, not panicked. Saw the slight smile playing at the corners of her mouth. Saw the calculation in her eyes.

"You're not Zoe," Lena said.

Then she did understand. Too late. Far too late.

The woman next to her—whoever she was—moved with professional speed. Something hit Lena in the side of the head, bright pain exploding through her skull. She stumbled, fell against a costume rack, her vision swimming. Sequins pressed against her face, smelling of old perfume and sweat.

"Stupid," the woman said, and her accent was gone, replaced by flat American English. Midwest, maybe, or California. "Really thought you'd buy the scared German girl routine? Pietro was an idiot too. Came running to 'save' Anya's friend when I called." She crouched down, grabbed Lena's hair, forced her to look at the body. "That's Zoe. Real Zoe. Been dead for about three hours now. Strangled with her own silk, just like Anya. Poetic, right?"

Lena's hand found her phone in her pocket. The woman saw the movement and kicked it away, sending it skittering across the floor to land under Victor's vanity.

"Looking for this?" She held up the USB drive. "Took it from your purse when you weren't looking. Real sloppy, sweetheart. Anya was sloppy too. Thought she was so clever with her hidden pockets and her encryption. But you know what? Even encrypted files leave traces. IP addresses. Login timestamps. We've been watching her for months."

"Who are you?" Lena's voice came out thick. Blood ran down the side of her face, warm and sticky.

"Does it matter?" The woman straightened up, examined the drive. "You're going to have an unfortunate accident. Suicide, probably. Distraught over witnessing Anya's death. Couldn't handle the guilt." She smiled. "They'll find you hanging next to Zoe. Sisters in death. Very tragic."

She turned away, moving toward something on Victor's vanity. Lena's vision swam, but she forced herself to focus. Zoe's body hung above her, swaying slightly in some unfelt breeze. And there—on the real Zoe's hands.

Blood under her fingernails. Fresh blood, dark against the pale nail beds. She'd fought back. Scratched her attacker. Left evidence under her nails even as she died.

Which meant this woman—this killer—was injured. Scratched.

Lena's hand closed on something metal in the costume rack beside her. A wire hanger. Not much, but something. She gripped it tight, felt the metal bite into her palm. When the woman turned back, carrying what looked like a length of silk rope, Lena swung with everything she had.

The hanger caught her across the face, the hook drawing blood. A deep scratch opened across her cheekbone, welling red. The woman screamed, stumbled back, dropping the silk. Her hand went to her face, came away bloody. Lena didn't wait to see more. She lunged for her phone, fingers scrabbling under the vanity, found it, grabbed it.

Behind her, cursing. The sound of pursuit. Footsteps heavy and fast.

But Lena had been running all night, and fear gave her speed. She burst through the costume storage, sending racks crashing behind her to slow the chase. Into the main corridor, her vision still swimming from the blow to her head. Blood in her eyes now, making it hard to see. She followed the exit signs—green lights in the emergency lighting—toward salvation or death, no longer sure which she'd find first.

The service door. She hit it at full speed, the crash bar giving way, and she was outside. Cold desert air hit her face, shocking and clean. Behind her, the door slammed open again. The woman was still coming.

Lena ran into the Vegas night, past the loading dock, past her car—no time to get the keys out, no time to fumble with locks. Down an alley, across a parking lot, into the maze of service roads behind the casino. Her lungs burned. Her head throbbed. But she ran.

Somewhere behind her, footsteps faded. Or maybe they didn't. Maybe they were still there, patient, following, waiting for her to tire.

She didn't look back.

Chapter Three: The Gilded Cage

Lena made it four blocks before her legs gave out. She collapsed in the doorway of a closed pawn shop, gasping for air, her head pounding where the killer had struck her. Blood still trickled down her face, and when she touched the wound, her fingers came away red. She needed a hospital. Needed the police. Needed anything except to be alone and hunted in the Vegas night.

Her phone had three percent battery. No messages from Finn. She tried calling him—straight to voicemail again. Where was he? Still trying to reach the warehouse where Victor kept the women? She pulled up the photos she'd taken of the files before everything went to hell. The address was there: 2847 Industrial Way, a warehouse district east of the Strip.

The USB drive was gone. The killer had it, which meant Victor and Irina would know exactly what Anya had collected. They'd be destroying evidence right now, moving the women, erasing any trace of the operation. Unless Lena could get there first.

She forced herself to stand. Her car was back at the Palazzo Luna, but she couldn't risk going back there. A taxi then. She stumbled to Las Vegas Boulevard, found a cab at a casino taxi stand, and gave the driver the Industrial Way address. He gave her a long look in the rearview mirror—bloody, disheveled, clearly in trouble—but Vegas cabbies were paid not to ask questions.

The warehouse district was exactly what she'd expected: chain-link fences, security lights, industrial buildings hunched against the desert dark. The cab dropped her at the corner, and she walked the last two blocks, staying in the shadows. Number 2847 was a corrugated metal building, two stories, no windows on the ground floor. A single security light illuminated a parking area where three vehicles sat: a black Mercedes she recognized as Irina's, a white van with no markings, and Finn's beat-up Honda.

He was here. He'd come alone to face them.

Lena approached the building carefully. The main entrance had a security keypad, but there was a side door propped open with a brick. Sloppy security or a trap. She slipped inside.

The interior was divided into sections. The front area looked legitimate—an office space with desks, filing cabinets, the trappings of a normal business. But deeper in, she heard voices. And something else. Crying.

She moved through the shadows, past the office area into what looked like a converted warehouse floor. And there they were: makeshift rooms created by hanging sheets and cheap partition walls. At least twenty of them, each maybe eight by ten feet. In the dim emergency lighting, she could see figures moving behind the sheets. Women. The "active assets" from Anya's files, imprisoned in this place that looked like a refugee camp designed by slavers.

"You shouldn't have come here." Finn's voice, barely a whisper. He appeared from behind a partition, his face pale. Blood stained his shirt—not his own, she thought. "They knew I'd come. They were waiting."

"The drive—"

"I know. They called me, told me they had it, told me if I wanted to save any of these women I'd better come surrender myself." He grabbed her arm, pulled her deeper into the shadows. "Lena, this is bad. Victor and Irina are here. And the woman who killed Zoe. They're moving the women out, destroying the files. We have maybe thirty minutes before they scatter everyone and we lose our only chance."

"Did you call the FBI? Someone who can help?"

"I tried. Left an anonymous tip with everything I know. But even if they believe it, even if they come, it'll take hours to mobilize." His eyes were desperate. "We're on our own."

A door slammed somewhere in the building. Footsteps. Then Victor's voice, theatrical even in crisis: "Ladies, please. Orderly lines. You're simply being relocated for your safety. No need for tears."

Lena peered around the partition. The women were being herded toward the loading dock—young, frightened, most of them in their late teens or early twenties. Guards flanked them, two men in security uniforms who moved with military precision. And there was Irina, clipboard in hand, checking names off a list with bureaucratic efficiency. The woman who'd killed Zoe stood near the loading dock doors, her face bandaged where Lena had struck her.

"We need to stop this," Lena said. "We need evidence, witnesses, something."

"The women are terrified. Half of them don't speak English. They've been threatened, beaten, told their families will be killed if they talk." Finn's voice broke. "I tried talking to some of them. They won't help us."

"Then we make them listen." Lena pulled out her phone. Three percent battery, but enough for what she needed. She opened the photos of Anya's files, found the one labeled ACTIVE ASSETS. Twenty-three faces stared back at her, each paired with names, ages, home countries. "These women. They're all here?"

"Most of them. Some have been... transferred." The word tasted like poison.

"Then we show them proof. We show them that someone tried to expose this, that Anya died trying to save them. We give them a choice." Lena moved before Finn could stop her, stepping out from behind the partition into the open floor.

"Wait!" one of the women shouted. Not at Lena, but at the guards who were pushing them toward the van. She was young, maybe nineteen, with dark hair and defiant eyes. Eastern European accent. "Where are you taking us? You said we work at casino. You said we perform. This is not what you promised!"

"Shut up, Katya." The killer moved forward, hand raised to strike.

"No." Lena's voice cut through the space. "Don't touch her."

Every head turned. Victor's face went through a remarkable series of expressions—surprise, recognition, calculation. "Miss Hart. How unexpected. I thought you'd fled Vegas by now."

"I found what Anya hid," Lena said, holding up her phone. "I know everything. The trafficking, the fake contracts, the buyers. All of it. And I'm not the only one who knows."

Irina's cold eyes narrowed. "The drive is in our possession. Along with any copies Anya made. You have nothing."

"I have photographs. Sent to multiple email addresses. Including the FBI." A bluff, but she sold it hard. "And I have these women. Witnesses who can testify about what you've done to them."

"They won't talk," Victor said, but something flickered in his expression. Doubt.

"Won't they?" Lena addressed the women directly, switching to the broken Russian she'd picked up from her grandmother. It wasn't much, but enough. "Anya Kozlov tried to save you. They killed her. Murdered her and made it look like accident. She collected proof. Names, money, everything. She died so you could be free. Will you help her? Will you testify?"

Silence. The women looked at each other, fear and hope warring on their faces.

"They're lying," Irina said. "The police work for us. Detective Burke will make any charges disappear. You speak up, you disappear too. Your families back home disappear."

"Burke is finished," Finn said, stepping out beside Lena. "The FBI has his name. Along with every other dirty cop on Victor's payroll. Your protection is gone."

"Enough of this." The killer pulled a gun from her jacket. "Both of you, on your knees. Now."

Lena's mind raced. The gun changed everything. But the women were watching. Twenty-three witnesses to murder if this went wrong. Victor couldn't kill them all. Could he?

"You going to shoot us in front of all these witnesses?" Lena asked. "Or are you going to add twenty-three more murders to your list? Because that's what it'll take. Every woman here has seen your face. Heard your voice. Knows what you've done."

The killer's finger tightened on the trigger. Lena saw it, saw the moment the woman decided murder was easier than loose ends.

Then fire alarms screamed to life.

Sprinklers erupted from the ceiling, drenching everything in seconds. Emergency lights flashed. And through the loading dock doors, Lena saw smoke—thick, black, rolling in from somewhere outside.

Finn grabbed her hand. "This way!"

Chaos erupted. The women scattered, some running for the exits, others freezing in panic. The guards tried to maintain control but the sprinklers and smoke made it impossible. Victor shouted orders no one followed. Irina clutched her clipboard like a talisman.

"The fire," Lena gasped as they ran. "Did you—"

"Called in a threat before you got here. Said there was a gas leak. Fire department should be here any minute." Finn pulled her toward a side exit. "Come on!"

Behind them, a gunshot cracked through the chaos. Lena looked back—the killer, firing blind through the smoke and water, trying to stop them. A scream echoed, someone hit. But Lena couldn't tell who.

They burst through the side exit into the parking lot. Fire trucks were arriving, sirens wailing, red lights strobing against the warehouse walls. And behind them—more vehicles. Black SUVs with federal plates. FBI.

"You actually called them," Lena said.

"Twenty minutes ago. Told them there was an active trafficking situation and people were about to be moved. Guess they believed me." Finn pulled her toward the responding agents. "Come on. Let's make sure Victor and Irina don't slip away."

The next hour blurred into statements and chaos. The FBI secured the building, evacuated the women, arrested Victor, Irina, and the two guards. The killer tried to run and took a bullet to the leg for her trouble. Detective Burke was picked up at his home an hour later, still in his pajamas.

Lena sat in the back of an ambulance, getting stitches for her head wound, and watched it all unfold. The women were being processed, given blankets and water, interviewed by agents with translators. Some were crying. Some looked numb. A few—like Katya, the dark-haired girl who'd spoken up—looked angry. That was good. Anger could be channeled. Anger could demand justice.

"You did good," Finn said, sitting down beside her. His shirt was still bloody, and he looked exhausted. "Anya would be proud."

"Pietro too." Lena watched as they brought Victor out in handcuffs. The Viscount had lost his theatrical bearing—he looked old now, shrunken, defeated. "They died for this. For them." She gestured to the women.

"Not all of them made it out," Finn said quietly. "One of the guards shot a girl during the chaos. Elena. She was nineteen." His voice caught. "Same age Anya was when she joined the troupe."

They sat in silence, watching the organized chaos of the crime scene. More agents arrived. More vehicles. The fire department declared the building safe—the smoke had been from burning documents in a trash can. Victor and Irina trying to destroy evidence before they ran.

An FBI agent approached—a woman in her forties, with sharp eyes and a no-nonsense demeanor. "Miss Hart? Finn Kozlov? I'm Special Agent Collins. I need to take your statements. Full statements, everything from the beginning."

"We'll tell you everything," Lena said. "But I need something first."

"What's that?"

"The women. The ones you recovered. I need to know they're safe. Really safe. Not just processed and deported or sent back to families that sold them in the first place."

Agent Collins's expression softened slightly. "We have protocols. Victim services, immigration attorneys, safe housing. It's not perfect, but we'll do our best to protect them."

"Your best better be good enough," Finn said. "My sister died for this. Pietro died for this. A girl named Elena died for this. Their deaths need to mean something."

"They will," Collins promised. "Now let's get your statements. Every detail matters. These people—Victor, Irina, Burke, all of them—we're going to bury them under so much evidence they'll never see daylight again."

They spent the next four hours in an FBI field office, going through everything. Lena described finding the USB drive, Pietro's murder, the files, Zoe's death. Finn talked about Anya's cryptic messages, his investigation, the warehouse address. They provided photos of the documents, names of potential witnesses, everything they had.

By the time they finished, the sun was rising over Vegas. Lena stepped outside to find the city waking up—tourists stumbling back to hotels, workers heading to early shifts, the eternal churn of the town that never stopped. Somewhere out there, slot machines were still singing their siren songs. People were still losing and winning and losing again.

But twenty-three women were safe. Or safer, at least.

Finn joined her on the steps. "FBI wants us to stick around. Testify at trial, help build the case."

"I can't." Lena shook her head. "I have loan sharks in Chicago who want fifty grand. I have an ex who put me in the hospital. I ran here to escape, and now I need to keep running."

"Or you could stay and face them." Finn met her eyes. "You stood up to human traffickers and killers. You can stand up to loan sharks. The FBI might even help—witness protection, relocation assistance. You helped them crack a major case."

Lena thought about it. About running versus standing. About Tyler's face when she'd finally fought back, when she'd pressed charges, when she'd said no more. About Anya, who'd collected evidence knowing it would get her killed. About Pietro's final message written in his own blood. About Elena, nineteen, dead in a warehouse because evil men saw profit in human suffering.

"Okay," she said finally. "I'll stay. I'll testify. I'll help put these bastards away."

"Good." Finn smiled, and for the first time since Anya's death, it reached his eyes. "Because I could use a friend who understands."

They sat on the steps as Vegas woke around them, two damaged people who'd survived the night. It wasn't a happy ending—too many people had died for that. But it was an ending. And sometimes, in a city built on broken dreams and long odds, that was enough.

Three blocks away, in a hotel room Lena had never seen, her phone—the real one, not the one the killer had kicked away—buzzed with a message. Unknown number. But if she'd been there to read it, she would have seen:

Tyler's been arrested. Your restraining order violation charges. He's going away for a while. You're safe. —A Friend

And in Chicago, two men in good suits sat in a federal holding cell, charged with racketeering and illegal lending practices. The loan sharks had bigger problems than one missing debtor. The FBI had been watching them for months. Lena's desperate call to their tip line three days ago, placing Victor and Irina's operation in context with other criminal enterprises, had given the Bureau the final piece they needed.

Sometimes, when you stop running, the things chasing you get caught from behind.

But Lena didn't know that yet. She only knew that she'd survived, that she'd helped save lives, that the sun was rising on a new day. She sat on the steps next to Finn, watching Vegas sparkle in the morning light, and for the first time in months, she didn't feel like running.

She felt like standing her ground.

Two months later, Lena stood at a memorial service in a small cemetery outside Vegas. Anya's parents had flown in from Boston to bury their daughter. Pietro's family had come from New Jersey. Elena's mother had made the journey from Ukraine, her face a mask of grief that transcended language barriers.

Twenty of the rescued women attended. Three had already been deported despite FBI promises. The rest were in various stages of legal limbo, fighting for asylum, for justice, for the right to stay in a country that had trafficked them but also saved them.

"They're going to fight for visas," Katya told Lena after the service. Her English had improved dramatically. "Agent Collins, she say we have strong case. Trafficking victims, cooperative witnesses. Maybe we stay, maybe we make new life here."

"I hope so," Lena said. She meant it.

The trial was set for six months away. Victor and Irina had been denied bail. Burke was cooperating, giving names, trying to save himself. The killer—her real name was Sarah Wickham, former military, current mercenary—sat in federal prison awaiting her own trial. She wasn't talking.

Finn had started a foundation in Anya's name. Helping trafficking victims, funding legal services, paying for the kind of support that government bureaucracy couldn't provide. Lena had donated her signing bonus from the new job—not performing, not anymore. She was working for a victims' advocacy group, using her experience to help others navigate the system.

Tyler's trial had ended three weeks ago. Eighteen months for violating the restraining order, another two years for assault charges from a different ex-girlfriend who'd found the courage to come forward after hearing about Lena's case. He'd be in prison for a while. Long enough for Lena to build a new life.

The loan sharks were facing twenty years. The FBI had found enough evidence of predatory lending, racketeering, and ties to organized crime to put them away for a long time. Lena's debt had been forgiven as part of the investigation. She was free.

As the memorial service ended and people drifted away, Lena stood in front of Anya's grave. The headstone was simple: Anya Kozlov, Beloved Daughter, Sister, Friend. 1999-2024. But someone—probably Finn—had added a line at the bottom: She flew highest when fighting for others.

"Thank you," Lena said quietly. "You didn't know me. But you saved me anyway. I won't forget that."

She turned to find Finn waiting by his car. He'd lost weight, aged years in two months, but there was peace in his face now. The kind that comes from knowing you did everything you could.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Ready."

They drove back to Vegas, to the city that had nearly destroyed them, that had broken them and rebuilt them into something stronger. The Strip glittered in the distance, all those lights hiding all those stories. Some beautiful, some terrible, most somewhere in between.

Lena had learned something in this city: that running doesn't solve your problems, that sometimes you have to stand and fight, that ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they stop accepting the world as it is and start demanding it be better.

She'd come to Vegas fleeing her past. She'd leave it—eventually—owning her future.

But not yet. There was still work to do. Testimony to give. Women to help. Justice to pursue.

The Devil's Trapeze had fallen. The collection was broken. And in the ruins, something new was growing.

Hope, maybe. Or just the stubborn refusal to let evil win.

Either way, Lena was done running.

[THE END]