Chapter 151 - Nova

Chapter 151 - Nova
Over the past couple of weeks, it felt like the world around me had been in constant motion—strategizing, meeting, planning, always doing—while I, by contrast, had been sitting still at the center of the storm, a spectator to something I was supposed to be part of. They—Olivia, Santiago, Luca, Sean, Belen, all of them—had been busy stitching together a case so tight it could smother the breath out of Pedro Gómez Hernández. But today, it was my turn to step into the spotlight, however reluctant, and share the fragments of memory that had survived the fog.

I walked into the law offices with a stomach full of nerves and a head full of doubt. Everything about the space felt cold and professional—glass walls, polished floors, people speaking in hushed tones with purposeful strides. A woman I didn’t know, polite and practiced in her warmth, greeted me in the lobby and led me down a hallway lined with framed degrees and awards, like quiet reminders that this was serious business, that what I said today would matter in ways I couldn’t yet fathom.

She opened a door to a private meeting room, and there she was—Olivia. The name that had carried weight and warning ever since Santiago first spoke it aloud. She looked exactly how I’d imagined her, only sharper. Her posture was commanding without being theatrical, her suit impeccably tailored in a way that said she didn’t have time for frivolity, and her focus was split between a folder brimming with notes and two associates who hovered nearby, awaiting instructions like satellites around a planet that pulled all energy toward itself.

“Please, take a seat, Alessia,” she said without glancing up from her notes, her voice efficient, not unkind but not interested in unnecessary pleasantries either. Hearing that name spoken aloud still tugged at something deep inside me. I wasn’t sure if I had truly claimed it yet—if Alessia was the person I had become, or a mask I was still trying to wear convincingly.

I sat down slowly, tucking my hands into my lap to hide the slight tremble in my fingers. Olivia didn’t pause; she flipped a page, jotted something quickly in the margin with a fountain pen, and then gestured toward the corner of the room where a discreet camera on a tripod recorded us silently.

“What’s the camera for?” I asked, even though I already had a sinking feeling I knew the answer.

She finally looked up at me then, her gaze sharp and unsparing, like a scalpel that didn’t cut skin but peeled back layers of pretense. “We’re taping this so we can accurately record what you say in your own words,” she replied with a clipped precision that made me feel like a schoolgirl asking an obvious question in front of the entire class. “It ensures clarity. Nothing more.”

I nodded, unsure what else to do. My mouth was dry. This woman made me nervous—not because she was cruel, but because she didn’t seem to have space for anything soft or uncertain. I wondered how many times she had done this—interviewed victims, witnesses, reluctant allies—and how often she’d had to peel stories out of people who were still piecing themselves back together.

Olivia leaned back in her chair, finally giving me her full attention. “So, go ahead. Tell us everything you know. Start from the beginning—after you were taken. Walk us through everything you remember from your time in the club.”

Her tone made it sound so simple, so procedural, as if this were just another piece of evidence in a long chain, another statement to transcribe and sort and analyze. But for me, it wasn’t that straightforward. The memories I had were frayed, scattered like ashes on the wind. I didn’t know which ones were real, which ones had been distorted by trauma, and which ones had been buried too deep for even my conscious mind to reach.

I took a slow breath, exhaling shakily through my nose. “I don’t remember much,” I admitted quietly. “Not really. Some flashes… some voices. Feelings. Not details.”

“Then give us the flashes,” Olivia said without missing a beat. “We piece together what we can.”

So I began.

I spoke hesitantly at first, unsure of how to shape the vague recollections into something useful. There was the night I remembered walking home alone, and then the sudden panic as hands grabbed me from behind. The smell of alcohol and sweat. A voice whispering something into my ear—words I couldn’t remember but a tone I’d never forget. Then darkness. Long, suffocating darkness.

I felt their eyes on me in the room now—Olivia’s, her assistants’, maybe even the silent lens of the camera—and it made my throat tighten. I hated how exposed I felt, how I had to revisit things I still didn’t fully understand. But I kept going.

“There were rules,” I said quietly. “Rules I learned quickly. What to wear. Where to be. How to behave. What not to say. What happened if I disobeyed. I didn’t always remember the punishments, but my body did.”

No one interrupted me. There was only the soft scratch of Olivia’s pen on paper now and then, and the faint hum of electricity in the room. It made the air feel tighter somehow.

I didn’t go into the physical details. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But I gave them what I could—what I remembered about certain voices, the names I heard whispered between doors, the symbols on certain doors, the way they marked people like property. I told them about the coldness of it all. The precision. How there was never chaos—only control.

When I finally stopped speaking, I felt emptied out, like someone had scooped my insides with a dull spoon and left the husk behind.

“Thank you,” Olivia said, still calm, still composed. “That’s a start.”

"Tell us about the routine," Olivia asked, her voice clipped and professional, but not unkind. She didn’t look up from her notes, which made it easier somehow. Easier not to feel judged.

I swallowed hard and nodded slowly. “We slept in these… pods. Small, enclosed spaces, stacked side by side like drawers. There were no windows. It was cold, sterile, and we didn’t have anything personal. Just enough room to lie down.” My voice felt strange in my own ears—detached, like I was recounting someone else's nightmare.

“The bathrooms were communal,” I continued. “Open stalls. No doors. Everything was monitored. We weren’t allowed any privacy. You had to learn quickly not to flinch or react. Just get used to it.” I wrapped my arms around myself without realizing it.

“I see,” Olivia said softly now, eyes flicking up briefly before returning to her notes. “What about meals?”

“There was a dining hall,” I said, exhaling slowly. “We were fed regularly—too regularly. It was all structured. Breakfast at seven, lunch at noon, dinner at six. Every meal was silent. No one dared speak unless spoken to.”

She nodded. “And the medical checks?”

I hesitated, but I had promised myself I’d be honest. “There was a doctor. I had to go there daily, sometimes more. He wasn’t cruel, but he wasn’t kind either. He kept everything clinical. I was given injections in the neck, without being told what it was. And sometimes… sometimes he’d make us watch things. Recordings.”

Olivia looked up again, her eyes sharpening. “Recordings of what?”

I looked down at my hands, clasped tightly in my lap. “Of ourselves. Of things I didn’t remember doing. Mostly with Santiago. It was… confusing. At first I thought they were staged, that it was someone else. But I know now they weren’t.” My throat tightened. “That was part of the control. To make us question our own memory. Our own sense of self.”

There was a brief silence, thick with tension and discomfort.

“Tell us more about the training sessions,” Olivia said, voice even.

I glanced up and met her gaze for a moment. It was hard to read her. I wasn’t sure if her expression was one of judgment or empathy—or simply the face of a woman doing her job.

“They trained us on how to behave,” I said. “How to respond to commands. How to read a room, to anticipate needs, how to fuck and how to suck dicks. They broke down our reactions and rebuilt them. We were constantly being tested—on obedience, on body language. They pushed us to see how far they could take us, how deeply they could shape us.”

Olivia tilted her head slightly. “And you… would you say you were trained to submit?”

There was something about the way she said it that made my spine stiffen. It wasn’t the word itself. It was the implication. As if submission were a weakness or a flaw. I felt the sting of shame creeping in, but I pushed through it.

“I didn’t choose it,” I said evenly. “At first, it was survival. You learn to follow, or you suffer. But over time… it becomes part of you. You start to blur the line between what’s forced and what you feel. I didn’t remember anything else than wanting to submit.”

No one said anything for a while, and I wondered if I had said too much—or not enough. I wasn’t sure what they were expecting. I wasn’t even sure what I was expecting anymore.