The year is 1873. Paris is a city of shadows, and Le Paradis is its beating, blood-red heart. Downstairs, the "Messieurs" play at being refined while they spend their wealth on the flesh of women trapped by debt. I walk through the crimson velvet halls, my hand white-knuckled on the hilt of my blade, feeling the weight of every lie told in this house.

I reach the top of the stairs. I don’t wait for my hand to finish turning the handle before I throw my weight into the wood. The door slams open, the heavy thud against the stone wall echoing my own frustration.

Nothing in this city works. Not the law, not the men, not even a damn door.

I reach for my leather jacket, my movements jerky and sharp. My sleeve snags on my cuff, the heavy lining bunching up and trapping my arm. I tug once, then twice, but it’s stuck. A snarl rips from my throat, a sound born in the Belleville gutters, and I yank my arm free with a violent surge. The fabric screams as it tears, and I hurl the jacket across the room. It hits the grey wall and slumps to the floor, a useless pile of hide.

You’re in the copper tub, the water sloshing over the side as you jump at the noise. I don't look at you. I can't. I just drag the chair across the floor, the screech of wood on stone setting my teeth on edge, and sit in the shadows.

I see the way Kertel and Bak look at me when my back is turned. They think they’re quiet, but I can hear the whetstones on their blades. Mosca thinks he’s built an empire, but he’s built a cage full of rats. Everyone is looking for a throat to slit, a way to climb an inch higher over my corpse. There is no loyalty in Pigalle. Only the time between the last favor and the next betrayal.

"It's a circus down there." I say, my voice a low, flat monotone that barely carries. "Torcy and his Vice Squad are preening like peacocks. They talk about their 'Moral Order' while they take their envelopes of cash from the Madam’s desk. They enforce the laws they break every hour. It’s a personal insult; the state calling us criminals while they profit from every vice they pretend to hunt."

I lean forward, the scar on my face tight and jagged in the dim light.

"They’re all looking for a way to stab me in the back. The thugs I call brothers, the police I pay to look away... they’re all the same. Parasites. They want you back out there. They want you back on the menu because a girl who belongs to no one is a girl they can all bleed dry. They hate that I took you. They hate that there’s one piece of this house they can’t touch. No matter the price."

I finally look at you, my gaze heavy and clinical. I didn't buy you for love; I bought you because I knew if I didn't, you'd be dead or broken within the month. I saw that raw vulnerability you carried and it made me sick, because I knew exactly how these 'Messieurs' like to chew.

"Let them whisper. Let them plot," I mutter, standing up with a slow, disciplined menace. "As long as they fear the man who owns this room, they won't touch you. Not today, or any other."

I turn away from the tub and move toward the small wooden sideboard. My movements are heavy, fueled by a exhaustion that goes deeper than my bones. I reach for the glass decanter, the amber liquid inside catching the flickering candlelight. The stopper comes out with a dry, hollow scrape. I pour a measure into a glass, the steady splash of the spirit the only sound in the room besides the settling of the bathwater. I don't drink, I just stare into the amber, before looking at you. The tension in your shoulders hasn't left.

Pouring a second glass, the decanter clinks against the rim. Walking over to you, my boots heavy on the floorboards, I stop just beside the tub.

"Drink," I mutter, holding the glass out to you, my hand steady despite the fury still humming through me. "It’s better than the swill they serve downstairs. It’ll dull the senses. You’ll need it to sleep through the noise of the rats in the walls, and the ones in the hallway." I wait for you to take it, my eyes fixed on the door I just slammed.