All Chapters of The Devil's Debt : Chapter 11 - Chapter 17

The room never returned to normal after Marek left.Not for Ayla.The hum of voices pressed in too close. Crystal laughter cracked in her ears like ice shattering. Every movement around her felt choreographed, suspicious. The way a man adjusted his cufflinks. The way a woman lingered at a painting too long without blinking. Eyes behind wine glasses. Hands in pockets where guns could live.She moved through it all like Bianca would—graceful, curious, untouched.But inside, Ayla was recalibrating. Marek had seen through her façade within minutes. That meant he knew more than Lucian had warned. Or worse—Lucian had known, and sent her anyway.She didn’t need to guess which possibility was more likely.A voice over the speaker announced the auction would begin shortly in the lower gallery. Guests began to drift toward a staircase guarded by two expressionless men in navy suits. One carried a ledger. The other carried a weapon barely disguised beneath his coat.Ayla made her way toward the

The steps felt longer than they should have. Each one took her higher, but not further from the pull of the room below. The gallery’s air was warm from too many bodies and too much tension; her skin prickled as if she were still in the vault with Marek’s gun aimed steady in her direction.The sound followed her up—muted conversations, the dull hum of money changing hands, the faint chime of crystal as drinks met lips. Even here, where the mezzanine curved like a balcony above the lower floor, she could feel the heat of attention. It stuck to her like smoke.She reached the top and merged into the stream of guests drifting toward the upper lounge. Waiters moved through them like chess pieces, balancing trays of champagne flutes, collecting empties without ever breaking stride. Laughter rose and fell in polished little bursts, the kind people gave not because they were amused, but because someone else was listening.No one up here knew she had just been auctioned like a rare coin. No on

The hum of the machinery followed her like a warning, deep and constant, vibrating faintly through the soles of her shoes. It wasn’t a clean, modern hum—this was older, like an animal growl that had learned to hold its breath. Each step along the narrow corridor echoed longer than it should have, as though the building itself was taking note of her intrusion.She slowed her breathing, forcing herself to listen. Every drop of condensation hitting the concrete carried weight in the silence. The smell down here was sharp and layered—oil, metal, damp stone—like she’d stepped inside the ribcage of some giant, sleeping thing.Somewhere above, the elevator cables whispered against their pulleys. The sound was faint but constant. She imagined Lucian’s measured patience, Marek’s lean momentum. Either one could be on the move, following her. The thought didn’t make her speed up. If anything, it slowed her, sharpening each movement. She’d learned early in her life that rushing gave the game away

‎The cavern’s air thickened, heavy with jet fuel and anticipation. Every breath tasted metallic, every inhale coated her tongue with copper and smoke. The aircraft’s turbines groaned to life, each rotation a grinding reminder of inevitability, the sound clawing at her bones like a predator circling its prey.‎‎Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, harsh and sterile, turning every shadow into something sharp, deliberate. The technicians below moved in a choreography that was too precise to be improvised. Every flick of a wrist, every turn of a wrench seemed timed to the heartbeat of the engines. None of them looked at her. None dared. Their devotion to Lucian’s silence was absolute.‎‎Ayla’s thumb hovered over the red dot in her pocket. The phone’s casing felt hot, though she knew it wasn’t heat—it was her own pulse, hammering so violently it turned plastic and steel into an illusion of fire.‎‎Ninety seconds. That’s all it would take. Ninety seconds to erase everything—the machine, t