The air in the room was thick and smelled of expensive cigars. I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize myself.

“I shouldn’t be here,” I whispered to myself. I was draped in a black slip of a dress that felt less like clothes and more like an invitation.

My lips were painted a bleeding crimson, making me look like a wicked fantasy—a seductress born of desperation.

I didn’t want this, but I had to. My mother was dying in a hospital bed, and her bills were a mountain I couldn’t climb. Selling my body was the only way out.

“You look so hot, Liora,” one of the girls purred....