Chapter 45: Expanding the Business

The thing about genius ideas is that nobody ever calls them genius at the time.

When some ancient caveman first pointed at fire and went “let’s stick meat over this,” his friends probably rolled their eyes, muttered something about wasting perfectly good mammoth, and went back to gnawing their ribs like animals.

Same story with wheels, soap, democracy—pick your poison. Nobody applauds in the moment; they just complain, doubt, and then eventually steal the idea later and pretend it was theirs all along.

And here I was, standing in the middle of a dank, piss-scented prison cell with Brutus glaring holes through me, realizing that I too had joined the long, tragic lineage of unappreciated visionaries.

“Is this really necessary?” Brutus rumbled, holding up one of the glass vials at arm’s length as if it were a baby’s diaper fresh from the source.

His thick brows pinched together, his face settling into the kind of scowl normally reserved for discovering a rat floating in your soup.

I rolled my eyes so hard they nearly cartwheeled out of my skull. “Of course it’s necessary. Do you honestly think we can just go around promising guards and prisoners the ecstasy of my divine essence and then serve them stale sugar water? Please. That would be fraud. False advertisement. And besides, I’m not just selling them a drug, Brutus—I’m selling an experience. You don’t get this kind of customer loyalty without sweat equity. Emphasis on the sweat.”

He snorted, low and volcanic, like a bear who’d just been told that salmon were now vegan. “Saints preserve me,” he muttered, holding the vial steady, one of the last I hadn’t yet tainted, as I leaned forward, armpit glistening, and let one fat bead of sweat drip inside.

The liquid hissed faintly, the glow curling brighter, sharper, like sin itself had been distilled into a potion. I capped it with a flourish and gave him a wink.

“See? Magic.”

And magic it was, though not the kind you find in dusty grimoires. No, this was the dirty, ugly magic of rumors.

Word spread fast in the prison.

Faster than lice, faster than syphilis, faster than any gossip about who’d dropped the soap in the communal showers last week. Within hours, whispers had crept through the cracks like mold: there’s a gutter slut in the lower cells, dripping sweat into vials and making guards scream like choirboys.

Which, if we’re being honest, was a fairly accurate marketing slogan, though I’d have preferred something with more flair—maybe “Loona’s Luscious Elixirs: Guaranteed to Ruin Your Marriage.”

It started small. One guard here, one guard there. They’d wander past our cell with their lanterns swaying nervously, trying to look casual, but the hunger in their eyes betrayed them.

Brutus would grumble and pretend not to notice while I leaned languidly against the bars, naked, dripping, every inch of me a living advertisement.

They’d cough, mutter about curiosity, then slip a coin into my palm with all the discretion of a priest sneaking into a brothel. And just like that—transaction complete. One vial for them, one step closer to my glorious plan for me.

Of course, not everyone was content with just the vials. Some wanted more. A taste. A touch. A whisper of sin.

And who was I to deny them?

For an extra coin, I’d press a hand through the bars and give them a slow, twisting rhythm that had their knees buckling before the second stroke. For two, I’d part my lips and let them taste what sin really meant.

Brutus pretended to be disgusted, but I caught him stacking the coins into neat little towers with the kind of precision only a man secretly enjoying himself could muster.

They were silver crowns this time. A step above the bronze we’d scraped together in the mining cavern, a step below the gold I’d once pocketed in the secret arena. They gleamed in the dim light, catching fire from the torches outside, and each one sang the same sweet song: the song of progress.

Then came the moment that sealed it.

We were mid-transaction, a guard leaning heavily against the bars while I teased him with one hand, pouring the glimmering liquid down his throat with the other, when I noticed movement behind him. A prisoner, ragged and hollow-eyed, shuffled past with two escorts gripping his arms.

His face was shadowed, unreadable, but as he passed he extended one trembling hand behind his back. And there—in his palm—gleamed a single bronze coin.

My heart flipped.

Without hesitation, I reached through the bars, my fingers brushing his, and in one smooth motion, we exchanged. Half a vial for him, one coin for me. No words. No glance. Just the silent poetry of survival.

Brutus let out a low whistle. “Saints above. You’re a natural.”

I smirked, palming the bronze with theatrical flair. “Please. I was born for this. You think years of prostituting myself in smoke-filled taverns taught me nothing? This—this is art, Brutus. I am art.”

He grunted, shaking his head, but his lips held the faintest hint of a smile. Which, from Brutus, was basically a standing ovation.

And then came the flood.

Guards and prisoners both. Escorts pretending not to notice the handoffs happening right under their noses. The walkway became a market, our cell the central stall, me the bawdy merchant selling indulgence like candied apples at a fair.

The line stretched long, boots clattering, coins clinking, whispers rising like incense to the gods of greed.

Stacks upon stacks of silver and bronze began to pile up at Brutus’s feet, little towers of salvation. He crouched low, rearranging them into pyramids, his massive fingers surprisingly delicate as he handled our growing fortune.

His eyes gleamed, sharp and calculating, though he’d never admit it. For once, I think he saw what I saw: a future not written in chains.

I was mid-laugh, mid-flirt, mid-stroke when I heard it.

The footsteps.

Not the casual shuffle of bored guards. Not the ragged drag of prisoners. No, these were heavy. Measured. Armored footsteps. Each step rang like a hammer on an anvil, each clank echoing down the walkway like judgment.

My stomach dropped.

“Shit,” I hissed, spinning toward Brutus. Coins toppled from their stacks, clattering against the stone. The line scattered instantly, guards and prisoners alike vanishing into the shadows like cockroaches caught in the light. In seconds the walkway was empty, save for us and the approaching doom.

“Hide it!” I barked. “Hide everything!”

Brutus moved fast for a man his size. We shoved the stacks of coins, the shotgun, and the stolen keys to our cell beneath the bed in frantic motions, hands clumsy with panic. But there wasn’t enough time. Too much left out—the vials, the powders, the glass shards glittering with temptation.

The footsteps grew louder. Closer.

And then he was there.

He was one of the ones who wore armor etched with runes shifting like living veins, pulsing faintly with every breath. His mask writhed with those same squirming sigils most in his rank held. The air thickened around him, heavy with authority, with danger, with the kind of weight that makes lesser men piss themselves on sight.

I froze. Brutus froze as well.

The guard’s eyes—or whatever lay behind that shifting mask—swept the cell. They lingered on the bed, on the shadows beneath where our treasure lay hidden. They lingered on Brutus, whose massive frame, thank the gods, blocked the vials from view. And then they landed on me.

Me. Naked. Sticky. Still slick with the remnants of my earlier “transactions.”

I swallowed, forced a smile, and spread my arms wide. “It was a medical emergency,” I said, my voice bright, desperate, dripping with false cheer. “Terrible rash. Sweating fits. Highly contagious. You wouldn’t wanna touch me.”

The guard’s mask tilted, unreadable. Then—oh saints bless him—he facepalmed. Literally facepalmed, metal clanging as his palm smacked against his runed forehead. A groan rattled out from behind the mask, heavy with disgust and exhaustion.

“Whatever,” he muttered finally, voice muffled, thick. “It’s time to move. You’re back in rotation for the day.”

And just like that, the axe passed over our necks.

I exhaled so hard I nearly collapsed, my knees trembling, sweat dripping from my brow to mingle with the filth already drying on my chest. Brutus shifted, his massive shoulders sagging with relief, his bulk barely shielding our stash.

Exhaustion, as I’d come to find, is a jealous lover—it clings to your back, claws into your skull, whispers into your ears until your bones ache and your eyelids flutter like shutters in a storm.

And saints above, she was whispering to me now.

Every muscle screamed mutiny, every nerve hummed with fatigue, but I clenched my jaw, straightened my spine, and told my body to shut up and keep moving.

I’d burned through worse nights, in worse places, usually with far less clothing, though granted, this time I didn’t have much of that either.

I tilted my head, batted my lashes, and asked with mock sweetness, “You don’t mind, do you?”

For a long second, he just stared. His gaze dragged over me, lingering on the sweat and streaks of cum drying like obscene tattoos down my stomach. His shoulders twitched, then he cursed under his breath before turning his back.

Excellent.

I seized the opportunity, lunging toward Brutus with all the grace of a cat burglar on three hours of sleep.

“Hold still,” I hissed, shoving handfuls of vials, powders, and little bundles of sin straight down the back of his trousers. He stiffened, jaw clenched, hands twitching like he wanted to strangle me and throw me off a cliff at the same time.

“Don’t,” he growled.

“Shut up and clench,” I whispered back. “This is teamwork.”

He muttered something about killing me in my sleep, but his thighs shifted just enough to tuck the stash out of sight. Saints bless those thighs. Without them, we’d be ruined.

I dressed myself in my lingerie, dragged my blouse back over my sticky skin, tugged the skirt into place, and tried to smooth myself into something vaguely resembling human decency. The guard never looked back.

He just barked for us to move, and so we did.

Hours later—or maybe only minutes, but gods, it felt like a lifetime—we were back in the mining cavern again. Same rock walls. Same stench of sweat and iron. Same desperate faces bent low in defeat.

Only this time, I noticed how heavy my limbs felt, how the world swayed slightly with every blink, how Brutus’s bulk looked just a bit blurrier than usual. Exhaustion had caught me after all, the clingy little bitch.

The correctional officer was waiting, arms folded, his glare like daggers. “Listen up!” he barked, voice echoing off the stone. “No funny business this time. You worthless sacks better be hard at work, or so help me I’ll grind your bones myself.”

I snickered, unable to help myself, and the sound cut through the cavern like a whip. His head snapped toward me, eyes narrowing, suspicion dripping from every pore.

I offered him my sweetest, most innocent smile. He scowled, muttered something about “lunatics,” and stomped off to harass the other section.

“Hard at work,” I murmured, stretching my arms with exaggerated grace. “Oh, we’ll be hard at work alright. Just not in the way you’d expect.”

While the others of Section Six and Twelve stumbled to grab their pickaxes, Brutus and I slinked off to the side. Shadows pooled at the cavern’s edge, perfect for our brand of mischief.

Brutus crouched beside a slab of stone, his massive fingers fumbling at his belt before finally tugging free the stash I’d so lovingly stuffed down his pants. He laid the vials and powders out like a priest setting relics on an altar.

“Alright,” he muttered, voice low but steady. “If we’re going to keep this running, we can’t just sell the raw vials anymore. We need more product. Variants. Smokeables, chewables. Something to spread the supply without draining the stock.”

I nodded, too tired to argue but sharp enough to see his point. “Stretch it. Make the magic go further. Got it.”

And saints help me, the man worked like a craftsman.

He took the base stash the Boss himself had handed us—those bitter leaves—alongside the other stolen powers and bundles of contraband and began fusing them with fractions of our remaining Erosin.

A splash here, a drop there, mixing, folding, grinding with the patience of a man who had once carved idols out of stone. Slowly, carefully, he transformed our scraps into something new, something potent, something that shimmered with promise.

I leaned against the rock, eyelids heavy, watching him with half a smirk. For all his grumbling, Brutus was remarkably good at this.

By the time the first batch was ready, I was buzzing again—not from sleep, but from possibility. We started small, slipping portions to Section Twelve first, our ragtag group of misfits. A pinch here, a chew there. Heads perked, eyes widened, whispers spread like fire. Then Section Six got their taste, and the murmurs grew louder, more eager.

I was in the middle of handing off a wrapped pellet, sliding it into a palm slick with sweat, when I felt it.

The air shifted. Heavy. Cold. Like a stone being dropped into a still pond.

A shadow fell behind me.

I turned, slow, my stomach knotting before I even saw him.

The man stood tall, hair long and grey, draped over his shoulders like a wolf’s mane. A scar twisted his lip into a permanent sneer, and one eye gleamed glassy, reflecting the dim torchlight with cruel clarity.

His presence was a blade pressed against the throat of the entire cavern. Conversations stilled. Pickaxes faltered. Even Brutus’s massive hands froze mid-motion.

The Boss.

Out in the open, glaring down at me with vigor.

And saints above, I knew that look. It was the look of discontent. Of suspicion. Of a man who’d sniffed out a rat in his pantry and wasn’t yet sure whether to squash it or cage it.

My smile faltered, but only for a heartbeat. Then I tilted my head, forcing my lips into the sweetest curve I could muster.

“Evening Boss,” I said softly. “Care to sample some goods?”

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